Chapter 16
I took a big slurp from my pint of Bulmer’s as I listened to Ella recount her latest finds at work.
“So, they just left the butt plug in the middle of the bed, it was like they wanted us to find it!” she squawked and I snorted mid gulp, almost choking myself.
Ella worked at The Spanish Landing as a housekeeper.
Not that she worked particularly hard; her manager had told her the week before that if work was in the bed, she’d sleep on the floor to avoid it.
I was all for embracing the inner freak, but the weird way people broadcasted their kinks in hotels always baffled me.
Ella regularly took photographic evidence and sent it around in our group chat.
After coming back to Limerick last week, the sense of freedom I found in the anonymity here was like a fresh spring breeze.
No one giving me that constipated smile when they asked how we were all coping, or whispering while I walked through the aisles in Aldi - saying how desperately sad the accident was, and sure God love us.
I’d always loved my insular hometown and the eccentric characters in it, and while I’d wanted to see a bit of the world, I’d felt like the roots of my heart were in Clon and it was where I’d always stay.
But ever since Shea’s death, even standing on the cliffs at Incheydoney, taking in the view of the vast Atlantic ocean spread in front of me didn’t ease the prickling sensation of claustrophobia.
It was like Clon was trying to squeeze my heart tighter and tighter with the pain of Shea’s loss, as if all the walls were closing in and I couldn’t breathe properly.
But since returning to Limerick, my chest felt like I could take a full breath, and I didn’t know what to think about that.
Checking my second message, my stomach clenched at the sight of Ronan's name. He’d been checking in on me over the last few weeks, but I just hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone.
Which was the same thing I said to Connor with his concerned check-ins every other day, though Connors check in’s came with the pushy edge to talk more after our kiss in Keileys.
What I really wanted was for everyone to just fuck off and leave me alone…
which made me a complete arsehole since all anyone wanted to do was help.
But I wasn’t the best at letting people in, and now more than ever I needed to keep everyone out.
Especially as I felt myself crumbling by the day and people’s kindness and sympathy were eroding my defences.
I hadn’t given a whole pile of thought to the Sex God or Professor Ride aside from the odd rumble of discomfort at my feelings for both.
And while Connor’s question prior to our kiss confirmed he’d copped Ronan at the funeral, I still didn’t see that as my problem.
I wasn’t serious with either of them, and I couldn’t help but wonder if the recent increase in communication from them both was purely out of concern, or driven by an unconscious alpha need to piss on me like a tree they were marking.
I’d given little interaction to Ronan’s messages when he’d asked how I’d been doing or sent a message that he was thinking about me, and I prepared for the expected nosedive in my mood as I endured another round of pity.
Ronan - Saw this and thought of you
The text was accompanied by a picture of a dog's swollen face that had been stung by a bee.
I spluttered a laugh at the message. This was nothing like the almost nervous way he’d been speaking to me lately, and it seemed like our run in the other day had shifted something in him.
I replied with some laughing faces and sent back an overly flexed steroid head posing as a BDSM submissive with a “you ;)” underneath it.
My heart feeling lighter, I tuned back into the conversation around me as Sara started telling us a long-winded story of the Garda she’d scored in Copper Face Jacks on a night out in Dublin two years ago.
We’d all heard this story numerous times, and the man must have galloped like a champion horse with the hard on Sara still had for him two years later.
My exchange with Ronan continued through the night, each message getting flirtier.
Ronan - How about next time I spread you out on the table, we go for three in a row?
I could feel the blush blooming across my cheeks with how brash and forward he was being, but the memories he was eliciting had me clenching my thighs together.
Róisín - You’re very sure of yourself, maybe I was faking.
Ronan - Even you aren’t that good an actor, besides you couldn’t fake the taste of you all over my lips.
If I was blushing before, I was about to combust into flames with embarrassment now - and arousal.
He was so sure of himself, if the man was a chocolate he’d eat himself.
We were five pints in and I was starting to feel pretty langers, which made me even bolder with my replies.
Before I knew it, I was scheduled for a randy romp with Professor Ride tomorrow afternoon.
Which drunk Róisín saw as a brilliant idea.
I was grinning stupidly to myself when Cian pulled me up from the bench.
“Earth to Róisín, we’re heading back to yours for a few drinks,” he slurred, while swaying slightly against me. We were all a little worse for wear from our exuberant celebrations, and the four of us with Cian in tow, started the walk out of campus to our house.
“Ella, I’m telling you don’t do it,” Sara shouted at Ella’s back, as she pelted full speed across the lawns laughing.
“Oh God, what’s she doing now?” Sinéad hiccupped, but I’d already spotted her destination as she ran full force towards the fountain in front of the Pearse building.
While Spring might have been in the air, it was still freezing at night, and the dozy cow was going to catch her death walking home wet and covered in that disgusting water.
God only knew what (and who) had pissed in it.
We all started shouting at her to cop onto herself, and Sara took off running after her.
But five feet before Ella got to the fountain her toe caught on a rock, and she landed face first on the grass.
She landed hard, but it was too comical, and we were too drunk to show the right amount of concern so we fell around laughing at her still groaning form on the ground.
Sara pulled herself together first and heaved Ella up, when she lifted her face we all stopped laughing abruptly at the gushing blood coming from her nose. Fuck. If her nose was broken again that girl was going to need to be sedated.
“What? What is it?” she demanded, taking in each of our facial expressions. Seeing our horrified gazes pinned to her face, she slowly reached her hand up and touched the blood on her face before a wail left her.
“My nose! Not my fucking nose again.” At the look of despair on her face, Sinéad started to giggle into her hand; it caught to me and Cian, and within a minute we were all snorting.
When we made it home and Cian, as the most sober of us, had talked Ella out of her hysteria and gotten her to go to bed so we could reassess in the morning.
The rest of us opened some bottles of Aldi wine and talked about what our next move was.
The next big hurdle was final exams, then graduation loomed before freedom.
But what would we be free from anyway? The ability to party all week and soak up some knowledge with zero expectation placed on us?
Once we graduated that was it, we were supposed to know exactly what we’d be doing for the rest of our lives and toil for the next few decades to get there.
While I knew that my heart wanted journalism, I wasn’t naive enough to imagine it would happen.
And the closer we came to that pivotal moment of no longer being students, the more trapped I felt.
This freedom from college was giving me the same sensation being at home in Clon had given me.
Trapped, claustrophobic, unable to breathe.
The itchiness under my skin to just run away and be alone was starting to become all-consuming.
Soon Sara had turned in for the night and Cian had gotten a taxi home, and it was just Sinéad and I left in a barely coherent state.
“How are you really Róishhhh?” Sinéad slurred. I could see how drunk she was, but I also knew how drunk I was. I shrugged before replying.
“Grand, sure what else can I be.”
“You can be not okay, you don’t always have to hold it together you know?” She held my hand and stared into my eyes earnestly as she hiccupped.
“God, I love you Sin,” I blurted randomly, and she blinked in surprise before laughing.
“I love you too, Róis.”
“What about you? You were quiet earlier in all the planning and scheming about the future?” I asked. She looked a bit shifty, which was so much more pronounced when she’d had a drink; the girl had zero poker face.
“Well, I’ve been thinking... I don’t really know what I want to do. But I do know I don’t want to stay here.”
“What, in Limerick? I don’t think any of us were planning on staying in Limerick,” I replied confused.
“No, Ireland Róis. I want to get out, find myself, figure out what I want to do. I want to eat, pray, love my way around the world, and then figure it out from there.”
She said it all in a rush and I could tell she hadn’t voiced this to anyone before.
I’d always known Sinéad as the ultimate home bird.
The quiet, dependable one who would likely get a job in Dublin, commute from home, and live near her Mam.
She’d talked about a gap year, and the night of her birthday she’d described travelling at length - but I thought that meant doing an intrepid tour for a few weeks or something.
“What about your Mam, Sinéad?” I didn’t want to burst her bubble, but I was truly curious how she’d handle the separation given how close they were.