Because when he was with me, I could keep him safe.
When he was with me, he was sober and unharmed.
“What the hell are you doing?” my brother demanded when he walked into the living room on Sunday night.
Mam and Dad had gone out for a drink, and Joey and I were thrown down on the couch, watching You’re A Star on RTE, and arguing over who we thought should win the singing competition.
I was rooting for the siblings from Westmeath, while Joey was rooting for an aneurysm to put him out of his misery, or so he continued to tell me.
Secretly, I think he liked the siblings, too.
“What?” I stared at Kev in confusion before looking down at myself. Dressed in sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt, with my legs sprawled over my boyfriend’s lap, I couldn’t be accused of being too revealing. “What did I do?”
“It’s not what you did,” Kev groaned, pointing at the plate of food balancing on my lap. “It’s what you’re eating.” He shook his head in disgust. “Nachos and chocolate spread?” He gaped at me in horror from across the living room. “Oh my god, are you mixing the chocolate with mayonnaise?”
“Hey, don’t knock it until you try it,” I replied, tossing back another mouthful of deliciousness. “So…good.”
“You are sick.” He looked to Joey. “Are you responsible for this?”
“Nothing your sister does surprises me anymore, lad,” Joey mused, stretching his legs out on the coffee table.
“So, you don’t think what she’s doing is beyond sick?”
“Hey.” Joey shrugged noncommittally. “Whatever she wants to put in her mouth is fine by me.”
“You would say that,” Kev replied, repressing a shudder.
I snorted. “Spare me the cynicism, Kev. I’m eating nachos, not sucking his dick.”
“Again, fine by me,” Joey interjected with a smirk.
“You two are sick,” Kev muttered, turning on his heels, and stalking out of the room. “Sick, I tell you.”
“Put it there.” I raised my bare foot in the air, and Joey scowled at me for a long moment before relenting and indulging me with a high-five to the sole of my foot.
“So, you’ll never credit what happened while I was at the pitch with the kids yesterday.”
“Ooh, gossip.” I grinned wickedly. “Tell me.”
“Shannon went out with friends for the day.”
“For real?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Apparently, she went off yesterday afternoon and didn’t come back until late. Spent the day with Claire and Lizzie.”
“I’m guessing this rarely happens?”
“Try never,” he replied, snatching up the remote and flicking through the channels. “The old man went batshit when she came home last night. Apparently, she’d only arrived back when I walked in the door from work.”
“Which explains this,” I whispered sadly, fingers grazing the fresh bruising on his neck.
“Don’t worry,” he was quick to placate. “I handled it. Shannon’s grand.”
“I wasn’t worried.” About her, at least.
“She has friends, Molloy,” he said then, sounding as close to content as ever I’d heard him. “An actual social life. She’s not hiding behind her bedroom door, listening to music and burying her nose in books. She’s going out.”
“So, Tommen is suiting her.” I smiled. “All of that worrying was for nothing.”
“We’ll see,” he replied, gaze flicking briefly to me, before returning to the match on TV that he had so smoothly switched on. “It’s still early days.”
“Or could it be possible that your baby sister is growing claws?”
“Christ, I hope so.”
“Yeah.” Me, too. “You have to remember that she’s almost sixteen now, Joe,” I reminded him. “With hormones, and feelings, and a mind of her own.” I ruffled his hair and smiled. “It was bound to happen at some stage.”
“I was worried it wouldn’t,” he admitted gruffly.
“All flowers bloom, Joe, even the late ones,” I told him. “And sometimes, it’s the late blooming flower that makes the biggest impact.”
ROLLING IN THE HAY
JOEY
It was almost midnight on a Friday night, and instead of doing something productive, like sleeping in an actual bed, I found myself slumped on top of a stack of bales, with my girlfriend nestled between my legs, and a pink, fluffy blanket slung over us.
The majority of our classmates from Sixth Year 3 were crammed into Podge’s hay-shed, having been smuggled onto his parents’ farm on the back of a tractor trailer.
To be fair, we had no business being here, but when the idea arose in class this morning, a haphazard plan was thrown together and here we were.
The rain was pelting down on the tin roof, the drink was flying, the tunes were pumping from Neasa’s Murphy’s battery operated boombox, and the craic was ninety.
Most of us here had endured one another’s company five days a week for almost six years now, and there was a definite sense of camaraderie between us.
We’d grown up together, suffered through all of the teenage bullshit, fights, bitching and hardships.
Hell, a good portion of those in attendance knew each other on an intimate level, but being here now almost felt like we had come full circle.
Knowing that in a couple of months, we would all go our separate ways should have made me feel some semblance of sadness and anxiety, but it didn’t.
The rest of my class could shoot off in whatever direction they wanted after the leaving cert, just as long as I got to keep the girl in my arms.
“I bet you’ve never spent a Friday night rolling in the hay, devil-tits?”
“You’d be surprised how I’ve spent my Friday nights, Al,” Casey laughed, readjusting her woolly hat before accepting the naggin of vodka he held out for her.
“Jesus, lad, could you be any more conspicuous?” Podge demanded, gesturing to the hi-vis coat that Alec was wearing. “You’re not at your Saturday job, Al. You could have left the construction site jacket at home.”
“Ooh, get you and your big words,” Alec grumbled, sparking up a rollie. “Fuck off, ya swot. I haven’t a notion of what you’re talking about.”
“Conspicuous,” Neasa chuckled. “It means you’re not being very discreet, Al.”
“Discreet about what?”
“About the fact that we’re not meant to be here,” Podge argued. “And you can’t be smoking in here, either. The bales are dried out, lad. One rogue flame and this place will go up like a Christmas tree.”
“Don’t mind you, farmer fucking John with your big words and laying down the law. If I want a smoke, I’ll have one.”
“Could you be any more of a townie?’
“Better a townie than a farmer with a big culchie head up on him.”
“Hey now, there’s nothing wrong with farmers,” Casey chimed in with a wink. “Plenty of money hidden under the mattress.”
“Plenty of sheep, too.”
“Actually, we’re tillage and beef farmers.”