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The other being Gerard.
One was with tongues, and the other was with hearts. Well, my heart to be precise, because only Jesus himself knew where Gerard’s heart was at. He proclaimed his love for me on the daily, but it was almost habit at this stage. Kind of like the way you told your mam and dad you loved them before you left in the morning. A passing comment. A nice farewell. I wasn’t sure how deep it went for him, but for me, it was deeper than the ocean. I couldn’t break the surface of those feelings. I’d been trying for sixteen years.
“Hey, daydreamer, where’d you go?” Shannon teased, snapping her fingers in front of my face. “You totally zoned out there, didn’t you?”
“My bad,” I replied with a sheepish shrug. “But I’m back now. So, what’s on the sleepover agenda, bestie—and you better not say Johnny because I will be seriously miffed.”
“No, not Johnny.” She laughed. “He’s actually going to Biddies with the guys tonight.”
“He is?” My eyes widened. “They actually convinced him to go?”
“I think it was more coercion than convincing.” Shannon laughed. “I heard him arguing with Gibsie.” Snickering, she added, “Gibsie agreed to spend all of tomorrow working out with Johnny if he went to the pub with him tonight.”
“Oh, that poor innocent fool,” I mused, rolling onto my back. “Johnny’s going to kill him on the treadmill tomorrow.”
“Only if Gibs doesn’t kill Johnny with shots tonight first.”
_______________
“Girlies, while I adore your company,” Aoife declared later that evening, curled up on the couch with an episode of The OC playing on the television, she turned to look at us, “It’s Friday night and you’re only young once.” Smiling, she added, “Don’t you guys have something more fun in mind?”
“We were trying to watch a movie,” Shannon explained, waving a hand around as she spoke, “We had the popcorn ready and everything, but the boys wouldn’t stop breaking into my room.” After Tadhg, Ollie, and Sean’s six-hundredth interruption, we had decided to escape to the annex. “You don’t mind if we join you, do you?”
“No, I don’t mind.” She laughed, patting the couch next to her. “You know you’re always welcome in here.”
“Yay.” Thrilled to be away from the boys, we both made a beeline for the couch, nestling under the blanket with Shannon’s big sis-in-law. “You’re the best.”
“Where’s Joe?”
“Upstairs showering,” she explained, unwrapping a Rolo chocolate from the packet resting on the arm of the couch. Gesturing to the sleeping baby on her lap, she smirked. “AJ had a poonami. Joe got caught in the cross fire.”
“Ew. My kittens don’t have poonamis.” I scrunched my nose up in disgust. “And if they do, it’s in their litter tray and Gerard cleans it for me.”
My response caused Aoife to throw her head back and laugh. “Yeah, well, human babies do it frequently, Claire Babe, so you might want to think about that before you partake in the devil’s tango with that stud of yours.”
“The devil’s tango?” I stared blankly at her. “Is that a euphemism for a dance routine or something?”
“Or something,” Shan replied, cheeks turning bright pink. “It a euphemism for, uh, intercourse.”
“Intercourse?” I gaped. “That’s what it’s referred to as?”
“Oh, my sweet summer child,” Aoife laughed with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. “How much I could teach you about the world.”
“Then teach me, oh wise one,” I shot back with a grin. “I’m all ears.”
“Okay, this could actually be fun.” Aoife grinned. “The sex talk, Aoife Molloy style.”
“Molloy,” Joey warned, returning from his shower just in time to spoil the fun. “Whatever it is you’re thinking about telling them don’t. They’re only in fifth year.”
“What were you up to when we were in fifth year, Joe?”
“I’m not the comparison here, Molloy,” he replied, breezing through his apartment in a low-hanging pair of gray sweatpants. Both of his arms were inked in an array of black loops and swivels that stopped at his wrists and disappeared beneath the sleeves of his black T-shirt.
“No,” Aoife laughed, eyes tracking him. “Because you know damn well what kind of trouble you were getting into, Joe.”
“I think it’s pretty clear what I was getting into, Molloy,” he shot back without a hint of embarrassment, before gesturing to the baby she was cradling. “Let’s not encourage my baby sister and her friend to follow in our footsteps, yeah?”
“Relax, they’re both being safe,” she replied and then gave us both a look. “You are being safe, right, girls?”
