AllFreeNovel
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“Yeah? Well, tell that to my ma.” Huffing out a breath, he tossed the DVD on my lap and sank down on the beanbag next to mine. “Because I’ve just had to endure a forty-minute lecture from the woman on the importance of not corrupting innocent minds with blue movies,” he grumbled, snatching his controller.
“Imagine thinking Love Actually was a bluey.”
“Gibs,” he deadpanned. “You’re talking about the woman who still covers my eyes when there’s even the hint of kissing on the telly.” Unpausing the game of FIFA we’d been playing earlier, Johnny tapped on the buttons of the PlayStation controller. “Happy fucking new year to me, huh?”
“Nah, you still have a couple of hours before midnight to turn it around.”
“2005.” My best friend shook his head. “What a crazy fucking year, huh?”
“Yep.” I sighed heavily. “It’s been a memorable one, alright.”
“Do you remember New Year’s Eve 1999?” he asked then, lips tipping up.
“Do I what.” I groaned, shuddering at the memory. “I thought your mother was going to kill me.”
“Lad,” Johnny chuckled. “You threw an entire bucket of water on an open fire.”
“Only because I thought the flames were getting out of control.”
“Gib, the fire was in the fireplace.”
“Exactly my point, Johnny,” I replied. “I thought we were having a chimney fire. How was I supposed to know the smoke would backfire like that?” Shrugging, I added, “I was trying to save the manor from burning down.”
“Yeah, well there certainly was plenty of steam coming out of my ma’s ears when the soot destroyed her new wallpaper.”
“She stills brings it up, you know,” I muttered. “Every Christmas.”
“Hmm.” Chuckling softly to himself, Johnny miscalculated a dive against my player that resulted in my team scoring. “Shite.”
“You’re shit at PlayStation, Cap.”
“Says the fella wearing a kangaroo onesie.”
“Hey, don’t knock the onesie, lad.” I grinned. “Besides, onesie or not, I can still kick your ass at PlayStation.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I’d be better at it if I actually had some free time.”
“True that,” I mused, scoring another goal on his team. “I hear live-in girlfriends can be quite the distraction.”
“Speaking of girlfriends,” he said in a careful tone. “Have you seen yours yet?”
And there it was.
The million-dollar question.
I hadn’t seen Claire since the night of the dance, and the more days that passed without seeing her, the harder the thought of facing her became.
Because I could handle the Gard’s questions, and the sympathetic side-eye glances from Johnny when he thought I wasn’t looking. I could handle my weeping mother and the wrath of the Young family. I could handle the whispers, I could even handle the stares, but what I couldn’t handle was Claire Biggs looking at me as less than a man.
It didn’t matter if it was an irrational fear or not, the thought of my girlfriend looking at me in any other way that she had for the past sixteen years made me want to throw in the towel.
“We broke up,” I reminded him, feeling a pang in my chest at the memory.
Johnny rolled his eyes. “Excuses, excuses.”
“I said some bad stuff the last time I saw her, Cap.”
“So?”
