"You're tapped, Gibs," I announced, deciding on deflection. "Seriously man, sometimes I really worry about what's going on in that head of yours."
"There's nothing wrong with my head, Kavs. You're the one with the fucked-up eye twitch whenever that girl is about the place." He tossed the deodorant towards me and I caught it mid-air. "Don’t think I haven't copped what's going on there."
"Don’t know what you're talking about, lad." I reached under my shirt and sprayed my pits. "My eyes are in perfect working order."
"Your dick's in perfect working order, too," he shot back. He pulled his school jumper over his head and continued, "When that girl's around the place."
I took my time answering him for two reasons.
The first being I didn’t want to react on gut instinct and make a show of myself.
The second being I had no goddamn clue what to say.
Remaining silent, I concentrated on tying my shoelaces instead.
"Not going to answer me?" Gibsie probed, grinning.
"There's nothing to say," I bit out, focusing way too hard on making the perfect tie knot. "I'm not talking about her."
"Why not?" he pressed.
"Because I'm bleeding not, Gibs."
"Because you like her," Gibsie stated.
"Because she's not up for debate," I snapped.
Because you really like her," he corrected. "Because you want her."
I shot him a dirty look and then returned to staring at my shoes.
"I wish you would just admit it, lad," Gibsie mumbled.
"And I wish you would mind your own fucking business," I offered sarcastically. "It's getting old, lad. You don’t hear me giving you shite about your love life."
The minute the words were out of my mouth, and I saw his eyes light up, I regretted them.
"Ah, so you are contemplating getting with her?" Gibsie demanded excitedly, eyes dancing with sheer delight. "I fucking knew it."
"No," I corrected. "I'm not."
"Why not?"
"Because."
"Because?" he pushed.
"Because I'm fucking not, okay?" I barked. "Now drop it."
"You're ridiculous," Gibsie announced, tossing all his shit back into his gear bag. "You overthink everything, man. You talk about my head being messed up, but yours must be a fucking horrible place to be – what with all that over-analyzing you do."
"Leave it out, Gibs."
"I just don’t understand what the issue is," he argued. "I've seen the way you look at her. You clearly like Sharon."
"Her name isn't Sharon." I shot him a dirty look and then returned to packing up my bag. "It's Shannon, and I don’t like her."
"That was a trick question." He grinned. "And you passed with flying colors."
I grunted my response.
His grin widened even further when he said, "And yeah, you do."
"No, I fucking don’t."
"Well, I think you should ask this Shannon girl out," Gibsie added, hauling his bag onto his shoulder. "What's the worst that could happen?"
"I could get arrested," I offered sarcastically. "She's fifteen."
"No, you could not get arrested," he scoffed, rolling his eyes. "You're seventeen, idiot, not seventy!"
"For three more months." I pulled my jumper on and stood up. "And besides, this conversation is irrelevant." Picking up my gear bag, I tossed it over my shoulder before adding, "I don’t ask girls out." I walked over to the changing room door and yanked it open. "I don’t have time for that shite."
"Hughie's girlfriend, Katie, is in the year below him," Gibsie offered, strolling out of the changing room. "And Pierce O' Neill is in our year and he's been knocking around with Claire's bitchy gal pal for ages – who is in third year, by the way."
"Hughie doesn’t have The Academy breathing down his neck," I replied flatly as I followed him outside. "And Pierce O' Neill can fool around with whoever the fuck he wants."
"Relax." Gibsie raised his hands. "All I'm saying is it wouldn’t be a big deal if you liked her."
"Don’t go there."
"It's natural to be attracted to a beautiful girl–"
"Stop it."
"No one would care if you asked her out."
"Seriously. Give it a rest."
"She watches you back, you know."
"Shut up, Gibsie."
"I've seen her doing it."
"Shut up, Gibsie."
"In the halls and the –"
"Shut the fuck up, Gibsie!"
"Fine," he huffed, scowling. "I won't talk."
I mentally counted in my head, wondering how long Gibsie could keep his mouth shut, but only got to seven when he started back up with his verbal bullshit.
"How are you managing with ejaculating?"
I snapped my head towards him. "Excuse me?"
"Ejaculating," Gibsie clarified, straight-faced. "You seem full of pent-up frustration. I'm just wondering if it's cock related. You're wanking, right? I know you were out of action for a while when they sawed at your ball sac, but you're able to get yourself off again, aren’t you?"
"The fuck?" I gaped at him. "Are these words actually coming out of your mouth?"
He stared back at me with an expectant expression.
Sweet Jesus, he was serious.
And he was waiting for me to answer him.
When Gibsie realized that I wasn’t going to answer him, he continued to ramble.
"Oh lad, it was before your surgery, wasn’t it?" He gave me a sympathetic look. "You haven't cum in months. No wonder you're so pissy all the time," Gibsie muttered with a worried frown. "That's why you got hard when yer one Shannon bent over and gave you some bare ass action. Your poor dick must have thought it was Christmas." Shuddering, he added, "You poor, poor bastard."
"I'm not talking about this with you," I told him as I stalked into the main building. "There are some things in life that we don’t share, Gibs."
"Well, sue me for being worried about my best friend," he shot back, falling back into step beside me. "Come on, Johnny, I've seen it." It being my mangled reproductive parts. "You can talk to me."
"I don’t want to talk to you," I barked. "And never about this."
"Do you know how detrimental not releasing can be to your balls?" Gibsie exclaimed, deciding to torture me some more. "It's really bad, Johnny. I saw this video on the internet. It was beyond disturbing. The guy's balls just swelled to the point of explos–"
"Stop!" I strangled out. "Please, just stop!"
"Fine. Just answer me one question and I'll drop it." Pulling me to a stop, Gibsie placed his hands on my shoulders, looked me dead in the eyes and asked, "Are you fucking yourself?"
Glaring, I shoved his chest and hissed, "Go fuck yourself!"
"I do!" Gibsie hissed, eyes wide. "Three times a day. Can you?"
"Yeah, I'm not listening to this," I announced, desperately trying to mask my panic as images of exploding ball sacs danced across my mind.
Swinging around, I stalked back down the corridor towards the entrance.
I was going the fuck home.
To get away from the absolute mental case that was my best friend.
And to check on my balls.
"Better out than in, lad!" Gibsie called after me. "Practice makes perfect. Let me know how it goes."
8
Explosive Diarrhea
Shannon
Saturday was my favorite day of the week for a whole host of reasons.
First: it was the first day of the weekend and the furthest from Monday.
Second: there was no school.
Third and most importantly: it was GAA day.
Joey, Ollie, and Tadhg were always out of the house for most of the day on Saturday with training and matches.
Thankfully, that meant my father was out, too, participating in activities not pertaining to alcohol consumption.
What made this particular Saturday better than most was the fact that not only was my father out of the house all day with the boys, but he was heading to his friend's stag party in Waterford tonight.
It was with this knowledge, and Mam's permission, that I agreed to go over to Claire's house on Saturday afternoon to hang out with both her and Lizzie.
I had all of my chores completed by three o clock – which consisted of cleaning the house from top to bottom, putting on half a dozen loads of laundry, and cooking the dinner.