Binding 13

One of said girls was scowling back at us with her middle finger directed towards my best friend.

"Watching me train again?" Gibsie called across the courtyard. "You know I love when you do that."

It took me a few seconds to recognize the leggy blonde as Hughie Biggs's baby sister.

"What was that?" Claire called back, cupping her ear with her hand. "I can't hear you."

"Go out with me!"

"Get stuffed, Gerard!"

"You know you want to," Gibsie laughed, twiddling his fingers at her in salute. "My little brown-eyed girl."

"Don’t do it, Gerard!" Claire's face turned bright red. "Don’t you dare sing that –"

Gibs cut her off with a verse of Van Morrison.

"I hate you, Gerard Gibson!" Claire hissed when he was done serenading her like a demented crow.

"And I love you, too," he laughed, before turning his attention to me and stifling a groan. "Jesus Christ," he groaned so that only I could hear him. "I swear to god, lad, that girl drives me crazy."

"You're already crazy," I reminded him. "You don’t need anyone's help with that."

"Look at her, Joh

"Don’t even think about it," were the words that came out of my mouth.

"I won't –for now," Gibs replied, eyes alight with mischief. "But I've a feeling that I'm going to marry her."

His comment stopped me in my tracks. "What?"

It was too weird.

Even for him.

"Providing we both make it out of our youth without any accidental babies," he added thoughtfully. "And her brother doesn’t cut my dick off first, of course."

"Claire's in third year," I deadpa

"Did I say I was going to marry her today?" Gibsie countered. "No, fucker, I did not, so clean your ears out. I meant when I'm old as fuck and I'm done sowing my wild oats."

"Old as fuck?" I gaped at him. "Sowing your wild oats?"

"Yeah." He shrugged. "You know, like thirty or something."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, well, word to the wise, Gibs: bag those wild oats while you're sowing them. And keep them far away from girls like that one."

"Hey – don’t give me those judgy eyes," Gibsie scoffed. "I always bag my shit. And there's nothing wrong with liking her. You're the one with the phobia to girls your own age, lad, not me."

Aware that we were having this extremely messed up conversation in the middle of the courtyard, I searched around to see if anyone was eavesdropping.

Gibsie wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box, but I'd feel pretty fucking bereft if Hughie was to hear him talking about his baby sister like this and murder him.

It was at that exact moment my gaze landed on the tiny brunette, laden down with an armful of books, skip down the steps of the science building and hurry over to the blondes.

A sudden swell of something filled my chest when I recognized the brunette as Sha

Goddammit, why did she have to look like that?

Why did every single thing about that tiny fucking girl scream out to me?

It wasn’t fair.

Actually, fuck fair, it was downright cruel.

It didn’t make any sense for me to find her attractive.

She was nothing like the girls I usually fucked around with.

I liked curves.

I loved tits.

And I was a sucker for a big ass.

She had none of the above.

But she had legs.

And hair.

And a smile.

And those fucking midnight blue eyes – which I didn’t think was a good enough word to describe the color.

They should have been called soul blue because they were deep as fuck and sucked a person right in…

And then she went and dropped her books.

They scattered on the ground and Sha

Two smooth, pale thighs filled my vision, sending a surge of red flags shooting up in my brain and wave of heat to flush through my body.

"Ah shite," I muttered under my breath, caught off-guard by both the sight of her and my body's explosive reaction to the sight of her.

Dropping my gaze, I inhaled a few steadying breaths, desperately trying to regain control of my problematic dick.

"What's wrong?" Gibsie asked, looking around us for the source of my obvious discomfort.

"Nothing," I muttered, ru

Gibsie, noticing my obvious issue, threw his head back at my reaction and howled laughing.

"Do you have a –holy shit, you do!" he choked out through fits of laughter. "And you're blushing!" He clapped me on the shoulder and snorted loudly. "Ah, lad, I love it."

"It's not my fault," I snarled as I thundered off in the direction of the changing rooms, walking like the rhinestone fucking cowboy. "I can't control it these days."

Ploughing into the changing rooms, I stripped off my clothes and went straight for the showers with the intention of burning the pain and discomfort out of my system.

It didn’t work.

My body was still in excruciating pain and I was still sporting a solid three-quarters.

Dropping my head, I stared down at the lower half of my body and debated my options.

But I couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t touch my own damn dick.

I was too freaked out.

Vivid memories of that horrific trip to the emergency room and the god-awful warnings the doctors had given me at Christmas had officially screwed with my head.

Jesus, I was a goddamn mess.

Leaning my forehead against the tiled wall, I allowed the scalding water to wash over me while I waited for what felt like an eternity for my problem to resolve itself, biting down on my knuckles to bury my groans of pain.

Well if it wasn’t clear before that I needed to keep my distance, it certainly was now.

I had to stay away from that girl.

Christ…

"Feeling better?" Gibsie snickered when I finally walked back into the changing room, with a towel around waist.

We were still alone in here, thank god, since the rest of the team were catching up on laps.

Ignoring the quip, I turned my back to him and dropped my towel.

Before the surgery, I wouldn’t have thought twice about walking around bollocks naked in front of anyone.

Now, not so much.

Because aside from needing to keep my problem on the down-low, I was self-conscious.

It was yet another new and unwelcome feeling.

I had always been proud of my body. I had been blessed with natural muscle retention and physical strength, and I paid for every ab on my stomach with a grueling training regime.

I worked damn hard to keep myself in peak physical condition, but the purple balls, swollen sac, and oozing scar wasn’t something I wanted anyone to see.

Not even myself.

Which was why I didn’t look down when I pulled on a pair of clean jocks.

In my current state of frantic panic, denial was a river in Egypt and if I just kept plugging on, it would get better, because the alternative was not an option.

Giving in was not an option.

More time off was not an option.

Missing the summer campaign with the U20's was not an option.

Losing my spot on the starting squad because of weakness was not a fucking option.