by Eden Butler
I smile at Heather, grab her arm to rustle her into the booth next to my ex.
“You two are perfect for each other.”
“You don’t know—” Tucker begins, but I silence him with a wave of my hand.
“I know plenty.” I pull out some cash from my back pocket, there already for the drinks I’d planned to drown in when I first called Sayo and Layla to meet me here. “I know Heather wants someone to take care of her because she’s an insipid little twit not smart enough to realize that she is capable of taking care of herself.” When Heather sits up, an insult on her tongue, my friends approach, arms crossed as if daring her to say a word against me.
Tucker’s head bobs and sways as he tries to focus on my face. “Sweetness…”
“Save it,” I say. “I know something else, Tucker. I know you need someone to boss around, to control. That isn’t me anymore, but Heather here, she seems willing.” I drop the money on the wet table. “Have a few drinks on me. You two deserve each other.” I begin to walk away, eager to hurry to the pitch, but can’t manage to make my feet stop before I face Heather. “If you ever so much as talk to Declan again, I will gauge out your beady little eyes with my nails.” She flinches back when I get in her face. “Declan’s mine. Stay the hell away from him.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
There is bedlam on the pitch. Players scatter in a tussle, scrambling for the ball. The crowd around me doesn’t bother to stay in the stands. The scoreboard tells me that we are winning, that there is not enough time for Cameron to eke out a save no matter how hard they try. The match is done, but for the running of the clock.
I don’t care if it is or not. I have something to do. Someone to claim.
I weave past drunken spectators, move around kids jumping up and down, kick a loud, large rooster out of my way until I have a clear view of the pitch, of the squads. I can’t find Declan among them. The bodies are too large, move too quickly. Red jerseys brawl against green, knock heads, throw fists, but in the middle of the scramble, on the other end of the pitch, I catch a glimpse of him. Declan struggles back, pulls Donovan away from a much larger Cameron player. His face is bruised, bloody, as though he’s fought a battle and not played a simple match.
The scrum meets and he disappears beneath forms, some that are wider, some smaller, than his own. My legs don’t hesitate to run along the sidelines, don’t pause once as the squads assemble, attack, run, throw, chase the ball.
The scramble of large bodies make me dizzy, but I squint, try to find Declan amid the chaos of legs and limbs, run to catch up when I see him diving for a catch. He is smiling, elated as he touches the ball to the ground, but then he sees me and stops as I approach. The noise around us goes mute. Neither of us pay attention to the match, to Mullens screaming for Declan to get back on the field or hear the running of feet already set for a tackle. The air around me swirls as I walk onto the pitch. Players zoom by me so closely that the wind of their passing blows my hair around my face and Declan’s eyes widen, fear crumbles his features. I manage to glimpse to the side as the official’s whistle sounds, as I hear Sayo screaming out my name in warning, and suddenly six large chests are barreling toward me. At the last second Declan leaps, grabs me around the waist and pulls me away, until we are safely on the sidelines.
“Are you bleeding mad? You could have been killed.” Sweat beads on his face, mixes with grass, dirt and thin tracks of dried blood. He looks beautiful. My chest constricts, tightens as I reach for him, touch his face and his worry shifts, wrinkles across his forehead. “What are you doing, McShane?”
“Taking what’s mine.”
“What?”
His face comes down easily, met firm between my hands, but his eyes grow rounder before they close behind our kiss. It’s like breathing for the first time after a dive. It’s the sweet release of calm, of licking air filling your burning lungs. And it is mine, completely mine. All around us there are wolf whistles from the crowd, screams of disappointment from Mullens, from the referee, but they are blocked out. In this space there is only the two of us touching, relishing the effortless joining of our bodies. “Autumn…”
“I love you, Declan.”
His arms tighten around me, from shock, maybe fear that I don’t mean what I say. But then he isn’t smiling and I worry, that I am too late.
“Declan, get your ass back on the pitch,” Mullens screams and Declan runs backwards, nods once to me and then he is in the match. There are only minutes left and we’ve already won, but I step back, barely notice when my friends converge around me.
“What did he say?” Sayo asks.
I can’t speak. Words assemble on the back of my tongue, but I am unable to make them leave my mouth. My attention is on the pitch, on Declan running next to Donovan as his friend weaves through the attacking Cameron squad.
He didn’t say anything. I told him I loved him and he only stared at me blankly. Am I too late? Is his anger too recent, too full? I feel Sayo grab my hand when the final whistle sounds just as Donovan touches the ball between the uprights. It’s over. We are victorious, which should make me scream with joy. But I can’t move, can’t join Mollie and her marine as they jump up and down, or Sayo and Layla as they clap along with the crowd.
Then, Declan approaches. He offers me one glance, brief, without any real emotion. Then he jerks his chin once and walks away, pausing just behind the stands to nod me forward. “Aren’t you going to celebrate with the squad?”
“The devil take the squad, McShane.”
Declan doesn’t speak the whole way back to my apartment. He’s still dressed in his kit, grass and dirt sticking on his jersey, and he walks straight ahead, resolute. He doesn’t watch me or touch me and I can’t understand what he’s thinking or why I’m consumed with worry.
It isn’t until we reach my building and he steps aside for me to unlock my door that he finally glances at me. He doesn’t appear happy, but then, he doesn’t seem angry either. Before my keys are free of my fingers, the door snaps shut and Declan twists me around, slams my back against the wall. His hands are everywhere, groping, pressing me against his chest, pulling me closer and closer before he attacks my mouth. There is a gritty, desperate shake to his movements, the rough grip of each touch tells me he wants me, that being close to me, claiming me, is his only consideration at the moment.
He remains silent, still focused. Loud, fretful moans lift from my throat as Declan kisses me, as his fingers cup my ass, thumb against my breast. “Aren’t you going to talk to me?” I say, between heavy pants and his constant trail of kisses.
“I am talking,” he grumbles into my ear. Then he jerks my hips to his body, emphasizing the pulsing, hard erection straining against his shorts. “This is me talking.”
We scatter across the room, I push, he pulls, our bodies never less than an inch apart, clamoring for each other’s desperate touch, determined to never end this grapple of hands, of mouths. He stops us in the hallway, pins me to the wall, freeing me from my coat, licking up my neck as my shirt falls to floor. And I want him to continue that hot path of breath on my skin, against my breasts as he holds them, pinches them in his fingers. I shake, moan loud and Declan pauses, stares down at me with dark, narrowed eyes and I don’t need him to say a word, not with that look.
My jeans loosen with the slow movement of his fingers, his stare not shifting from my face. He doesn’t blink, barely breathes as I hear the zipper lower, as his fingers slip inside to cup my core, to grip around my ass and pull me against him. His mouth on my neck, across my lips is searing. He is demanding, funneling all his emotion, all his anger into the kiss and I love the sensations he works over me. One kiss, and I know I am at his mercy, helpless, eager to be.
“I didn’t want to be in love with anyone, McShane. I didn’t want to care about you.” He bends forward, kisses me and it is gentle, easy, a dichotomy to the heat of his kiss, to the pressure building against my clit. “I didn’t want you making me smile, making me thin
k I could have something so fecking good for me.” When I pull away from his intended kiss, he sets me right, moves his thumb to rub against my nipple and I forget to breathe. “I don’t like being weak.” My mind is muddled by too much sensation, an overload of confusion and stimulation, and sweet, desperate need for him. “You make me weak. I should hate you for that. I don’t. What I hate is when you’re not with me.” Another kiss and his thumb leaves my breasts to slide across my bottom lip.
“Declan,” I say.
He ignores me. “When I see you close enough to touch, knowing I can’t reach out, feel you, I can’t breathe, can’t think. And now, I don’t care about being so fecking weak, wanting you, loving you…I don’t care about needing you.” One kiss on my forehead, then another on my chin. “If that makes me weak, then so be it, if it means you love me too.”
Declan’s next kiss is deep, a calculated maneuver to show me the same weakness he claims I give him and my legs buckle as his tongue sweeps against mine. I feel the loss of his hands on me when he lifts me up, when he seems to have calmed enough to grab my legs and wrap them around his waist. But his attention is still on me, on making me whimper, on kissing me thoroughly so that I don’t notice that we are moving, that he has thrown me on my bed, that he hovers over me.
I am anxious for more, try to work his jersey over his head, but he rears back, stills my fingers in his hands. “Did you mean it, then? You love me?”
My quick nod doesn’t satisfy him. He needs the words, he needs me to mean them and so I appease him, slip my fingers over his features to smooth out the worry there. “I don’t mind being weak either. I don’t care if there’s an ending. I love you.” I pull his face down, settle his lips inches from mine. “I’m stupid in love with you.”
And then, we fit together with the quick dislodging of our clothes, and the swift movement of skin against skin. We are consumed, caught up in this play, with no mind for anything but the sweet thrust of our meeting, with the heat that warms our faces as we touch.
Later, sated together and clean from a shower, my fingers fan through Declan’s hair as he lays his cheek against my stomach, rubs his hands over my thighs. He doesn’t seem able to stop touching me. I am incapable of worry, of thinking about tomorrow. It will come on its own.
“I’m sorry I wouldn’t listen to you,” I say, thinking of Declan’s anger yesterday at Joe’s house.
His hold on my thigh tightens and Declan places a kiss above my knee. “It’s in the past, McShane. It’s best we let it go.” He stretches his neck to glance at me. “I understand why you did it. I didn’t like it and it hurt like a bugger, but I understand.”
I want to say I’m sorry. I want to say that I was angry too, that I was hurt too, but Declan’s right. There simply isn’t a need to rehash what happened. I’ve released the past, buried it deep. Instead of mentioning my brief abandonment again, I think about one of Declan’s confessions. “You really never told anyone you loved them?”
He sighs and the breath tickles against my leg. “Well, there was Katy Donovan, but I was seventeen and had never shagged anyone before. I’m sure she knew I didn’t mean it.” I smile, laugh at his admission and let him reach up, snuggle next to me on the pillow. “I’ve never meant it before you, love.” Declan shakes his head, caught by something that moves his shoulder.
“What?”
“Joe told me when it finally happened, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.” He pulls me close. “He wasn’t wrong.” I’m not sure what he means. My mother and I had never talked much about finding “the one” and I think Declan senses my confusion. “That first day, when we were stuck in the basement?” I nod. “I knew I was in trouble. I thought it was just because you were having an attack and I felt bad for you, but then I kissed you and, well, I was lost after that.”
“I’d have thought you’d have felt that way at Fubar’s.”
“Nah, that night I was pie-eyed, just like you, but the next morning when you came out of your room prancing about in your knickers, I knew I was in love, well, more than lust anyway.”
He had been so good to me that next morning, understanding when I said I didn’t want anything but friendship. I suppose he knew better, had a better sense of what I was trying to run away from. Still, would he have left Cavanagh? Could I have really pushed him that far away?
“Why were you thinking of Cameron?”
Declan sits up and by the way his lips part, hang open, I get that he has no clue what I’m talking about. “How do you mean?”
“Da said you’d packed a bag, that you mentioned visiting Cameron. He thought you were wanting to transfer.”
When he stretches away from me, sitting against the pillow, I realize what a meddlesome little shit my father is. I want to be angry about Joe’s lie, I want to pick up the phone and fuss at him, but then Declan’s shoulders shake again, this time with laughter, and he pulls me against his chest, easing my annoyance. “God love, Joe, that sneaky arsehole.”
“Yeah,” I say. “God love him.”
JUNE 2013
“Come along, then, we’ll miss our trolley.” My father is bossy. By the quick stride he takes up the mountain, no one would be able to tell he nearly died eight months ago.
Declan ignores him, is too slow to move as we near the visitor’s center. In his hands are three lawn chairs, and a blanket is slung over his shoulder, but he doesn’t seem encumbered by their weight. He is too intent on the mountain around us. The Smokies are beautiful, captivating, and he seems unable to make his eyes stop moving around the looming trees or the mist seeping up from the peaks.
“Deco, come on now,” Joe barks, pulling my boyfriend out of his trance.
“Alright you old bollocks, I’m moving.”
I still haven’t gotten used to their banter. It shouldn’t surprise me. They aren’t blood tied, but Declan has adopted some of my father’s most colorful expressions, even scratches his growing beard just the way my father has always done. I should be unsettled by this; I am, after all, embracing that “little girls date their daddies” cliché, but it doesn’t worry me. They are both good men.
We finally manage to reach the trolley, jumping aboard just as the engine starts up and, after a quick eye roll at Declan, my father relaxes, pulls his walking stick between his knobby knees. “This will be fine, lad, you’ll see. I believe Autumn was ten, perhaps eleven the first time we took her to see the swarms.” He stretches around Declan who sits between us. “Beautiful, wasn’t it, love?”
“It was, Da. I remember that.” He nods, a small jerk of approval and then Declan and I exchange a smile. We’ve so effortlessly become a family. It surprised me how quickly the awkwardness went away. Declan and I have been inseparable, spending most nights at my apartment and then less so once Joe was released from the hospital. He wanted us together, but I don’t think he liked how many nights Declan slept in my bed. Or the fact that his little girl was old enough to have someone sleeping in her bed.
Still, we have formed a routine. We have family dinners every Sunday afternoon after Mass, which Joe insists we attend together. And we attend every match Declan plays, home and away, Dad and I make sure we never miss a single one. They even made my first holiday season without my mother bearable. We ate pizza and pies at Thanksgiving because Joe’s attempt at a dinner was a disaster. My baking was not. And Christmas we spent at Ava’s. That had been wonderful. Ava and her finally returned husband and Joe and Declan, and I settled around the table, exchanging stories, holiday memories and before too long, I wasn’t thinking about my mother’s absence or how she would miss many more holidays with our newly resurrected family.
Joe gave me comfort. Declan offered tomorrow.
When the tour guide stands up, his thin, pale legs blazing against his red cargo shorts, Declan fits his hand over my knee, encouraging me closer. He does that. Wants to always touch me, doesn’t like it when he’s not.
“Good afternoon, folks, welcome. This is going to be a tr
eat for you all, and before we let you all settle down to grab a good spot to see the swarms at sunset, let me explain the scientific…” the guide babbles on, describing the internal sensors of this species of fireflies; the time it takes for the insects to detect each other, the tit for tat play of their lights bouncing back and forth and the performance they undertake. He isn’t wrong, it is a beautiful sight, waves of blinking lights that cascade through the mountains; a wonder of nature.
We finally are released from the trolley and Joe makes quick work laying down the blanket, unfolding the chairs, organizing our comfort like this is the most monumental outing we’ve yet to attempt. There have been many over the past eight months since Da seems desperate to make amends for the years we’ve been a part. I don’t mind; neither does Declan.
The sun sets and the crowd around us grows quiet. Cell phones are extinguished, placed on vibrate; children are shushed and settled in their parents’ laps and then, small flickers begin. My smile is wide, remembering the last time I was here. My father settled my mother on his lap, kissed her neck until I complained and she laughed at my grim expression, embarrassed by their blatant affection.
Declan must catch me smiling, because he sits up, touches his lips against mine and I inhale, loving the way his kisses never fail to electrify my skin. “You’re beautiful. Every day, but especially when you smile, McShane.”
“Sweetheart,” Joe whispers, his voice urgent. “If you don’t take Deco’s mouth from your face, he’ll miss the show.”
“Right, sorry.”
Declan turns away from me and his green eyes catch the light from the swarm. The fireflies are majestic, flicking dots of light back and forth, a symphony of streaks that swing through the trees, that rumble across the mountain and my breath catches at Declan’s expression. It is open, the same unguarded expression he gave me the first time he admitted he loved me. It is usually reserved for me alone, a private view at what emotions have hold of him, but now, sitting here in the dark, watching his shock, his amazed grin as the fireflies dance through the night, I wish that he shared it more often. To me, it is more beautiful than the specks of light dancing around us.
