Chapter 16 #2
He grumbles under his breath and turns away, refusing to look at me.
“The truth of the matter is, I was wee most of my life. Too soft, too skinny, too quiet. Easy target.” He releases a bitter laugh.
“Kids in school called me a lamppost. I had a broken nose at age nine and a chipped tooth at age eleven. And I wasn’t even playing rugby at the time. ”
I inhale a trembling breath, picturing Wolf like that. It breaks my heart. “I’m sorry, Conri.”
“Don’t be,” he bites, shaking his head. “My best mate, Finn, got it far worse than me, if you can believe it.” He looks down
at his hands, which have formed fists on his lap. The air sizzles with anger and sadness and something I can’t quite wrap
my head around.
“Childhood can be such a bitch,” I offer, my words small and trite, but true nonetheless.
Wolf flattens his hands over his legs, his finger tracing the GPS coordinates on his thigh. I wonder if it has something to
do with his experience. Or maybe his friend. I want to know more, but he’s shared more with me in these past five minutes
than he has the whole four years I’ve known him. I don’t want to push him too far.
“Those girls from my school made a bet with a boy they knew I liked to take me out on a date,” I confess, my voice rushed
and nervous because I’ve never told anyone this story, not even my family. “It was revealed next week at school that it was
all a lie, and he was paid to do it.” I exhale a trembling breath and tell the last part. “He was my first kiss too. So now
it’s all I think of when I think of my first kiss. It was mortifying and messy. And I’ve hated dating ever since. I was with
Hilow for those two years in high school because he felt safe at the time. Like a little shield from the world when I was
lonely.”
Wolf turns to look at me, his eyes full of sympathy and understanding. An understanding that perceptions aren’t often reality.
But what I’m not saying, what I’ll never be able to say, is that even after Wolf kissed me, I somehow still felt like I was
being duped. Those girls triggered that old paranoia in me, that the kiss Wolf and I shared was all a lie. And it was a lie . . . I know it was fake. But in my delusional mind, I worried that even those girls were in on it with him. That everyone
around me knew I was pathetic, and I was just naive and grinning my way through it to avoid the truth.
“They’re being cunts,” Wolf says, his voice resigned as if he can hear my racing anxious thoughts and he’s trying to quiet
them with two simple but effective words.
“Your bullies were being cunts too,” I reply softly, the corner of my mouth lifting with a soft smile. “Can boy bullies be
cunts? Is that like a universal insult, or should it only be applied to women? I’m not sure I’ve ever said that word out loud
before. It’s pretty harsh when used here in the States, but I heard it a lot in Dublin, so maybe I can appropriate it here
more . . .”
“Everly.” He says my name like a plea, his hard expression softening. He looks exhausted. Like confessing all of that wore
him out more than his full day of rugby training. “I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you. I kissed you because you’re
fucking gorgeous and kind and nothing like those girls or the cunts who bullied me. I kissed you because if I didn’t kiss
you, I knew I’d regret it for quite possibly the rest of my life.”
His voice is low and certain, slicing through the haze of my anxiety as every nerve in my body pulsates like it just heard
the world is going to end. Maybe it will.
“You . . . wanted to kiss me?” I whisper, my head still catching up with what my ears heard.
“Fuck yes,” he bites back with a dry huff. “I want to kiss you now too.”
“Even after you called me a cunt?”
He inhales through his nose. “I did not call you a cunt.”
“You called me cunt adjacent.”
“That is not a thing.”
“Feels like a thing.”
“You know what I meant,” he growls, and that familiar little sound of his weirdly soothes whatever tension was between us.
“But I’ll never kiss you again,” he says, his brows furrowed. “Not until you ask me to. Properly.”
I swallow hard, my vision clouding with information overload. My head is a snow globe, a blizzard of everything that was just
revealed in the quiet of this hospital parking garage. But the weight of his words wraps around me like a thick, warm, comforting
Wolf-sized blanket that I want to curl into.
This Irish boy shared a lot with me tonight. The least I could do is ask him properly to kiss me.
“Then,” I whisper, my chest heaving inside my car that suddenly feels ten times smaller than it did when I got it. “Will you
kiss me now?”
I turn to meet his eyes. They’re full of fire and yearning, and they cause an ache to bloom between my legs that I’m not sure
I’ve ever felt.
“Ask me properly.” He says it like a warning. Like once I say it, I’ll never be able to take it back. I don’t want to.
“Conri . . .” I pant out a breath. “Kiss me.”
And like a flash, we come together in the narrow space between us, his hand threading through my hair with a rough, greedy
sort of tenderness as his other grips my waist. Like he’s anchoring himself to me. I fist the front of his hoodie, anchoring
myself to him as well as I pull him close, our lips crashing together in a feverish, hungry rhythm. It’s familiar and prepared,
so different from our first kiss.
Our first kiss blindsided me. It was unexpected, and I barely had time to process what was happening before it was over.
This one. This one is all too real. Deliberate. Chosen. Raw, wet, and vulnerable, like every wall he had built up against
me has crumbled under the press of our lips.
I gasp into him as his tongue sweeps in, coaxing and demanding all at once. He tastes dark and hot, like fresh toothpaste
and him. His scent is different today than other days. Similar to that Icy Hot cream that Cliona would wear after her rugby matches.
I can’t help but taste and explore him, committing all the sensations to memory. He groans, deep and throaty, dragging me
closer over the center console as he devours me with so much purpose I feel my insides melt.
I gasp for breath in shallow fragments as I slide one hand down, fingertips grazing the powerful lines of his thigh. He burns
through the fabric, and when I slip my hand lower, I gasp at the skin-on-skin contact. He’s firm and pliable yet still quivering
under my touch. His lack of control makes me want to feel more. So much more. All of him, even what’s inside—
A thunderous bang rattles the window of my car, jolting us apart like a hose was turned on us. I look toward the passenger
window and see Trista on the other side, waving with a big smile on her face. She bends over and picks up Stevie, resting
her on her hip as she points to something in my back seat.
“I need Stevie’s car seat,” Trista’s muted voice says through the closed window.
I shove a hand through my tousled hair and fumble like a maniac as I try to put the window down so I can talk to her, but
then realize I shut my car off, so I have to start it up. I accidentally turn the wipers on somehow and bump the horn with
my elbow, causing Stevie to scream before finally Wolf reaches over and slides the window down with a gentle, calm push of
a button.
“Nana!” Stevie sings first, and I see Wolf offer a weak smile to my little cousin.
Trista props her elbow on the frame. “Hey, guys, whatcha doing?” she sings merrily.
“Um . . . I was just about ready to come inside,” I reply, covering my lips, which feel swollen.
Trista’s brows lift. “Oh, were you now? Because it looked like you were sucking face.”
“What’s sucking face?” Stevie asks, clearly not privy to the little show we were just putting on in the front seat of my SUV.
“It means popping zits,” I sing back, my eyes begging my aunt to please not rat me out to sweet little Stevie, the namesake
of my departed grandfather.
“Yes, popping zits. Wolf has a lot of zits, it seems like,” Trista says with a pat on the open window. “Do you mind opening
the back seat so I can grab Stevie’s booster? Wyatt took his out of his truck this morning so he could make room for zit face
here.”
Wolf bows his head in shame.
I don’t blame him.
This is hell.
We’re in hell.
Trista bustles into the back and grabs the car seat before tucking her head inside the car one more time. “Anyways . . . as
you were, young ones. But, Everly, I do want to let you know that Addison is already ten centimeters, and they’re getting
ready to push soon.”
“Oh my God,” I exclaim, reaching back to grab my purse. “I need to get in there.”
“Mom, I wanna stay with Nana.”
Trista smiles down at Wolf, who adjusts himself in the passenger seat. “I think Nana is a little busy right now, sweetie.”
They walk back toward the hospital, leaving me and Wolf in the quiet of my car with more unanswered questions than we ever had before.
“You have to sit down, or I’m not passing him to you,” Luke says to Calder, who stands beside Addison’s hospital bed.
“I hold Milkshake and Malt all the time. I can handle this little guy.” Calder holds his grabby hands out to his brother.
“I won’t pass him unless you sit down.”
“Addison,” Calder complains to Luke’s wife, who laughs and shakes her head.
“I’m on my husband’s side. Sorry, Calder.”
Calder grumbles as he goes over to sit down on the small sofa under the window. He holds his hands up. “Now, pass me my new
nephew, please.”
“Okay, Levi Aaron . . . you’re going to go to your Uncle Calder, but don’t judge him too harshly. He’s the middle child and
can’t help how he is. He apparently was deprived of attention his whole life, which he will tell you all about ad nauseam.”
Calder hits Luke with a flat look, and I cover my snicker from my place on the other side of the room, where I stand with
Cozy, Dakota, and Trista.
Wyatt comes over and growls at both of them. “Let me show you how to pass a baby.”