My reasons for being here weren't something I was willing to talk about with anyone.
"Hey." I felt his fingers brush against the back of my hand, his voice closer now, soft and probing. "Where'd you go?"
Startled by the contact, my head snapped back, my gaze flickering from his face to where his thumb was still grazing my hand, smoothing soft circles over my knuckles.
It was only a harmless touch meant to capture my attention but what surprised me most was that I didn’t immediately pull away.
The awareness that I liked his touch was unsettling, but not nearly as unsettling as the urge I had to flip my hand over and entwine my fingers with his.
"Shite." Yanking his hand away, Johnny shifted back to lean against the door, grimacing in what looked like discomfort at the move.
His hand automatically shot to his thigh again.
"Sorry," he grunted and it was a noticeably pained sound. Clearing his throat, he added, "I shouldn’t have done that."
"It's okay," I whispered, chewing nervously on my bottom lip. "I don’t mind."
He exhaled a hard breath and then ran a hand through his hair with his free hand.
"No, it's not okay." His gaze drifted to my mouth and he expelled another hard breath. "It's not fucking okay at all."
"It is okay," I tried to comfort him by saying. "Don’t be mad over it."
"I'm not mad," Johnny bit out, jaw clenched. "I'm just...fuck!"
He so was mad.
My gaze flickered to his right leg, the one on the floor, and then to where his knuckles had turned white from the pressure he was using to knead his thigh.
Distracted by the sight, I blurted, "What's wrong with you?"
Johnny's brows furrowed in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"You had an icepack on your leg at school earlier," I stated, gesturing with my hand to where he was still digging his fist into his thigh. "Are you hurt?"
His gaze followed mine to his thigh and he quickly yanked his hand away.
"Jesus," he grunted, looking appalled, "I didn’t realize I was doing that."
"You've been touching yourself since we got in the car," I announced.
"Jesus Christ!" Johnny hissed, gaping at me in horror.
I immediately regretted my choice of words and began to back pedal. "I mean, not touching yourself. Obviously, you weren't 'touching yourself' touching yourself –"
"Please stop talking," Johnny begged, holding up a hand.
I closed my mouth and nodded.
Shifting his body gingerly, he sank back down in his seat, flinching ever so slightly at the movement.
I watched in silence as he fastened his seatbelt and inhaled a deep breath, expelling it slowly.
"Just to be clear," he stated after a long pause of silence. "I really wasn’t feeling myself up or anything like that. I'm just…"
"Sore?" I offered, remembering his words from that day.
His gaze locked on mine, wary now.
"Yeah," he admitted with a pained sigh.
I nodded in understanding. "You have an injury?"
Johnny looked from my face to his leg, a frustrated expression crossing his features.
"I have something, alright," he muttered under his breath, and then released another agitated sigh before blurting out, "I fucked my adductor muscle when I was sixteen. It was brutal. Nothing helped, and it was compromising my game. I was in constant pain, Shannon. Constant. The physio wasn’t working and I couldn’t cope with the pain anymore, so I gave in and had the surgery at Christmas."
He sounded angry with himself which pushed me to ask, "And you're mad because?"
Johnny shook his head and then ran a hand through his hair.
He was quiet for so long that I didn’t think he was going to answer me, but then he mumbled, "It's not healing."
"Your leg?" I whispered, concern bubbling up inside of me. "Or your stitches?"
"Both?" he offered with a resigned shake of his head, then whispered, "All of it."
This was a strange admission between two relative strangers, and I got the distinct feeling that Johnny didn’t overshare often.
He looked annoyed with himself, and I wasn’t sure if it was because he was injured or because he told me about it.
Either way, I had the biggest urge to comfort him.
"Well –" pausing, I twisted in my seat to look at him, and gathered my thoughts before saying, "it usually takes a lot longer than a few weeks to recover full from an operation. You're not a machine, Johnny. The healing process takes time. A teammate of Joey's had surgery last year to have his hamstring repaired. It took five months until he was match fit."
"It's been ten weeks," he shot back, his tone taking on a hard edge, mirroring the frustration in his eyes. "My surgeon told me that I'm on track to full recovery, and my GP cleared me to play after three weeks. It was supposed to be a minor procedure but it looks fucking horr –" Johnny stopped short and shook his head, exhaling a frustrated breath. "It shouldn’t be taking this long," he reiterated, glaring down at his thigh like it was the enemy. "It's a fucking mess."
"You were given the all-clear to play after three weeks?" I frowned. "That doesn’t seem like a long enough time frame for your body to heal," I heard myself respond, tone gentle.
"Yeah, well, I was," he huffed.
"Johnny," I said quietly. "You should probably only be going back to training now."
He shook his head and muttered, "You don’t get it."
No, I definitely didn’t, but that didn’t stop me from saying, "You said your stiches haven't healed?"
He gave me a wary look but didn’t respond.
"Can you show me?" I asked. "I'm good with stiches."
I've had enough of them.
"Shannon, I had surgery on my adductor," Johnny bit out, tone thick, eyes laced with confusion.
"I know," I replied. "But I've seen a million sports injuries on legs and knees, so maybe I can tell you what the problem is?" Shrugging, I added, "It's probably just taking longer to heal because you're on your feet all the time."
"My leg's not the problem, Shannon."
"Oh, I'm sorry, I just presumed because I saw you limping," I replied. "Is it your thigh?"
"No," he deadpanned.
My cheeks switched from mildly warm to hot as a furnace in the time it took me to register that Johnny's injury was positioned much higher than I had originally thought.
My mouth formed an O as vivid images of severed boy parts entered my mind.
"Yeah," Johnny bit out derisively, looking both frustrated and uncomfortable. "Oh."
"Well, I-I…" Rambling, I shook my head and tried again, "I don’t know how to help you with that."
"Relax, I wasn’t going to let you examine it," he tossed back defensively.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, thoroughly mortified. "I didn’t…uh, realize where it was."
"And by the way," he added, eyes narrowed, "It's my groin I had surgery on – not my cock – so I'd appreciate you having the facts right before you go running your mouth about it."
What?
"Running my mouth?" My eyes drifted from his face to his crotch, an unstoppable reaction of hearing the word 'cock' come out of his mouth. "I don’t –"
"I know what girls are like for gossiping," he bit out, jaw flexing. "Fuck, what am I doing?"
I gaped at him. "Gossiping?"
Was he serious?
"Look, just forget I told you any of that," he huffed. "It's getting late."
Reaching between us, he closed a large hand over the gearstick and shifted into gear.
"Where am I taking you?"
I blew out a breath. "I have no idea."
He turned to look at me. "What?"
I squirmed in my seat. "What?"
"Your address, Shannon." He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel impatiently. "You need to tell me where you live so I can take you home."
"Oh." God. "Sorry. Um, Elk terrace in Ballylaggin."
With a clipped nod, Johnny reversed out of his parking spot and then threw the car into forward gear before taking off down the school driveway.
Flicking on the indicator, Johnny slowed to a temporary stop when we reached the entrance, leaned forward and checked both ways, before pulling onto the main road at lightning speed.