Page 394 of Releasing 10
“You know me, Claire.” Swallowing down my emotions, I smiled brightly. “I’m always okay.”
Concern filled her brown eyes, but she didn’t push.
Instead, she smiled, pulled me to her side, and walked us down the corridor.
“Let me catch you up on all the drama you’ve missed out on at school—fair warning, there’s alot.”
“Can’t wait,” I replied dryly, relieved to fall back into our usual pattern.
“So, I heard the fifth-year girls plotting a scheme called ‘operation binding thirteen,’” she announced, before reeling off a detailed account of the conversation she’d overheard in the bathroom at school.
Apparently, the senior girls were participating in a perverted race to get naked with Johnny Kavanagh.
“But the girl can’t win by just having, uh, well, you know, with him,” Claire continued to explain. “Apparently, she has to make him fall in love with her.”
“Ugh.” I blanched. “That sounds disturbing.”
“And she has to be official with him,” she added, scrunching her nose up. “As inboyfriend and girlfriend.”
“Well then, it’s a doomed mission,” I replied dryly. “Because the only thing that boy will ever commit to is a rugby ball.”
“True,” Claire chuckled, nudging her shoulder against mine. “I mean, I get that he’s beautiful and popular, but I don’t see the fascination.”
“Neither do I.”
“Like, I know he’s polite and all, but he’s sort of standoffish.” Her eyes widened as she spoke. “And he’s big, Liz. Like superbig.”
“He’s more than standoffish,” I chimed in, rummaging through what was left of my memories. “He’s a snob.”
“Liz!”
“He prances around the school like he’s Tommen’s answer to Brian O’Driscoll.”
“That’s because heis,” she laughed. “He’s the top-ranking outside center in his age group in the country, Liz.”
“So that means he gets preferential treatment at school?”
She laughed again. “Yes!”
“Whatever.” I rolled my eyes. “I still say he’s a snob.”
“Gerard says he’s just mad that he’s still here.” She shrugged. “He wants to go home to Dublin.”
And that’s how I spent the rest of the afternoon, going through the motions with my childhood friend.
It wasnice.
When Hugh rounded the corner after last class of the day, I knew I was the last person he expected to run into, which was exactly why I had waitedherefor him.
Hugh was like clockwork. He did what he said he would. Training was something he had committed to and would undoubtedly fulfill because that’s who he was.
“Oh shit,” he muttered when his body collided with mine and the stack of books I was holding went flying. “Sorry about that,” he was quick to reel off, as he gathered up my books that were scattered on the ground. “I didn’t see you there.”
It wasn’t until he stood back up, books in hand, that he looked at me. The moment he did, his sheepish expression quicklymorphed into one of surprise, and my books fell to the ground once more. “Liz.”
“Hi,” I breathed, barely able to stand the pressure in my chest as I watched him watch me, his whiskey-colored irises looking directly into my soul.
An involuntary shiver rippled through my body, and I was almost certain it moved through Hugh because his body seemed to have an almost mirror reaction to mine.
