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“Hey! Asshole!” Gerard deadpanned, turning his attention to his teammates. “Don’t even go there.”
“Hey, Baby Biggs,” another one goaded. “Want to come sit on my lap and I’ll feed you something a lot more satisfying?”
“Cocktease.”
“You’re a dead man, Callaghan!” Hugh snarled, shoving his chair in his rush to get out of his chair to defend my honor.
The move was a sweet one but unnecessary because Gerard had beaten him to it.
“The fuck did you say about my girl?” He was on his feet and lunging across the lunch table before I had a chance to register that I was no longer sitting on his lap, but the seat he had vacated. “If you ever speak about her like that again, I’ll rip your fucking guts out your asshole and smear them all over your face!”
In this moment, Gerard reminded me a lot of one of those dormant volcanoes people travel to see because they look so beautiful and assume they’re harmless, but raise the temperature of their core and said volcano became truly lethal.
All it took was one sexual innuendo at my expense to flip the trip-switch inside of his brain, causing him to erupt on his teammates in the middle of the lunch hall at Tommen.
“I was only messing,” Danny wheezed, clearly struggling to breathe with the hand clamped around his throat that was cutting off his airways.
“Follow me, Shan,” Johnny commanded, shoving out of his chair. “Come on, baby. Quickly.” Tucking his girlfriend under his arm, Johnny led her out of the lunch hall and out of harm’s way.
“Whoa, Gerard,” I yelped, making a beeline for the boy who had not only dragged his teammate onto the lunch table, but was straddling his chest, while his fists swung into said teammate’s face with a flourish.
“Gibs, don’t,” Pierce commanded, trying to pull him off Danny, only to be rewarded with a headbutt to the face. “Jesus Christ, Gibs.” Wiping the blood trickling from his nose with his sleeve, Pierce shoved Gerard hard from behind, causing him to lose his balance and stumble. “You broke my fucking nose!”
“Hey—” Hugh barked, diving over the table and headfirst into the fray, while Lizzie remained motionless in her seat. “Keep your hands off my friend, asshole.”
“He broke my goddamn nose, Hugh!”
“Pity he didn’t break your neck while he was at it!”
“What’s your problem, Biggs?”
“You’re my problem, O’Neill!”
“Why me? Gibs is the one always stirring the shit pot!”
“Yeah, well, he’s family!”
“Fucking do something, lads!” Robbie shouted, catching ahold of Gerard from behind when he lunged for Pierce. That was a bad move that ended with all five boys crashing over chairs before landing on the floor.
Seeing his best friends outnumbered three to two, Patrick Feely rewrapped his sandwich in tinfoil before rising to his feet. “Fuck my life,” he muttered before joining the rumble on the floor. “Someone find Johnny.”
Several other members of the rugby team joined in then, and I wasn’t sure if any of them were truly trying to break up the fight. It sure looked like they were all enjoying beating seven kinds of shit out of each other. Fists were flying and blood was pumping, and they all seemed to love it.
Mr. Twomey and several other teachers arrived on the scene, but they were no match for twenty-plus brick-shithouse-built, testosterone-fueled teenage boys.
Too sensible to jump into the action, but too pumped to do nothing, I discreetly stamped on Robbie Mac’s hand when he rolled close to where I was standing. Ha. Served him right for calling me a cocktease.
“That’s enough,” Mr. Twomey was roaring as he managed to separate two players on the team from the year below me. “I’m warning the lot of you!”
The older boys didn’t bat an eyelid. Instead, they continued their hunt for bloodlust, by beating and pummeling each other viciously.
“I said that’s enough,” Mr. Twomey bellowed. “You have five seconds to pack it in, or I’m calling the Gards and telling them to take every last one of you to the barracks!”
“Hey!” Johnny roared, stalking back into the lunch hall minus Shannon. “He said that’s enough,” he snarled in a voice that was truly terrifying. “Pack it in!”
Marching right in, Johnny reached into the biggest of the pileups and dragged a deranged-looking Gerard out from the bottom. “Pack it the fuck in,” Johnny commanded, keeping one arm wrapped around Gerard’s waist.
“He started it!”
