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“Shit,” I hissed, slamming my hand on the steering wheel. “Goddammit to hell, Joey Lynch!”
Cranking the engine of my old faithful, I attempted to pull back onto the road, but of course I ended up tailing a tractor and slurry tank moving along with all the speed of a sedated turtle.
Fuck my life.
By the time I reached the school, there was a huge crowd forming in the nearby car park. It didn’t take a genius to know why the crowd had formed, or why they were chanting fight, fight, fight like a bunch of deranged lunatics.
To spare Joey a conversation he wasn’t ready for with his sister, I pulled on one of his hoodies from the back seat before shoving the door open and springing out—not an easy feat with a belly that was growing rounder by the day.
“Joey!” I called out, pushing through the large crowd that had built up around…yep, around my boyfriend.
He was lunging for Johnny Kavanagh.
But being held back by Gibsie Gibberson?
Fuck my life.
“What are you doing, Joe?” Pushing past a particularly boisterous bunch of teenage boys, I moved straight for him. “I thought we said no fighting.”
Slaps had clearly been thrown. The blood trickling from Johnny’s busted lip was proof of that pudding.
Breathless, I hurried to reach Joey before all hell broke loose again. Stepping between two testosterone-fueled alpha males clearly wasn’t my brightest idea, but I couldn’t leave him alone in the lion’s den.
We were ride or die.
“Joe!” Pushing Shannon’s boyfriend aside, I stepped in front of mine and grabbed his face, forcing him to focus on me. “Ask questions first, remember?”
Wild, fevered eyes glared back at me for the briefest of moments before recognition flickered in him and he stopped thrashing against Gibsie’s hold. Gibsie, to his credit, wasn’t trying to hurt Joey or hold him down while his buddy gave him a beating, he was truly trying to defuse the situation.
A lot like I was.
“I forgot,” Joey replied as his wild eyes flicked from me to Johnny before returning and settling on my face.
That’s it, I mentally coaxed, not taking my eyes off his. Just breathe, baby.
Clearly noting Joey’s withdrawal, Gibsie released him and took a few steps backwards, offering me a knowing wink as he went. If he only knew. If Joe only knew how much that boy had helped us.
“What the hell is happening?” Johnny demanded, dragging my attention back to the present as he wiped a trickle of blood from his lip.
“You tell me,” Gibsie muttered under his breath. “I’ve a headache coming on from the sheer amount of confusion.”
“Shannon called me,” Joey was quick to answer as anger emanated from him in waves. “Someone in this stuck-up school did something to her!”
“Did something to her? What?” Johnny stared blankly. “I was just with her at lunch.” He looked around, clearly confused. “What did they do to her?” He looked around wildly, clearly willing any of his friends to give him the answer. “What the fuck is going on?”
Gibsie opened his mouth to reply, but Hughie quickly covered his mouth with his hand. “This is the part where you shush, lad.”
“When I find out which one of you privileged pricks hurt my sister, I’ll do time for ye!” That was Joey, who was literally thrumming with tension.
“What’s going on here?” a man I presumed was a teacher at Tommen demanded. However, the speed with which the crowd around us quickly scattered led me to believe that this man was higher up the rank than a regular teacher.
“Fuck,” I heard someone tell his friend as they ran off. “It’s the principal.”
Lovely.
Just lovely.
Alone with three Tommen rugby players, their patriarch, and a BCS hurler suffering a horrendous case of delirium tremors, I watched on helplessly as their principal gave Johnny a resigned look before turning his attention to us. “Are you two aware that you are not permitted on school property if you are not enrolled here?”
