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Sure, I knew he was the captain of the school team, and those photographers and reporters were snapping at his heels, but I figured that had to do with him being captain and the best player on the field that day.
However, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was missing something.
“If I do an internet search on you, am I going to find out you’re some sort of rugby god?”
Johnny threw his head back and laughed. “No,” he mused. “I’m no god.”
“Then what?” I pressed.
With a rueful smile, Johnny steered the topic back to me once more by saying, “So, GAA’s your thing, huh?”
“Well, I really don’t have much of a choice in the matter,” I responded, going along with his diversion. “I have five brothers and a GAA-fanatic father so…” I let my words trail off with a small shrug.
“No sisters?”
“Nope,” I replied. “It’s just me and the boys.”
“How’s that for you?”
His question threw me and it took me several moments to form a response. “Okay, I guess.”
No one had ever asked me that before. Not even my parents.
“It makes for a busy home life,” I added, feeling the need to elaborate. “It gets kind of crazy sometimes.”
“I bet.”
Shifting his hand from the steering wheel to the leg he had planted on the floor, Johnny began to smooth his large hand over the front of his sweatpants, stopping to knead his thigh with his knuckles.
I would have been super creeped out by the move if it weren’t for the fact that he seemed to be doing this subconsciously, like he was soothing an ache.
“Are you close?” he asked, distracting me from my staring.
“Close?” I blinked rapidly. “To who—my brothers?”
He nodded.
I thought about it for a moment before responding. “I’m close to Joey—that’s the one on the phone earlier. He turned eighteen at Christmas, so he’s the closest in age to me. Darren doesn’t live in Cork, and the three younger ones are only eleven, nine, and three, so we’re not very close.”
“He’s good to you?”
“Who—Joey?”
He nodded.
“Yeah.” I smiled. “He’s a great brother.”
“Protective?”
I shrugged. “Sometimes.”
Johnny nodded thoughtfully before saying, “So, you’re the middle child?”
“Yeah, I’m the third.”
“That’s a lot of kids.”
“What about you?” I turned the tables on him. “Any sisters or brothers?”
