Next To You

A Secret And A Kiss

Eoin had talked to Mya the next day about what had happened between him and Heather. He asked her what he should do next.

Mya was standing at her locker, "Eoin, she told you what she wanted you to do, you were hearing her, but you weren't listening. Be her friend first, and the rest should fall into place."

As he continued walking down the hall, he saw Heather and Ivan hanging up a banner.

"Hey, what's going on?" he asked Ivan.

"Heather needed help hanging this up, the student leadership club is organizing a holiday bazaar. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?" Ivan finished putting his end up.

Heather was on another stepladder. Eoin walked over to her side and held onto it, "you're sure you should be up there, Ms. Librarian, considering your history with stepladders?"

Heather smiled down at him from her perch, "well I feel much better now with you standing there. Are you going to go?"

"I don't know, when is it?" Eoin pulled a tiny piece of paper out of her hair as she stepped down and stood in front of him.

Heather smiled shyly and touched her hair where he had, "it's the weekend right before we go on holiday break."

"Sure, I'll go, maybe we can hang out afterward?" Eoin smiled, then walked away.

Mya stood beside her and clutched her textbooks to her chest as she watched Eoin walk down the hall, "and hearts are breaking everywhere. You're a lucky girl, Heather, do you have any idea how much that guy cares about you?"

Heather got an uneasy feeling, "do you think he's hurting?"

"Of course he's hurting, but he'll be fine. Just don't expect him to wait around forever," Mya looked Heather in the eyes with warning in her expression.

"Was I wrong to leave him like that? I couldn't stop thinking about it last night, and I feel horrible. I just wish I could tell him everything and know it'll all be fine," Heather picked her bag up from the floor and walked to class with Mya.

Mya lowered her voice, "I know you're having a hard time, but you're not going to find anyone better than Eoin, I'm sure he'll understand. Sometimes you just have to believe in other people and hope for the best."

Heather took a deep breath, "you're right, I should tell him."

Friday came and Mya noticed Heather was looking more depressed than usual. She looked at her calender and realized what the next day was. It was the death anniversary of Millicent O'Reilly, Heather's mother. As they were between classes, she spotted her at her locker, Mya wanted to try cheering her up.

"Hey, let's do something tonight, are you busy?" Mya asked hopefully.

"Oh, sure, we can do something. I have music lessons after school, but I'll be free after that. What time were you thinking?" Heather wasn't very enthusiastic, but she was trying.

"About 6:30, does that work for you?" Mya looked intently at her.

Heather nodded and closed her locker. Loud laughter was heard from the end of the hall, they looked over and saw Eoin with some of his friends from the basketball team at his locker. He looked over at Heather and smiled, she returned a small smile and waved at him, he could see something was wrong. He closed his locker and separated from his friends to see what was the matter. Heather had already turned the corner when Mya stopped him.

"Don't push her to talk to you about it just yet, wait until you're alone with her. This time of the year is very hard for her, she won't admit it, but I know she'll appreciate you being there when she needs you," Mya peeked around the corner and gave him the go ahead.

He followed her outside and saw her sit on a secluded stoop. He sat next to her, "are you okay? You seem kind of sad today."

"I'll be fine, I just need to get through tomorrow," Heather wiped a tear away by the sleeve of her cardigan and sniffed.

Eoin searched his pockets and found a tissue to give to her, "here, you can talk to me about it, if you want to."

Heather accepted his crumpled tissue and smiled at him, "thanks Flannery, you're really sweet."

He scooted closer to her and put an arm around her shoulders, "no problem, that's what friends do."

Heather felt her heart swell and straightened out the tissue to dab her nose with it, "okay, well, my mom died four years ago tomorrow. I'm going to the cemetery in the morning. Mya said she'd go with me, which makes it a little less difficult, but I hate cemeteries."

"Would you object to me being there? I'd like to do what I can to help," Eoin stroked her head comfortingly, as difficult as it was to limit himself to such a small gesture.

"You'd really do that for me?" Heather asked in surprise.

His heart melted at the sincere expression she gave him, "of course I would. I'd do anything for you, without even a second thought."

He kissed her forehead, then gave her a gentle squeeze. Heather could see now she wanted him next to her as much as he wanted to be there. She didn't want to keep anything from him anymore.

"Eoin, there's something else I feel I should probably tell you..." she began.

He waited expectantly, then the warning bell rang, they were both running late for class. Heather gathered up her things and gave him an apologetic look before she ran off. Eoin hurried off to his next class, wondering what she was going to tell him. He had a difficult time concentrating in classes for the rest of the day. He would've talked to her at lunch, but she was busy, gym class was no better, since Mr. Hanna had them sprinting around the track. Then after school, he tried to catch her before she left, but she had disappeared so quickly.

He caught Mya before she left, "hey Mya, do you know what Heather wanted to talk to me about? We haven't had much time to talk to each other since earlier. Don't you usually have club meetings after school?"

Mya's eyes widened curiously, "she hasn't said anything to me, she's actually been pretty quiet today. Our club meetings are usually in the morning, because she has things going on after school most of the time, today she has some kind of music lessons, I don't know which instructor she's seeing today. Anyway, did you want me to give her a message for you or something?"

"No, I guess not. Man, of course it has to be a Friday. Wait, you're going to the cemetery with her tomorrow, right? You should let me know what time you're going over there and I'll meet you there," he pulled out his phone and they exchanged numbers, "text me when you know, I've got to get ready for the game now, so I'll talk to you later."

Mya watched him jog off and then stared down at his number on her phone. She walked home, did her homework, then got ready to go over to Heather's house. The guard greeted her as she walked through the large iron gates, and then she walked up the long driveway to the mansion.

Connelly answered the door, "good evening, Ms. Song, Ms. Heather will be down shortly."

He let her in, then put his chauffeur's hat and jacket on. Heather came down the stairs, her mood hadn't changed much.

"What are we doing anyway?" Heather asked as Connelly helped her with her coat and scarf.

"Well, it's a surprise," Mya smiled with a hint of mischief in her expression.

Heather sighed irritably, "every time you say something like that, you're usually up to something."

Mya shrugged and grabbed Heather's sleeve, "we'd better hurry, it'll be starting soon!"

She dragged her down the steps to the car, where Connelly had hurried to open the car door for them. They then drove toward the high school, where they were dropped off a block away from it. As they entered the school courtyard, Heather stopped and stared at Mya.

"Really Mya? The basketball game?" she questioned nervously.

"Come on, you had to have known on some level this was where we were headed. We haven't seen him play. You know Eoin is the captain of the team, right?" Mya hinted with a wiggle of her eyebrows and nudged her forward.

Heather snuggled into her coat and rolled her eyes, "you're evil, you know that? But since we're here, we might as well go inside. It's freezing out here."

"Oh Heather, cheer up. Besides, I bet Eoin would love to see you in there cheering for him," Mya poked her arm playfully.

Heather secretly took comfort in the thought. They went inside and sat on the front corner of the bleachers, closest to the boys' locker room. The opposing team was announced as they ran out onto the court and started warming up. Then they went off to the side as the North Ridge cheerleaders held up a huge banner. The North Ridge Lions were announced and came tearing through it, with Eoin Flannery leading them onto the court. Heather's heart thumped out of her chest as she applauded with everyone else.

Eoin hadn't seen her, they warmed up then circled up and chanted, pounding each others' fists together before they broke away.

"I heard these guys play dirty, so watch each others' backs," Eoin instructed his teammates.

Devon nudged him, "looks like you've got your own cheer section Flannery, take a look."

Eoin looked over at the bleachers, expecting to see his family there, but instead, spotted Heather and Mya standing in the bleachers in the front row. He wasn't sure how he had missed them.

"Looks like you're really going to have to play hard tonight man, if she's here to see us play," Devon teased. They all knew who Heather was now, after Eoin had been spending so much time with her.

Eoin smirked, "shut up. Don't make a big deal out of this."

"Well, normally I wouldn't, since girls come to see you play all of the time, but this is a big deal, if she's stepping down from her pedestal to come watch us lowly jocks," Devon nudged him playfully.

Eoin shook his head, "she's not as stuck up as you're making her sound."

Devon didn't say anything else about it, since it was time to start the game. Eoin commanded the team like military troops as he stood next to the basketball coach. He went to the middle of the court to face one of the opposing team members. The referee threw the ball up and blew his whistle once they were ready. They played horribly during the first half of the game, drenched in sweat, the coach had to call a timeout. When they resumed the game, he played as hard as he could, not wanting to look bad in front of Heather. The other team was playing very aggressively, and they weren't prepared for it. Halftime finally started, when they were leaving the court, he stopped to greet Heather and Mya.

"What brings you here, Ms. Librarian?" he asked warmly.

"Mya, she's the one who dragged me here, but I must admit, I was curious to see how you played. It's looking pretty rough out there though," Heather had real concern in her expression.

"Yeah, sorry you had to come on a night we're getting creamed. I don't think we'll be able to win this one, the guys are pretty ragged right now," Eoin empathized.

Mya bumped her elbow to Heather's side and whispered, "I think you can help."

Heather tilted her head toward Mya and whispered back, "and how am I supposed to do that? Put on a uniform and play with them?"

"That's not what I mean, give him something for good luck, ahem," Mya pushed her toward Eoin.

Heather tripped and fell into him. She blushed when she realized what Mya meant. She quickly stood up straight and swiped some strands of hair out of her face.

She turned around and glared at Mya, "I can't do that, that's what girlfriends do, which I am clearly not."

Eoin gave a clueless expression, not sure what was going on, but chalked it up to some special language only girls knew. His teammates were calling him to the locker room.

"Sorry, I've got to go give the guys a pep talk, but I'm really glad you two are here," he gave Heather a sweet smile before he jogged away.

Heather and Mya smiled at him until he was out of sight, then Mya swatted Heather's arm, "why didn't you give him a good luck kiss?"

Heather folded her arms stubbornly, "I just told you why, I'm not doing it."

Mya knew how to get her to do it and smiled smugly, "fine, be that way, coward."

"I am not a coward," she replied coolly.

"Oh yes you are. If you weren't, you would totally kiss him, right here, in front of all these people. I bet you can't do it," Mya could tell she had pressed the right button by the expression on her face.

"You're on," Heather said firmly.

She waited for them to come back out of the locker room. Eoin came out last, behind everyone else. They already seemed to be accepting defeat by their demeanor.

Heather stepped down from the bleachers and grabbed Eoin's arm, "wait, I have something for you, for good luck."

Eoin was puzzled, Heather kissed his cheek and his jaw dropped. Everyone had seen it and they all went silent. It was time to resume the game, so Eoin returned to the court, still stunned by what had just happened. Once his team had the ball, they kept scoring. They were quickly catching up with the other team. The other team's coach had called a timeout in the last quarter. Connor and Tierney ran over to Heather as Eoin was talking to the rest of the team.

"Heather, we were wondering if you could give Flannery more good luck, it seemed to work. Please?" they pleaded with her.

Heather turned red, "um, he seems kind of busy right now."

Mya pushed her down from the bleachers again, "go Heather, if the other guys are asking, you've got to do it, we're so close to winning."

Heather cringed inside remembering how everyone had looked at her. As she walked with Eoin's friends, she cursed at herself for falling for Mya's tricks. She had sworn to herself she'd never bring attention to herself at school, but ever since she had met Eoin, she kept finding herself in those exact situations. As she found herself standing in front of Eoin, she wanted to turn around and run back to where she had been sitting, but she had already committed herself to the role of Eoin's good luck charm, she couldn't back out now. She closed her eyes and kissed his cheek again. The crowd cheered and applauded, then the game resumed.

Once the game ended, North Ridge had slaughtered the other team. It was their biggest turnaround the school and community had ever seen in the history of their basketball team.

Mya and Heather waited outside as everyone was leaving, Mya was beaming, "see, I told you so."

"I am so going to get you back for this, you're not going to see it coming," Heather smiled deviously.

Mya smiled nervously, "how nice. Oh, look at the time, I should be going now, see you later Eoin!"

She waved and ran off, Heather shot a dirty look at her, then smiled as she turned to face Eoin, "hey, great job, that was quite a game..."

The awkwardness hung thick in the air like a heavy fog. Heather loathed herself at that moment. It was all Mya's fault though.

Eoin finally spoke up, "it really was thanks to you, Heather. I feel like none of this would've been possible without you."

Heather blushed, "no, just silly superstitions. I believe you just found your confidence again, and that's why the game got better."

"You don't like to take credit for much, do you?"

"No, not if I don't deserve it. I was really impressed though, and I was glad I got to be a part of it," Heather wanted to talk to him more, but it was getting late. "I guess I should head home now."

She was supposed to wait for Connelly at the regular spot, but Eoin stopped her, "will you let me walk you home this time?"

She bit her lip, then pulled her phone out, "okay, just let me make a quick phone call."

He nodded, "okay, sure. I'll just go make sure I got everything."

Heather called up Connelly, "I'm walking home, so no need to wait for me."

Before he could respond, she hung up. This was her chance to talk to Eoin and she didn't want to wait anymore. Eoin came back with his school and gym bags over both shoulders, all bundled up for the cold weather. They walked for a while without saying anything, until they reached the bridge.

They both started speaking at the same time, Eoin chuckled, "you go first."

Heather felt her stomach flutter, this was it, "okay, if you're sure," he nodded then she continued, "well, you'll notice something when we go to the cemetery. Someone will be following me, don't be alarmed, it's his job. Wow, this is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be."

Eoin gave an understanding smile, "take all the time you need."

Heather took a deep breath, "okay, I wanted to tell you earlier, but time kind of got away from me. Anyway, plain and simple, I'm an O'Reilly. My grandfather is Ferguson O'Reilly, owner and chief operator of O'Reilly Corp., and since my father disappeared three years ago, that makes me..."

"Heiress to O'Reilly Corp.?" Eoin finished her sentence and stared at the ground, trying to process all of it. Their breathing came out in visible puffs of air as she waited for his reaction, once it fully registered. She couldn't stand the silence and started to ramble.

"It's true, I've been keeping it a secret, because I don't want to be treated differently. Mya is the only other person at school who knows, could you continue to keep it a secret for me?" Heather was biting her lip nervously again, waiting for him to say something.

Eoin met her gaze and smiled, "of course I'll keep your secret Heather, but why tell me now? We've only just become friends."

"I know... it's because I trust you, and, here it goes... I really like you, Eoin. I don't want to keep things from you, I want you to know everything," Heather was standing so close to him, he could barely stand it.

His heart beat faster and he took her by the hands, "all this time, getting to know you, has been amazing. I don't want to be with anyone, but you, Heather."

He wanted to kiss her, but felt he had already gone overboard with his affections. Almost as if she could hear his thoughts, she grabbed fistfuls of his coat and pressed her lips against his. He was completely breathless.

Once he had caught his breath, he grinned, "you're a lot stronger than you look, did you know that?"

Heather had covered her mouth, not sure what had come over her. They exchanged looks and started laughing.

"I'm so sorry, I heard guys usually make the first move, I'm not sure why I did that," Heather chattered in embarrassment.

Eoin chuckled, "it's okay, it was actually quite enjoyable. I have to know though, was that your first kiss?"

She nodded, cheeks flushed, "you've probably kissed lots of girls, so I can't imagine mine being very good in comparison."

Eoin was holding her hands, "I suppose I have, I know it seems like I'm a huge flirt and a womanizer, I've had a lot of kisses stolen from me, but I would never compare you to other girls, I like you, and your kisses are the only ones that matter to me. Now can I tell you something? I've dated here and there, but I've never had a serious girlfriend, so this is kind of new to me too. I've never liked anyone as much as I like you."

Heather felt relieved, she had assumed he had lots of girlfriends, but it was a natural assumption, considering his popularity status, "I feel really weird asking this, but, are we dating now?"

"Well, I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy, my parents always taught me I should get permission from the girl's parents, or in this case, grandparents, before I start seriously dating her. Is that okay with you?" he brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and kissed her cheek.

Heather had calmed herself down and thought for a moment, "what if they say no?"

"Then I'll have to keep trying, I wouldn't feel right knowing they disapproved of me. I want to be good enough for you Heather, and I wouldn't want to resort to sneaking around with you, even though I would if I absolutely had to," Eoin was already thinking about what he could do to get her grandparents' approval.

A car pulled to the side of the road, and Connelly stepped out. He waited at the end of the bridge for her. Heather quickly stepped away from Eoin when she glanced over and saw him there.

"Sorry Eoin, I have to go now, will I see you tomorrow?" she asked quietly.

Eoin nodded, "of course, I'll meet you and Mya there."

Heather looked at him one more time, then ran off. He watched her hop into the back of the dark vehicle and drive away. He leaned against the railing, still in disbelief at what had just happened. After a moment, he backtracked and walked home, wondering what it would take to impress the O'Reillys.