Chapter 4: : Chapter 4

Sitting around in a large circle in the back field, while my friends played spin the bottle, I could sense that things were changing this summer.

I felt .

Gerard looked different now, too.

He was getting bigger.

.

His voice was changing, but his eyes?

God, those silver eyes that twinkled with mischief were still the same.

The new boy from Dublin was sitting next to Gerard – the one with the pretty blue eyes and constant frown. He looked super bored as the girls who’d joined in the game tried to land their bottle on him.

He’d kissed more girls this afternoon than any of the other boys in the circle had, and I couldn’t understand how his lips weren’t stinging. They certainly looked swollen and I knew he used his .

It didn’t seem to faze Jonathon Kavanagh, though. He acted like he was a grown up and we were children. Like he was too old for us or something.

Every time he spoke, or said the words or , the girls all giggled and batted their lashes at him.

I wanted to vomit.

These girls were thirteen and about to start first year at Tommen College with my brother, the Dub, and his friends.

I was eleven and still in primary school.

These girls had boobs, wore lipstick, and possessed all of the things that I either didn’t have or hadn’t grown yet.

On the plus side, this Jonathon boy was distracting them from their usual ogling of Gerard – something I was very happy about.

It was in that moment that I decided that the Dublin boy could stay.

He could be an ally of sorts against these horny girls until I grew some knockers – and some courage.

‘Ah, Jaysus, not again,’ the Dub grumbled in his lyrical twang, dragging me from my thoughts. ‘There’s a smell of Tayto crisps off your breath that would knock a horse off a bleeding donkey.’

‘Rules are rules, Johnny. Now, pucker up.’

Huffing out a breath, I stretched my legs out on the warm grass and watched for the fiftieth time today as Laura Collins deliberately stopped her spin of the bottle in front of Gerard’s new BFF.

Giggling, Laura crawled over and pressed her lips to the Dub. He only looked mildly interested because he didn’t even sit up to kiss her.

Instead, he continued to laze back on his elbows with his precious rugby ball on his lap.

Sitting cross-legged beside me, Lizzie was still fuming over having to kiss my brother Hughie earlier. The sun was splitting the stones, but that didn’t matter to Liz. Oh no. Donning the biggest hoodie she could find, she kept the hood up, shielding her face from view.

Yeah, she was so happy about this game.

I didn’t blame her.

I couldn’t think of a worse fate.

When it was Gerard’s turn to spin the bottle, I held my breath and desperately tried to feign impassiveness, when I was anything but.

The rim of the bottle landed at my feet and I felt the air thicken around me.

‘Ugh,’ Lizzie growled, tone laced with disgust. ‘Don’t do it, Claire.’

‘A dare’s a dare, Claire,’ Pierce Ó Neill taunted from his perch in the circle. ‘You have to kiss him.’

‘She doesn’t have to do shit,’ Lizzie snapped, glowering back at him. ‘You can say no, Claire. You can say no.’

‘Yeah. Shut the fuck up, Pierce,’ Hughie agreed, looking slightly pale, as he glared at the bottle that had landed on me like it was a venomous spider. ‘My sister doesn’t to kiss anyone.’

With my heart hammering violently in my chest, I watched watch me, feeling a swell of uncertainty and excitement rise up inside of me.

‘It’s okay, Claire-Bear.’ Gerard’s voice didn’t sound so familiar anymore because it had broken over the summer. It was deeper now, he didn’t sound like a boy anymore, and the notion caused my belly to do somersaults. A ghost of a smile tugged at his pretty lips. ‘I can spin again and kiss someone else instead.’

Jealously roared to life inside of me, white-hot and ugly, prompting me to stumble clumsily onto my hands and knees.

‘Do it,’ I told him, shaking from head to toe, as I shimmied closer. ‘Kiss me.’ Puckering my lips, I held breath and waited to see what he would do.

Shaking his head, Gerard climbed to his feet.

Confused, I studied his outstretched hand. ‘What are you doing –’

‘Look alive, Claire-Bear,’ his hands hooked around my ankles and he dragged me away from our friends, ‘If I’m kissing you, I’m not doing it in front of these langers.’

‘If you drag me through cow-poo I’m going to be raging, Gerard Gibson,’ I choked out through fits of laughter, ignoring the chorus of cheers, as he dragged me across the field, with the heat of the evening sun shining down on us.

Only when we were on the far side of the field and out of sight of the others did Gerard stop pulling me by the ankles. ‘See? You’re clean as a whistle, Biggs. No cow-shit shower for you.’ Laughing like a pair of giddy hyenas, he released my ankles and flopped down on the grass beside me.

‘You’re such a weirdo,’ I snickered, twisting onto my back to stare up at the cloudless sky. ‘They all probably think we’ve gone off to shift the faces off each other.’

‘Who fucking cares what they think?’ he chuckled, rolling onto his back. ‘What I do or don’t do with you won’t ever be for their entertainment.’

I thought about his words for a long time before turning my head to look at him. ‘Why do you do it, Gerard?’

‘Do what?’

‘Act like a clown when you’re around everyone else, but not when you’re alone with me?’

‘Why don’t you call me Gibsie?’ came his immediate response.

I scrunched my nose up in disgust. ‘Because you’re not Gibsie to me, .’

‘Exactly.’ Shrugging, he unfolded his arms from behind his head and reached a hand out to me. ‘Some things just make sense, Claire.’

My heart leapt in my chest. ‘Like us?’

‘Yeah.’ He smiled. ‘Like you and me.’

Exhaling a sigh of pure contentment, I allowed myself to revel in the feel of the back of his hand touching mine.

Moments later, when his fingers moved to entwine with mine, I had to bite down on my lip to stop my grin from spreading. ‘Gerard?’

‘Yeah?’

‘I want you to do it.’

‘Do what?’

‘Your dare.’ Pulling myself up on my knees, I turned to look at him, excitement rippling through my belly. ‘I want that kiss.’

Warm grey eyes landed on mine. ‘You don’t have to do that, Claire-Bear.’

‘I know I don’t.’ I squeezed his hand between both of mine, bubbling up with nervous excitement. ‘But what if I… kind of want to give it a shot anyway?’

His brows furrowed and I felt a tremor of anxiety rack through me.

Slowly pulling himself into a sitting position opposite me, he blew out a breath. ‘Can I tell you something?’

I nodded eagerly. ‘You can tell me anything, Gerard.’

‘You’re my favorite person in the world.’

My eyes widened in surprise. ‘I am?’

‘Yeah, you are.’

‘Even more than your mam?’

‘Even more than Mam.’

‘And Brian?’

‘Definitely more than Brian.’

‘Even more than the Dub?’

‘Yeah.’ He nodded slowly, looking a little sad. ‘Can I tell you something else?’

Another wide-eyed nod.

‘I need you to go away…’ His hand tightened around mine. ‘Like ever, Claire.’

‘Why?’

‘You’re the only person who makes it stop.’ He swallowed deeper and ducked his head. ‘The noise in my head.’

I didn’t need to ask him what he was talking about.

Not when I already knew.

‘I won’t go, Gerard,’ I whispered, shuffling closer until our knees were touching. Reaching out, I cupped his soft cheek in my hand. ‘I won’t ever leave you.’

Exhaling a shaky breath, he leaned in close, noses brushing, and whispered, ‘I’m going to hold you to that, Claire-bear.’

And then Gerard Gibson kissed my lips for the very first time.