“You do know that Casey was completely off the mark earlier, right? That girl I was talking to back there is a friend of Shannon’s,” I heard myself hurry to explain, heart gunning in my chest. “You get that, right?”
“Yeah.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper when she said, “Katie mentioned something about that.”
“So, you’re okay then?” I pushed gently. “You know that there was nothing going on.”
“No, I’m not okay,” she choked out, voice thick with emotion now. “I haven’t been okay in weeks.” This time she did look at me, and it cut like a knife when I saw the tears pooling in her eyes. “But you seem like you’re doing a lot better, so clearly this break up is working for one of us.”
“Are you serious?” I took a step back, feeling like she had just knifed me in the gut. “You think I’m not hurting?”
“I don’t know how you feel anymore.”
“In love,” I bit out. “With you.”
“Don’t…”
“Nothing’s changed for me, Molloy,” I interrupted, needing her to know. “Nothing.”
“I can’t do this,” she admitted, voice torn. “I can’t.”
“Can’t do what?” I asked, feeling panicked. “Can’t talk to me?”
“Be here with you and not be with you,” she strangled out, pressing a hand to her forehead. “It’s too much. It’s too hard.” Shaking her head, she turned to walk away. “I can’t.”
“Aoife.” A fucked-up combination of guilt and fear coursed through me as I watched her leave. “All I’m trying to do is protect you.“
"No –" Swinging around, she stalked back to me, looking mad as hell. "No," she repeated through clenched teeth, pointing her finger at me. "This is not protecting me, Joey. Walking away is not protecting me. Leaving me is not protecting me, dammit!” Furious, she blinked back her tears and glared up at me. "That is not how you treat the person you love, which goes to show that you never loved me the way I loved you.”
“Never loved you?” I gaped at her. “Are you fucking crazy? You’re the only person on this planet I do love!”
"No," she snapped, shaking her head. "You don’t get to do that. You don't get to come back and wreck me." Placing her hands on my chest, she pushed me back when I reached for her. “You don’t get to tell me you love me and then go right back to breaking my heart!” She choked out another pained sob when I cupped her cheek. “You don’t love me, Joey.” Eyelids fluttering, she leaned into my touch and sniffled. "You don't know how to love anyone."
"Maybe I do it badly," I strangled out, as my heart splintered apart. "But I do love you.”
“You’re a shithead.”
“I know.”
“I can’t live like this.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean it, Joey,” she breathed, jerking away from me with a shiver. “I can’t take another second of it.” With that, she turned on her skyscraper heels and marched back inside the house, tossing the words, “It hurts too much,” over her shoulder as she went.
I knew that I should turn in the opposite direction and walk my ass away from her, but that wasn’t what I did.
No, because like the sick, masochistic fuck-up I was, I followed her back into the Biggs’ house, knowing that Molloy wasn’t one to take being scorned lying down.
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that she had every intention of making me pay for not giving her what she wanted, which, just so happened to be exactly the same thing as I wanted.
Fuck my life.
DON’T GET MAD, GET EVEN
AOIFE
Several rounds of shots later, and I had swiftly moved beyond the point of tipsy and was teetering closer to the verge of intoxication.
Shaking my ass with Katie, who had returned from chaperoning Casey, we danced around the makeshift dance floor with Ken and Baby Spice, while I dutifully ignored the asshole passing around a joint in the kitchen.
So much for being clean.
Asshole.
“You do know that Hughie is going to kill you, don’t you, Gibs?” Katie asked, dragging my attention back to the present, to where Gibsie Gibberson, or whatever his name was, had stripped down to his jocks to Aqua’s Barbie Girl.
Shameless in the act of debauchery, he had thrown his dance partner over his shoulder, and was drumming on her ass to the rhythm.
Squealing in delight as he bopped around the floor with her dangling haphazardly in the air, Claire held onto his biceps for dear life.
Giving Katie a wolfish grin, the big lad continued to dance with his little gal-pal, either unaware or just plain uncaring of the many longing looks he was receiving.
To be fair, it didn’t take a genius to figure out why the girls from his school were looking. The boy was built like a brick shit house, with both nipples pierced, and more muscles on his body than he had common sense in his head.
Common sense or not, the big man certainly seemed to have his priorities in order, placing his curly-haired queen in a firm first place position. While the rest of his friends had long since abandoned their girlfriends and dates, Gibsie hadn’t taken more than three steps away from Claire all night.
“Honestly, they’re not doing it,” Katie offered, seeming to read my thoughts, as she rolled her eyes. “They’re always like this. Like two weird little unicorn magnets drawn to each other.”
Laughing, I nudged her and said, “Well, when they fuck, there’s going to be fireworks.”
“If it ever happens, then it’ll be on their marriage bed,” Katie snickered. “Because Claire Biggs isn’t opening her legs for anything less than a big fat diamond and the promise of forever.”
“Good for her,” I replied, and then offered her a teasing grin. “Sounds like she’s taking her cues from her future sister-in-law.”
“Hey.” Katie’s face flamed with embarrassment. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be good.”
“True,” I mused, slinging an arm over her shoulder. “But being bad is so much more fun.”
“Speaking of bad.” Catching ahold of my arm, she leaned in close and asked, “Are you going to go over there and talk to Joey?”
“Nope.”
“Oh, stop it,” she growled. “You’re hurting and I get that, but pretending like you don’t want to go over to him is just silly.”
“It’s not, actually,” I lied. “I’m perfectly content staying here with you.”
“God, you’re both as stubborn as each other.”
“No, he’s stubborn,” I shot back. “I’m protecting myself.”
“Come on, Aoif, don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.” She sighed heavily. “It’s pretty clear why he’s still at the party.”
“Yeah? If it’s so clear then why isn’t he over here?”
“Because he already tried to talk to you,” she reminded me. “You walked away from him.”
“Because he broke up with me, Katie.” Feeling a lump bob in my throat, I quickly forced it down before hissing, “He dumped me. What am I supposed to do? Stick around for another verse of it’s not you, it’s me?”