At the bottom of the page were the words: Signed by alongside a slightly crooked line with his signature scrawled across it. Beneath the line with Johnny's name was an empty line for my name and he had dated the note January 10th 2005, my first day at Tommen.
A side note stating: PS: Shannon promises not to sue Johnny when he's signed for the pros for any injuries he may or may not have caused her on the date mentioned above. This is a valid disclaimer, I shit you not, took up the last few lines of the page.
It was ridiculous, adorable, and I couldn’t wipe the stupid smile off my face.
"To be fair, I think we've been friends for a while," Johnny offered with a boyish smile. "I'm just putting it down on paper so you can stop ducking and dodging me at school."
"I haven't been avoiding you at school," I denied quickly – too quickly.
Johnny arched a brow and the look he gave me screamed bullshit.
"Fine, I've been avoiding you at school." I admitted, mortified.
"I like honesty," he encouraged with a teasing lilt to his voice. "It's the foundation of a solid friendship."
I laughed and smiled down at the note. "And you actually want me to sign this?"
"I exerted a great deal of imagination drafting that up," Johnny shot back. "I'd be insulted if you didn’t."
I shook my head and bit back a smile. "You're ridiculous."
"Fair warning, though," he chuckled. "I don’t have sisters and I've never been friends with a girl before so if I fuck this up or say the wrong thing, you'll need to have patience with me."
"Well, I have plenty of brothers," I replied, "so I'm used to boys saying the wrong thing."
Ticking the yes box, I signed my name to the page, and then tore it out of my notebook before handing it back to Johnny.
The smile Johnny rewarded me with was wide, genuine, and breathtakingly beautiful.
God, he looked like a different person when he smiled.
His entire face transformed.
His eyes lit up.
The dimples in his cheeks were visible.
He was simply beautiful, and I almost told him just that.
Thankfully, I stopped myself just in time, scrambling together, "You look brilliant," instead.
Johnny's brows shot up, expression quizzical, while I sank further into my seat.
"I look brilliant?" he asked as he watched me with interest, a small smile still teasing his lips.
"In brilliant condition," I quickly corrected and then cleared my throat several times, buying myself some time to scramble for a lie, before finding one and adding, "considering you're carrying such a bad injury."
A flash of panic lit his eyes for the briefest of moments before the shutters clamped shut.
And just like that, the playful, tender version of Johnny was gone.
"Don’t go there, Shannon," he warned, his smiling lips flattened into a thin line, as his entire body visibly tensed. He looked around, noting the line of students all piling onto the bus, before turning his attention back to me. "And especially not here."
His reaction was like a smack in the face.
"Are you okay?" I asked, hating how uncertain I sounded. "You know I didn’t mean –"
"I'm fine," he finished for me. "And I know. It's okay. I just…I can't...please forget it."
Rejection and dismissal were never nice feelings to endure, which was exactly what happened to me whenever I foolishly opened myself up to this boy.
He had a knack for building me up with words and smiles and false hope, only to crush me with silence.
It hurt more than it should.
It crushed me.
Several students filed back into the bus then, and their loud chattering distracted us both.
"About fucking time," Johnny muttered under his breath.
Shrinking away from his sudden change of mood, I concentrated on the line of students all piling back into the bus.
Several lads from the team passed by our seat then, stopping to clap Johnny on the shoulder as they went.
He ignored them all, keeping his attention glued to the sheet of paper in his hands.
"Exchanging love letters?" Gibsie taunted as he made his descent to the back of the bus. "How romantic!"
"Go fuck yourself, Gibs," Johnny shot back, sounding irritated, as he folded up the note and shoved it in his pocket. "I'm not in the form for your shite today."
"Yeah, well, I'd tell you go fuck yourself right back, but I can see you already have that sorted," Gibsie called back with a laugh.
His comment received plenty of attention from other students who decided to jump on the bandwagon and toss out suggestive comments.
"See that, lads? They stayed on the bus when we were inside."
"He wasn’t hungry for what they had in the shop."
"Hup out that!"
"Gowan, Johnny boy!"
"Get in there, kid!"
Anxious, I stretched up to flag Claire and Lizzie, praying one of them would switch seats with me, but quickly sank back in my seat when my eyes landed on Ronan McGarry two rows up on the opposite side of the bus. Another dozen rows up was Bella.
Feeling trapped, I looked to Johnny, who had turned in his seat, and was exchanging verbal insults with the lads in the back row behind us.
"He scores on the pitch, he scores on the bus. How many tries did you hammer into her goal line, Johnny?"
I flamed in embarrassment and dropped my head, quickly learning that spending any amount of time with Johnny meant being on the receiving end of a lot of attention.
Unwanted attention.
I didn’t quite catch what was said next, but Johnny leapt out of his seat and stalked to the back of the bus, so I presumed it was of the explicit variety.
I didn’t dare look.
Instead, I kept my head down and my gaze trained on my trembling hands.
"The fuck you say about her?"
"I was messing – ah, fuck, stop! Jesus, relax! It was a joke."
"Am I laughing, Robbie?"
"Relax, Cap."
"Am I fucking laughing, asshole?"
"No. Christ – ouch! Stop."
"Do you think she's laughing?"
"No."
"No," Johnny sneered. "Don’t push me again, ya little culchie bollox."
"Sorry."
"Say it again."
"I'm sorry, Johnny –"
"To her!" Johnny roared, loud enough that it drew the attention of the entire bus. "Apologize to her. Now."
"Sorry, Shannon," a chorus of male voices called out.
"Um, that's okay?" I offered back, because what the hell else could I do?
"Fucking eejits," Johnny growled when he reclaimed his seat beside me a minute later.
Nudging my leg with his, he drew my attention back to him.
"Don’t mind them," he said in a low tone. "That's about me, not you, okay?"
Nodding, I blew out a shaky breath, and turned to look out the window.
He hurt me.
He dismissed me.
And then he jumped right in and defended my honor.
And now?
Now, I was so confused that it was hurting my brain.
The bus roared to life a few minutes later and we were back on the road.
Mrs. Moore called for everyone's attention then and announced reflection time.
I was never so relieved to hear those words.
Sitting in the silence, I tried to work through my rampant emotions.
"Shannon, I'm sorry."
Startled, I turned to look at Johnny, wondering if I was hearing things, only to find him looking straight back at me with an expectant expression. "What?"
"I'm a prick." Johnny shook his head and exhaled a frustrated breath. "I tell you to trust me and then I turn around and act like that?" he hurried to explain, only to stumble over his next hurdle of words, "I shouldn’t…It's just that…I never normally…I don’t…You're the only girl I've –" He blew out a breath and gestured between us before finally saying, "I'm not good at this, Shannon."
"Not good at what?" Now it was my turn to look confused. "Talking? Because you don’t have to talk about it. I didn’t ask you to."
"You're not hearing me," he snapped, then shook his head, looking annoyed with himself. "No. I'm not saying this right."
"Saying what right?"
Johnny ran a frustrated hand through his hair and expelled a harsh breath.
"I overreacted," he finally said.
"Yeah," I replied flatly. "You're pretty good at that."
Disappointed, I folded my arms across my chest and then turned back towards the window, but he grabbed my arm, pulling me back to face him.
"Don’t do that," he said, voice low and gruff, keeping his hand on my arm.