Page 28 of Ruck Me

Chapter8

EOIN

As I climbedinto my car after a grueling training session, my phone dinged in my back pocket. Pulling it from my jeans, I shielded the screen from the harsh afternoon sunlight and my stomach bottomed out when I saw hername.

Aoife: You around?

My fingers moved to type out a reply but I stopped myself before the little grey dots would appear on her screen. It’d been almost a week since I’d dropped her off in Ballycurra and during that time we hadn’t spoken at all. Besides, what would I have said? Hey, it’s obvious you don’t like me the way I think I like you, but I’m a glutton for punishment so let’s keep on doing what we’ve been doing and I’ll try to pretend this doesn’t mean more to me than it obviously means toyou?

Yeah, that wouldn’t have been awkward or anything.

When a loud bang sounded on the window next to my ear, I jumped and shoved my phone into the cup holder to my left. Donal Casey, a third string hooker and one of my roommates, had his palms pressed flat against the glass. I lowered the window and once it was down far enough for him to stick his head through, Donal leaned inside.

“What’s up?” I asked, guiltily glancing back at my phone and hoping he couldn’t see Aoife’s name on the screen.

“Dude, I was tapping your window for like a whole minute before you even knew I was there. You that wiped out from practice?” Peering closer, he observed, “You look like a fucking zombie.”

I ran my hand down my face and felt the faint bristles of a sad, pathetic beard abrade my palm. I was dead tired and couldn’t wait to get home for a shower and a shave. “Sorry man, I was zonedout.”

“You were staring at your phone like it held the secrets of the universe. You got pussy lined up we don’t know about?”

Donal didn’t know a damn thing about my situation with Aoife so it wasn’t like he’d been talking about her, but his comment sent a spike of anger racing through me nonetheless. The truth was, even if he had known about Aoife, I wasn’t sure his tone would have been any different. And that made me feel guilty because more than once I’d used the same dismissive words to describe the girls he’d hooked upwith.

“Nah, nothing like that,” I replied, waving his question away. “Just a study partner checkingin.”

“You worry too much about school. You’re a made man, son.” He put his fist out for a bump and I gave him what he wanted, but the gesture didn’t match how I felt on the inside.

Donal didn’t understand how the real world worked. His dad was a famous soccer player who’d left Ireland when Donal was still a kid to play in L.A. on a huge multi-million-dollar contract. Because of his dad’s success, Donal didn’t have to worry about what he was going to do when he couldn’t play rugby anymore, and because he didn’t think about things like what came next in life, he didn’t understand why some of us were busy planning for the future.

I shook my head. “I only really started playing this year, and that’s only because Con can’t anymore,” I remindedhim.

Conor O’Callaghan had been the best damn openside flanker the world had ever seen. Nothing could stop him—nothing except ripping his hamstring clean off the bone. He’d been my idol when I was playing school rugby and to step into the position he’d dominated for so many years still felt surreal. I knew the only reason I was getting the amount of game time I had now was because he’d vacated left the window open for me. Not that I wasn’t good—I was—but I was young and still learning the ropes, getting used to being hit by guys who had two or three stone onme.

“Yeah,” Donal agreed, nodding solemnly. Then immediately brightening, he add, “But man, think about the pussy! You’ve only started a few games. Imagine how many chicks will be lining up to ride your jock when you show them what you’re made of in the Champions League.”

“Whoa!” I said, holding up my hands. Unlike Donal, I didn’t like to count my chickens before they hatched. The team had had a rough run of things last season while the international players were donning the green Irish jersey and there was no guarantee we wouldn’t repeat ourselves again this year. But you couldn’t tell Donal that. He was maybe the most optimistic person I’d ever met—even when he had absolutely no reason to be. It wasn’t that he was delusional, he just saw the world differently than most. For him, every day was a chance to kick ass, whereas for me, every day was a chance not to fuckup.

“You gonna be home tonight?” he suddenly, suddenly changing the subject. That was the other thing about Donal. His thoughts jumped around quicker than I could sometimes keep upwith.

“That’s the plan,” I answered wondering if Aoife might change things. Her text drew my eyes back to where my phone rested, tauntingme.

“Good, good,” Donal said, looking away thoughtfully. “You up for me having some girls I met this weekendover?”

I groaned and tried not to roll my eyes. “Not again, man.”

“No, these three are different. Respectable.”

“You met ‘em at Copper’s, didn’t you?” He met them all at Copper’s.

“What? Respectable girls hang out theretoo.”

“You came home at five o’clock in the morning, smelling like cigarettes and perfume.”

“They’re students.”

“They’re all students.”

“Not the last ones,” he laughed. “And I’m willing to admit bringing them back to our place was a mistake.”

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