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“True.” Forcing a chuckle, I glanced around the car before saying, “But, um, maybe right now in my room?”
“In your room?” His attention flicked to my mother’s parked car. “With your mam downstairs in the kitchen?”
Aw, crackers.
“Maybe your room?”
“We could, but then my mam would be downstairs in the kitchen.”
“Dammit,” I groaned.
“We could…” Gerard started to say something but quickly shook his head. “Nah, forget it.”
“We could what?” I begged, catching onto the tiny flicker of hope and holding on for dear life. “What? What could we do, Gerard?”
“We could always go to the tree house,” he offered, and then winced in what looked like fearful anticipation of my reaction. “But obviously that’s a really shitty idea, and no girl wants to have her first time in a fucking tree house—”
“You’re a genius!” I exclaimed with excitement. “It’s perfect.”
“It is?”
“Yes.” I beamed at him. “And I would love to do it in the tree house with you, Gerard Gibson, if you would like to accept my offer?”
“You know what, Claire Biggs.” He sat straight up. “I think I would like that.”
“Okay then,” I replied, holding my hand out. “We’ll have sex in the tree house.”
“Okay,” Gerard agreed, shaking my hand. “Let’s go do that.”
63
The Consequences of Kissing Boys in Tree Houses
CLAIRE
“What took you so long?” I demanded when Gerard finally graced me with his presence twenty minutes later than agreed.
When we parted ways at the car with a fist bump, we had arranged to meet back at the tree house in thirty minutes. Taking the fastest shower known to mankind, I scrubbed, shaved, and polished myself to perfection before climbing the rickety ladder at the bottom of our garden with two minutes to spare.
Hiding in the tree house for the past fifteen minutes, with no sign of Gerard, had set my teeth on edge because paranoia had started setting in. “I thought you were after having second thoughts and had scampered off.”
“No second thoughts,” he called back and then tossed a duffel bag through the opening before climbing in after it. “I had to get supplies.”
“Supplies?”
“Condoms, Claire.”
“Oh sugar!” My eyes widened and I slapped a hand over my mouth. “I totally forgot.”
“Never fear, I’ve got us covered.”
“You’re the best.”
“Question.” Kneeling on the floor of our tree house, Gerard reached for his bag and deftly unzipped it. “Did you come through the back?”
“No.” I shook my head, watching as he withdrew a thick, fluffy duvet from his duffel bag. “My mam’s in the kitchen, and I didn’t want to risk an interrogation, so I snuck around the side of the house instead.”
“Dammit, why didn’t I think of that?” he muttered, all business, as he opened the duvet and placed it on the wooden floor of the tree house that we spent most of our childhood playing in. Then out came another blanket. A thinner one that looked suspiciously similar to the one my mam used when she took us on picnics. “It was almost impossible to get away from them.”
