There’s Been A Gas Leak
There’s Been A Gas Leak
Niall
“DON'T YOU FORGET, Niall. I mean it.”
“I won’t, I won’t!” I call back down the hallway to Claire.
She’d tracked me down all the way in the Fifth Year common room during small break just to remind me—for the third time today—that it was Thursday.
Her new photography club ends at half-five, and since Mam doesn’t shut the bakery doors till seven, I was her only ticket home.
I slump back into the sagging armchair I’d been sitting in, glancing suspiciously at JJ.
He didn’t look up from his phone during the entire time Claire was standing there, and she hadn’t even glanced his way.
There was something very, very wrong with the balance of the universe if Claire Blue and JJ Biggs could pretend each other were invisible.
Something happened. Something not good.
I’ve noticed that they were quiet to each other in the mornings. I’ve noticed JJ has been acting weird. Now I’m totally sure that something had happened—between them—and I need to figure it out.
Fitzy’s getting some books from the library and Finn just ducked out to go to the loo, so now is my best chance to ask J what’s going on.
And I really hope he didn’t do anything by thinking with that dick of his, because I’m not in the mood to kill my best friend today.
I’m not my sister’s keeper, of course, but it is my job to look out for her.
JJ is a sound lad with a tad bit of a commitment problem, but I’ve told him before that if he likes Claire I only ask that he doesn’t do anything unless he’s serious about her.
No one’s gonna string along my sister, especially not my best mate.
I’ve never seen JJ serious about anything, but Claire’s always been different. The two of them are bound to happen, everyone in town knows it, but I’m going to be making sure he treats her right.
“What the fuck did you do to Claire?” I ask, then take a deep breath because there’s too much heat in my voice.
JJ finally looks up, and I’m startled by the amount of concern etched into his face. “Huh?”
“You and Claire,” I say, calmly and slowly. “She’s fifteen years old and in the entire time she’s been alive you two have never had a proper row. In fact, you can’t go five minutes without ribbing each other, so I want to know what the fuck happened.”
JJ rubs the back of his neck. “Uh... nothing. We’re grand.”
If there’s one thing JJ Biggs can’t do besides drive, it’s lie. I already knew that from growing up and getting caught doing shite we weren’t supposed to numerous times because of him, but a blind man would be able to tell it now.
I lean forward on my elbows. “Tell me.”
JJ hesitates, his gaze darting towards the common room door like he was looking for an exit strategy.
Actually, that was exactly what he was doing, because the next thing I know he bolts.
He actually fucking runs away, and shoulders past Finn who’s just returned from the loo.
Finn stumbles, cursing and nearly falling into a bin, while I just gape at the empty space where my best mate had been.
My mind races through worst case scenarios. What if he kissed her? What if they shagged? Worse—what if he did something else? Claire’s always been hopelessly smitten with JJ, and JJ’s always been mad for Claire, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t screw up somehow.
And I’ll be damned if I don’t get to the bottom of it.
Finn reaches our normal spot again, still looking at the doorway JJ had raced through. “Christ. What’s that about?”
“Not a fucking clue,” I mutter, the dread pooling in my stomach.
??ˋ ?? ?ˊ?
MOLLY DIDN’T HAVE any idea what was up with them either. And she still said Claire seemed like her normal sunny-self.
That worries me more than anything—my sister pushing down her feelings if she's hurting inside—and I know Molly can tell I’m stressing over it. She gently puts her hand in mine and reassures me Claire would tell me if something was wrong, but I’m not so sure.
I ask Molly if she wants to come over (JJ avoided me the whole rest of the day, so he’s not with us in the car) and I offer to make her dinner as payment for her company. She says sure, that she’ll text her Mom.
It’s nice to have her around, just her presence helping to calm me down. She helps me feed Comet and Atticus, let Comet out into the garden, and rummages through the cupboards with me for dinner ingredients.
“Have ya ever had steak and kidney pie?” I ask, since it’s one of my best dishes and I want to impress her. Focusing on impressing Molly sounds better than dwelling over the thoughts stewing my head.
She wrinkles her nose, which is cute but she’s clearly disgusted. “No, because I’m not a literal psychopath, Niall. Kidney pie? Do you just keep organs in your freezer for fun?”
I laugh, going to check if we have everything we need for it. “It’s a classic, Molly! It’s delicious, I promise. It’s the ultimate comfort food.”
“I dunno. I’m skeptical.”
I step closer to her, giving her my best and most charming grin, letting my eyes drop shamelessly to her lips. “Trust me, Mols. When have I ever steered you wrong?”
??ˋ ?? ?ˊ?
AFTER MY DA got injured in sixth year—blowing out his knee and blowing up his footie career—he hadn’t known what to do with his life.
This was one of Ma’s favorite stories to tell, so I recite it to Molly as we sit on the couch in the sitting room, eating the steak and kidney pie that she actually admits is delicious.
“Told you,” I say. Comet is begging at our feet (acting as if he’s been starved his whole life) and the TV is playing some rubbish game show that mostly serves as background noise for our conversation.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re the genius, I was wrong,” she rolls her eyes in that fond way she always does, and then asks me to continue on with the story.
When Da got injured, he thought there was nothing left for him.
There was this whole other drama involving his Da, and his little sister (who died), and his Ma (who lived until I was two years old or so and don’t remember), but I don’t really get into that.
I just skip to the part where Ma’s parents—Granny and Pop Kavanaugh—offered up my Da a deal.
He didn’t like handouts—never did—but Granny and Pop wanted to move to the midlands, and they were leaving Ma their house.
They said if my Da redid his leaving cert year the next year while Ma was at Uni, they’d help him with whatever it was he decided to do with his life.
Da’s only job was to pass his leaving cert and figure it out.
“How’d he pick the bakery?” Molly asks, scraping her fork along her plate to gather up the last few bites of the pie.
“He didn’t pick it, not really,” I say. “Ma did.”
Da had been really struggling, Ma told me.
He wanted to play football—that was all he knew how to do, it felt like all he was—and he didn’t know what he was supposed to do without it.
Ma knew he was having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that he’d never play again, but she didn’t push him.
Instead, she’d just taken him to this old bakery that had been owned by the nicest old couple in town, and they were retiring and selling the place.
Ma had known Da her whole life, and even though they'd only recently started dating around that time, she knew plenty about him, like his baking (and cooking) skills, for example.
And of course that he was a people person.
Everyone in town knew Patrick Blue, and most people liked him a lot, even if he was a Clover.
He was just the kind of person everybody knew, and most of them liked him enough to do things for.
So Ma told Da—without forcing him or anything—that he should let her parents’ help him buy the bakery, and she’d help him run it when she was home from Uni on breaks.
And that’s how Bluebird Bakery was born. In the simplest of ways to say it.
“That sounds a lot like you, you know,” Molly notes when I finish the story. I take the empty plate from her ends, giving her a wide smile.
“Yeah, I know. I’m a great cook.”
She laughs, shaking her head, getting up and following me (and Comet, who’s still pretending to be starving) to the kitchen.
“No, I mean like—what you said about your dad. Him being the kind of person everybody knew and liked,” she says.
“I told you before,” I remind her. “People’re only like that with me ‘cause—”
“Cause you’re his son, I remember what you said. But I think that people just like you.”
“Like me?”
“You’re a likeable person,” she says, her fingers hooking in my belt loops as I come closer. I can see the rise and fall of her chest underneath her school shirt that she still has on (her jumper is tossed on the back of one of the dining room chairs).
I don’t much want to get into my likeableness with her.
I can’t make her understand what it’s like, having to live in the shadow of Mr. Social-body.
Claire fairs better with it than I do, she was born to be a ray of sunlight.
Me? I’m shite at it. Every ounce of grace I’ve ever been given is because of my last name.
So I switch subjects—fast.
I kiss her lips lightly, offering to put on a movie for us to watch in the sitting room. I think about offering to give her some of my clothes to slip into, so she doesn’t have to stay in her uniform, but that feels like a bit much. Then again...
No, no, I’ll save that hat trick for the next movie night.
I let her pick the movie, and Molly doesn’t mention my obviousness about steering away from the subject of me versus Da when it came to community approval.
We end up watching ‘The Princess Bride’—a movie Claire’s forced me into watching enough times that it’s grown on me enough that I don’t groan—and it’s actually nice, lying on the couch with Molly in my arms. Things feel so peaceful, unbreachable, like I could just stay here forever and just be happy.