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“I hate rugby,” Lizzie offered up.
“No one cares about what you hate, Little Miss Pessimist,” Claire shot back. “Go back to your horoscopes.”
Claire and Lizzie bickered back and forth for a few minutes, before Lizzie stomped off in a huff, muttering something about needing to save her brain cells, but I wasn’t really listening to either of them.
I was absorbed in the antics on the field where the team medic was fussing around Johnny, poking and prodding his face with gauze and bandages.
His black-and-white-striped jersey with the number 13 on the back was sewn to his skin; the white shorts he had on were grass stained and specked with blood. Both of his knees were caked in mud. His hair was ruffled and slick from sweat. One of his eyes was turning purple and swelling at a rapid pace, and he had a steady trail of blood flowing down his eyebrow, but it didn’t seem to faze him one bit.
Johnny’s attention wasn’t on the medic or the referee shouting commands in his ear. He was too busy looking at me.
My heart slammed against my rib cage as he stared unabashedly and unashamedly right at me—eyes burning with heat, expression palpably intense.
Breathing hard, he lifted the hem of his jersey and used the fabric to wipe the blood from his brow, dismantling the poor woman’s attempts at patching him up and revealing a stomach of hard abs.
The move was so primal, so decidedly male, that it hit me straight in the chest. My face began to flame and I felt my shoulders sag as I buckled under the weight of his intense gaze.
“What the hell is that?” Claire hissed excitedly, gripping my hand. “Johnny Kavanagh is staring at you, Shan. Like seriously, girl, that boy is staring at you!”
“Crap.” Unsure of what to do, but knowing that I needed to do something, I turned my face into Claire’s neck and hissed, “Hide me.”
“What?” she squeaked.
“Just tell me when he’s gone, okay?” I begged, focusing my attention on the freckle on her neck. “Pretend you’re talking to me or something.”
Less than a minute later, Claire said, “Okay, he’s gone.”
Blowing out a breath, I turned back in time to watch Johnny running back into position as the referee called for a Tommen scrum.
“What’s going on with you two?” she demanded. “I thought you said you haven’t spoken to him since that day in the office.”
“Nothing is going on with us,” I shot back, cheeks burning. “And I haven’t.”
Claire gave me a disbelieving look. “Well, that look he just gave you didn’t seem like nothing to me.”
“It was nothing,” I assured her—and myself. “Seriously, Claire, I don’t even know the guy—”
Loud booing and jeering erupted around us then, and we both turned to see Kilbeg’s number 15 had scored a try. Their number 10 converted easily, bringing the teams level.
“Oh crap,” I muttered, feeling far more anxious than I should. “How much time is left?”
“About a minute and a half, and don’t think we’re not talking about this later,” Claire told me before turning her attention back to the game and screaming, “Come on, Tommen! Woo! Kilbeg—you’re total shit!”
Kilbeg won the restart, gaining possession of the ball and gaining several yards.
Both teams looked completely exhausted with the exception of Speedy Gonzalez—a.k.a. Johnny Kavanagh—who seemed to have an unlimited tank of energy.
My palms began to sweat profusely when Kilbeg’s number 10 moved into position between the posts, falling into range for a dropkick at goal.
They were at nineteen phases and the score was tied up at twenty points apiece. At least that’s what Claire said.
“This is it,” Claire kept screeching. “This is it. This is it. Oh god. I can’t look.”
I held my breath, unable to cope with the anticipation.
Finally, Kilbeg’s number 9 positioned himself at the ruck—the word I had learned for the big pileup on the grass. With the ball in his hands, he threw a pass back to their number 10.
My heart stopped.
