"Because you're freaked out about me knowing about your, uh, your –" I pointed to his crotch, cheeks flaming, and then blew out a breath, "It's clearly upsetting you, and I wanted to make you feel better. I wanted to give you that so you don’t feel cornered."
"I don’t get it." Johnny shook his head in obvious confusion. "I mean, I'm glad that you told me – I'm fucking honored – but you telling me something extremely personal like that with the expectation that I would use it against you and feel good about it? The fact that you were okay with that – that you thought I'd be okay with that?" He blew out a breath. "That's the part I don’t understand."
"Maybe you were right about me trusting you despite myself," I whispered, feeling a flood of heat and ice collide inside of my chest.
His brows shot up. "So, you do trust me."
The shrug I gave him was a helpless one because that's exactly how I felt in this moment: disarmed and utterly helpless.
"Words, Shannon," he pushed, tone gruff. "I need the words."
"What do you want me to say?" I croaked out.
"Tell me why you trust me."
"Because when I'm with you, I feel..."
"You feel?"
"Safe, okay?" I strangled out. "When you're around, I feel safe."
"Because you are," Johnny confirmed in a gruff tone. "I've already told you that I'm not going to hurt you, and I hope like fuck that I've shown you that, too."
I exhaled a ragged breath and ducked my face, desperate to hide how deeply those words affected me.
"Shannon, look at me."
I shook my head, refusing his request.
I couldn’t.
It was too much.
He was far too much.
"Look at me," he repeated, tone soft and coaxing.
When I made no move to oblige, Johnny tipped my chin up with his hand, forcing our gazes to lock, blue eyes burning holes in mine.
"You. Are. Safe," he stated, enunciating every word with aching slowness, as he trailed the pad of his thumb across my chin. "Whatever happened to you in your old school," he said, pushing through the barriers once more. "It won't follow you to Tommen." With blue eyes burning bright with sincerity and determination, he added, "I won't let anything bad happen to you here." He pressed his forehead to mine and exhaled a pained sigh. "And if you just tell me where else I need to keep you safe, I'll do that, too."
"Why?" It was one word that was loaded with so many unspoken thoughts and notions, but it was all I could come up with.
Johnny hesitated for a moment and then said, "Because I care."
"Why?"
"I just do." He shrugged helplessly. "I can't help it."
"It's been you, hasn’t it?" I whispered. "You're the reason no one gave me hassle over the pitch incident? You've been protecting me?"
He stared warily at me but didn’t respond.
"Come on, Johnny," I sighed. "I’m not thick. I know you had something to do with it. I was half naked in front of a field of boys. I threw up outside my locker, for god's sakes. Gossip like that doesn’t just evaporate into thin air."
"I told you that day outside Twomey's office that I wouldn’t let anyone hurt you," he finally admitted.
Yeah, he did.
He promised.
And he kept it…
"Well, thanks for caring," I breathed.
"Thanks for being worth it," Johnny replied, hand still on my cheek.
Shivering from the contact, I leaned into his touch, seeking more.
I was trying so hard to control myself, but it was virtually impossible to do when he had his hands on my body.
I wanted to crawl onto his lap and I wanted to run far away from him all at once.
It didn’t make sense to me.
I was incredibly confused.
My feelings were terrifying me.
His words.
His eyes.
His actions.
He was throwing me.
I was losing myself.
"How are the lovebirds?" a familiar voice boomed close to my ear.
Startled, I looked over Johnny's shoulder to find a grinning Gibsie.
"Hey, little Shannon," Gibsie drawled with a mischievous wink. "Don’t mind me. I just need to borrow my buddy for a sec."
Oh, god.
Mortified, I quickly scrambled backwards, breaking the contact.
Johnny muttered a string of unintelligible curse words under his breath before turning around. "This better be fucking important," he snapped, shoulders tensed.
"That depends," Gibsie replied nonchalantly.
"On what?" Johnny barked.
"On whether or not you still want me to remind you of that thing you asked me to remind you about?"
"Thing?" Johnny shook his head. "What thing? The fuck are you talking about?"
"Lines and bulldozers, my friend," Gibsie shot back with a meaningful look.
I had no clue as to what Gibsie was referring to, however it was clear that Johnny did, because he exhaled a loud breath, expelling the word, "shite," with it.
"You're welcome," Gibsie replied, patting Johnny on the shoulder before making his way back to his seat.
"What was that about?" I asked when we were relatively alone again.
"Hmm?" Johnny replied, obviously distracted.
He kept turning back to look at his friend.
"Are you okay?" I whispered.
"What? Yeah, yeah, I'm grand." He cast a quick glance to me and then turned back to mouth something else to Gibsie.
I couldn’t quite figure out what they were saying to each other.
They seemed to be communicating through body language – although it was fairly easy to figure out what Johnny meant when he gave Gibsie the finger.
Shaking my head, I gave up on trying to crack the code of their unspoken conversation and turned my attention to Johnny's iPod – something he had given me to listen to during one of our reflection breaks earlier.
Slipping the headphones on my ears, I carefully scrolled through his playlists and almost had a heart attack when my eyes landed on the one named Songs for Shannon.
With my heart racing, I cast a quick peek up at Johnny, but he was still fully immersed in vulgar sign language with Gibsie.
Exhaling a small puff of air from my lungs, I pressed into the playlist and quickly scrolled through the list of songs.
Coldplay – Yellow
Guns N’ Roses – Sweet Child O' Mine
Goo Goo Dolls – Iris
The Fureys – When You Were Sweet Sixteen
Howie Day – Collide
Declan ó Rourke – Whatever Else Happens
The Offspring – Want You Bad
Busted – Fall At Your Feet
Aerosmith – Crazy
Counting Crows – Colorblind
David Gray – This Year's Love
Bon Jovi – In These Arms
Westlife – World of Our Own
Eagle-Eye Cherry – Save Tonight
Metallica – Tuesday's Gone.
Snow Patrol – Run
The Verve – Lucky Man
HIM – Wicked Game
The La's – There She Goes
These were love songs.
These were all love songs.
Saved to a playlist with my name on it.
Why?
Why would he do this?
Did he…?
No. No, he didn’t.
Of course, he didn’t.
Then why…
"Shannon, can we talk?" Johnny's voice penetrated my thoughts, startling me, and causing me to drop his iPod.
Thankfully it landed on my lap and not on the floor of the bus.
I turned to face him, feeling my heart race violently in my chest.
"Talk?"
"Yeah." Johnny nodded slowly, blue eyes dark and heated. "I need to talk to you about something."
"Uh, yeah, okay…" Wiping my palms on my skirt, I exhaled a shaky breath before adding, "What do you want to talk about?"
"Not here," Johnny said, glancing around the bus. "Tonight," he added, eyes trained on mine again. "After the match. I'll take you home and we can talk in my car?"
"Uh…" I chewed on my lip, feeling panicked at the thought of having to wait that long. "If that's what you want?"
"It's probably best," he replied gruffly.
Oh, god.
Was it bad?
Was he going to tell me something terrible?
"Don’t look so scared," Johnny said, distracting me once more from my thoughts. "I won't hurt you." Reaching over, he tipped my chin up with the back of this hand and gave me a small smile. "I promise."
I was so lost in this boy I could hardly breathe.
"Alright, everyone, reflection time is over," Mrs. Moore called out, clapping her hands to garner everyone's attention. "We only have forty minutes left before we get to Dublin, so I propose another quiz."
"For fuck's sake," Johnny groaned, dropping his hand. "Not another bleeding quiz."
I chuckled at his reaction.
"What's funny?" he asked, smirking at me. "Don’t tell me you actually enjoy these things?"