Page 1 of Ruck Me

Chapter1

EOIN

Over the yearsI’d called Aoife O’Shaughnessy a number of things, but dumb was never one of them. When she’d jumped into the freezing cold ocean in her deb dress instead of changing into a bathing suit like every other girl had, I’d called her mad. When she shaved off the left side of her hair two weeks after term ended, I thought she’d lost her fucking mind. But then, three months later, when she dyed it all a bright, bubblegum pink, I told her she’d made the biggest mistake of her life. Aoife being Aoife, she just laughed in my face and said I didn’t understand the first thing about women or fashion and that she felt sorry forme.

We’d been trading light-hearted insults ever since.

And yet through all of the insane things Aoife had done over the years—all the trouble she’d gotten herself into—I’d never once thought she was actually stupid.

Untilnow.

Because I’d just overheard that eejit tell Tanya O’Reilly she was going to ask the vilest human being I knew to punch her v-card.

My first thought? How the fuck was Aoife still a virgin? The second? Over my deadbody.

I really shouldn’t have gotten involved, but if I didn’t say something and Declan found out I’d known about his sister’s plans, he’d tear my balls off and feed them to me for breakfast. What I should have done was call the asshole up and tell him to get down here and take care of his bat shit crazy sister, but he’d been under a lot of stress lately and was starting to act weird. Case in point: he’d skipped celebratory drinks with us in favor of going home and sleeping—alone. With three important matches coming up, Declan needed to snap the fuck out of whatever funk he was in and focus on winning. Him having to deal with Aoife would only be a distraction.

So, being the nice guy that I was, I crossed my fingers and hoped I could talk her out of her latest scheme.

“Ladies,” I said, shoving my chair between Aoife and Tanya, interrupting their whispered conversation. “Nice night for a pint, wouldn’t yousay?”

Tanya’s eyes roam over my broad, muscled chest and roped biceps before returning the greeting. “Evening Eoin. You’re looking fine. Good match tonight.”

I smiled and winked because that’s what Tanya liked. Everyone said she was a whore but the truth was, in the year I’d been playing on the senior team, I’d never actually seen her leave the pub with any of the lads, save Aidan. And since he seemed to like her well enough, I figured she was all right byme.

“I was just telling Aoife she needs to come out more,” Tanya remarked, gesturing around the packed pub appreciatively. “She can’t hide away in Ballycurra forever.”

Aoife’s eyes narrowed and her lips pursed as if she was trying to send Tanya some sort of telepathic message. When Tanya ignored the not-so-subtle hint, Aoife tried switching the subject.“So, about the match tonight …”

Given what I’d just overheard though, I wasn’t about to let the topic go. “Yeah, Aoife. You need to get out of Ballycurra. I can’t believe you haven’t left already. Or are you too afraid to leave your mammy?”

Honestly, I didn’t care where Aoife lived, but if she stayed in Ballycurra she’d have ample opportunity to approach Kevin Dempsey, and I knew he’d happily take her up on her offer. Which meant I either needed to persuade her to move out of her mam’s or help her find someone else to pop her cherry.

I didn’t have the first clue how to convince her that Kevin was the worst sort of asshole without revealing exactly what I knew since I’d promised never to tell anyone what had happened. The problem was, for as big a gobshite as Kevin was, he could turn on the charm when it suited him. If he thought that Aoife was into him, she’d be powerless to stop his advances. For whatever reason, girls turned into idiots around him, a fact he exploited often and without shame. I was surprised some of the fathers of Ballycurra hadn’t run him out of town already with pitchforks and boilingoil.

“Shut the fuck up, arsehole,” Aoife responded. “It’s not like you live in some palace.”

She was right, of course. I shared a shit hole four bedroom house with three other guys and, thinking about it now, wasn’t sure the bathroom had been cleaned in over a month. “No,” I agreed. “But at least I live on my own. When are you going to get out from old Colleen’s thumb? It’s gotta be shit living with her still.”

“Yeah, well, we can’t all have someone else picking up the tab for our places, even if they should be condemned.”

“I hate to break it to you,” I responded, ignoring her jibe since she was probably right, “but your brother is loaded. I’m fairly certain he could get you a place if you really wanted to moveout.”

“It’s not that simple, okay? Let’s just say Declan isn’t exactly convinced I’d be fine on myown.”

I chuckled under my breath because the man had a point. Like I said before, Aoife wasn’t dumb, but she had a habit of doing things that other people didn’t … or wouldn’t. She was a bit unconventional, which was one of the things I liked most about being around her. The amount of time I spent training didn’t leave much in the way of relaxing or goofing off. Add studying for my engineering degree to the mix, and blowing off steam was practically impossible. I got a lot of mileage out of living vicariously through Aoife’s exploits.

“You think he wouldn’t help you out, even if you found somewhere with roommates?”

She shrugged glumly. “Maybe. I dunno. I’d have toask.”

“Why haven’t youthen?”

Aoife twisted to face me, her glare unnerving. “Can I be honest?”

I shifted in my seat, breaking her stare. I didn’t like it when Aoife looked at me that way. Mad, daft, and as insane as she could be, she was also observant as fuck and I had a hard time holding up under her scrutiny. The ability to keep a secret was one of the things I was best at, but where this girl was concerned, I’d say almost anything. If I’d learned anything over the years, it was that the longer Aoife stared, the more forthcoming I became.

It had all started back in primary school when I’d ratted out my best friend for taking the class hamster home. Aoife had told me I needed to do the right thing and then stared me down until I actually did it. I just needed to make her think moving out of Ballycurra was her own idea. More than anything else, Aoife hated being told what todo.

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