Dylan nodded. “The hops they use are closely related to cannabis, because they both come from the Cannabaceae plant family. Also, you probably gave me too much of an easy one. Most people know Heineken has only three ingredients: water, malted barley, and hops.”
Cannabaceae plant family? Now he was talking my language. Seriously, how had I never noticed how interesting Dylan O’Dea was before?
“Well, dammit,” Sam sighed, “I don’t have anything else.”
“Hold on, I might,” I said and rummaged in my bag to pull out a pot of lip balm. Yvonne got it for me from an organic cosmetics place, so I knew it was all-natural ingredients. If you peeled the sticker away at the back there was a list, but I hid that from Dylan’s view. “Try this,” I went on and handed him the pot.
He screwed off the lid and took a sniff. The way he smelled things was weirdly attractive. He gave it his entire focused attention, inhaling deeply, like it was a fine wine or a rare flower. “Hmm, so the top notes are mostly nutty, but I can also get a strong scent of coconut and chocolate, with a hint of vanilla. The base note is Shea butter,” he finished, handing it back to me with confidence.
I took the pot and read the ingredients on the back, astounded to find he’d named almost all of them.
“That’s insane,” said Sam, swiping the pot from me to smell it himself. “All I can get is chocolate.”
“Smell is like any other sense. Like Evelyn said, where we hear a complete piece of music, a trained musician can pick out every instrument. You can train your nose to do exactly the same thing, it just takes time.”
“But why would you want to do that?” Sam asked, curious.
Dylan shrugged. “That I can’t tell you. It’s just something I’ve always been interested in.”
“That’s like Ev and her plants. She’s obsessed.”
“Oh right, don’t you have that little garden on the roof?” Amy asked. “I’ve seen you up there once or twice.”
“Yes, I got permission from the local council to start an allotment. Not many people around here are interested though,” I replied.
“I didn’t know that,” Dylan said, a frown marring his features. It was almost like he thought he knew everything about me and was confused by this new piece of info. But that was ridiculous. We only spoke for the first time a few days ago. He didn’t know me at all.
I bobbed my head. “It’s true. So far, it’s just me, Mrs O’Flaherty from the top floor and her grandson, Seamus. But I’m optimistic I can get more people into gardening over time. My newest obsession is succulent plants, like aloe vera and cacti. I’ve been driving Yvonne crazy by filling up the flat with them, but they make the place feel so much more cheerful. And they take hardly any watering. All you do is soak the soil until it turns really dark and wet, then you don’t water them again until it dries out, which usually takes about a week.”
I realised I was babbling and shut up. Very few people got as excited about gardening as I did.
“You see,” said Sam. “She practically turns herself on talking about it.”
Dylan ignored him, his attention still on me, and I liked how he seemed interested instead of bored. “What have you planted on the roof?”
“Oh, a whole bunch of stuff. Some of my wildflowers are in bloom at the moment, and the bees just love them. When it’s sunny, there’s a constant stream of buzzy customers coming to collect the pollen. It’s so fascinating.”
“You must be easily entertained,” Amy commented, but I wasn’t bothered by her cynicism. I was used to people finding my hobby uninteresting. I looked back to Dylan, surprised when I noted that his handsome features still showed interest. It gave me the courage to continue.
“My big dream is actually to start beekeeping on the roof. Did you know we’re slowly running out of bees?”
“Wouldn’t that be a good thing?” Amy asked, and I got the sense that she didn’t like me, or at best, found me dull. “All they do is sting people. I once heard about a girl from Crumlin who died from an allergic reaction to a bee sting.”
“Honeybees only sting to protect their hive,” I said, defending my little winged friends. “Bees out in the wild collecting pollen rarely sting. They do it if they think you’re a threat, and they usually die afterwards, so you know, it’s not like they go around actively looking to hurt people.”
“Yeah well, I wouldn’t mind a world without honey if it meant we didn’t have bees buzzing around stinging people because they feel threatened,” she huffed.
Dylan frowned at her. “If we didn’t have bees, humans would die out.”
She scoffed at this. “No, we wouldn’t.”
He exhaled a breath, as though frustrated. “We need bees for pollination, otherwise half the food we eat wouldn’t grow. And they’re dying out because of the pesticides we use in modern farming.” He paused to look at me again. “I think it’s a great idea to start beekeeping on the roof. It’s not like the space is being used for anything else.”
Oh Dylan, stop being so clever and nice or I’ll develop a crush.
“That’s our Ev for ya,” said Sam. “Trying to save the human race.”
“The human race is hardly so great,” Amy grumped.
She looked embarrassed, and though it could be due to Dylan’s reprimand about the importance of bees, I wondered if she felt a little threatened by me. After all, just like Sam was my people, Dylan and Connor were hers. Maybe she saw me as an interloper.
“Well, you have a point there,” I said, hoping to assuage her. I didn’t want her to dislike me. It was one of my biggest shortcomings; I always wanted people to like me, and sometimes they weren’t worth the effort. Though I suspected underneath all her make-up and snark, Amy was a sweet girl.
There was a moment of quiet as we took a sip of our drinks. Then Conor asked, “Does Yvonne help out with your allotment?”
Ha! Yeah right, he wasn’t in love with her. At the very least he was thoroughly besotted.
“If I say yes, does that mean you’ll come and start your own patch?” I asked, hopeful. I wasn’t above telling a little white lie to get more participants. Yeah, I was that desperate.
He fiddled with the leg of his glasses. “Maybe.”
I sighed. “She doesn’t exactly take part, but she does pop up to say hello every now and again. If you start a plot, there’s a chance you’ll bump into her.”
“Or he could just go get a pint down at The Morgan and try chatting her up,” Sam suggested.
I reached out to slap his shoulder. “Shut it. I almost had him. You know how much I need more people, especially since you can’t be relied upon to make up the numbers.”
“Ev, you start at six in the morning sometimes. Do you know how godawful early that is? No wonder so few people are interested.”
“I’m interested,” Dylan blurted, surprising me. My cheeks flushed as I glanced at him.
“Really? You’re not put off by the early start? If you are, you can come on the weekend. I don’t usually get up there until around ten on a Sunday.”
He lifted the can to his mouth, smiling around a long gulp of lager. “I’ll drop by when I can.”
“Great, yeah. I’m there most mornings,” I said, pleased, ignoring Sam as he waggled his brows from behind Dylan.
It seemed the old adage was true.
Go out for a disco, and find a new gardening recruit instead.
Chapter 3
I was walking by the chemistry labs on my way to lunch the next time I saw Dylan. He had a white coat on and was huddled over what appeared to be an experiment. The teacher was focused on marking papers and eating lunch at the front of the classroom.
Dylan was a year ahead of me, studying for his Leaving Certificate. I wondered if he planned to go to college when he finished or if he’d just get a job. I mean, college must’ve been on his radar, especially if he was spending his lunch hour working on an experiment instead of eating in the cafeteria with his friends.
Ther
e were two other students in the classroom, but both were focused on their own work. Higher-level chemistry wasn’t a subject a lot of kids took at this school. After third year, most moved down a level, or dropped out completely, so there were typically only five or six students total in those classes.
I’d chosen biology as my science subject, because I didn’t have a head for chemistry or physics, but I was willing to bet Dylan was one of those rare breeds who took all three. He struck me as the type.
While I studied him he glanced up, like he sensed my attention. I jumped and his brows furrowed, but I saw him start to smile when I looked away and hurried down the corridor, embarrassed he caught me watching.
Sam had choir practice on Mondays, so I headed home on my own at the end of the day. I was almost to the school gates when a voice called, “Evelyn, hold up.”
Dylan jogged casually towards me, backpack over one shoulder. It looked heavy, stuffed full of books.
He was a tiny bit out of breath when he caught up to me, although that was probably more from the weight of the bag than the run. “Can I walk with you?”
I opened my mouth to respond, but there was a delay to my words. Kind of like on TV when a newsreader was speaking to a field reporter via satellite. I was just a little stunned that this older, attractive, smart and interesting boy had run up to me. Was seemingly going out of his way to be friends with me. It wasn’t something that happened often. Or ever. I wasn’t one of the cool, pretty girls at school who boys chased after. Don’t get me wrong, like Yvonne and my mam, I was pretty, but most people considered me too flighty, too much in my own little world to bother pursuing.
Hence, at seventeen, I was still a virgin.
And yes, I know that wasn’t exactly old-maid status, but at St Mary’s Villas most girls fell pregnant and dropped out of school by sixteen. In fact, my mam was fifteen when she had me.
I looked at Dylan, finally managing to get some words out. Well, one word. “Sure.”
“I saw you earlier,” he said, and my previous embarrassment rushed back.
“Right, yeah, I was, uh, on my way to lunch. You looked dead focused. I don’t think I’ve ever been that concentrated at school. I’m too easily distracted.”
“I was working on an experiment extracting iodine from seaweed. Was I pulling a weird face or something?” he asked with a chuckle.
“Nah, your eyebrows were just all furrowed. How did your experiment go?”
“Good. Mr Tully allows some of us work through our lunch hour when he eats at his desk. That way he can keep an eye on us in case we set ourselves on fire.”
“Has that actually happened?” I asked with a nervous laugh.
Dylan shook his head. “Not as far as I know, but I needed to heat the seaweed to extract the iodine, and Mr Tully would’ve chewed me out if I did it without supervision.”
“But he wasn’t watching you at all. He was just sitting there. If you made a mistake you could’ve lost your eyebrows,” I replied, teasing.
Dylan laughed. “At least I could start a new fashion trend.”
“Nope, it’d never take. Everyone looks better with eyebrows.”
“Coming from the girl who barely has any,” Dylan shot back with a grin.
“Hey. I have eyebrows. They’re just very blonde.”
“Well, no one would ever suspect you dye your hair.”
“Yep. When I was little it was white. I looked like one of those Children of the Corn.”
Dylan hitched his bag higher on his shoulder and studied my profile for a second. “I don’t believe you. You smile too much to ever be a creepy corn child.”
I self-consciously tucked some hair behind my ear. “I do?”
He nodded. “It’s the reason I knocked on your door the other day. I thought, someone who smiles as much as you do has to be a Good Samaritan.”
“Not necessarily. It could be a sinister smile. I could be secretly plotting everyone’s demise behind it.”
“Ah well, fortunately for me, I can tell the difference.”
We walked in silence for a minute, and my mind raced, thinking of him noticing me before I ever really noticed him. Butterflies. I had butterflies again.
I mean, he must’ve noticed me a lot if he knew I smiled all the time. And knew where I lived. Funnily enough, I wasn’t at all creeped out by that. Instead, a thrilling rush went through me. Dylan was too warm, felt too authentic to ever be a creep. I wanted to say something to him, prolong the conversation. I scrambled for an appropriate subject and the first thing that entered my head was his iodine experiment.
“I used to always think all those science experiments were so impractical, but maybe not. Remember after 9/11, when the government sent a box of iodine tablets to every house in the country in case Sellafield got bombed? If that ever happened, you could earn a mint manufacturing iodine, using the same method.”
I half expected Dylan to be like, what are you rambling about? But he didn’t miss a beat when he chuckled. “You could be on to something. My dad said they didn’t send enough for everyone in the household, and the tablets were almost out of date.”
“What a joke. The nuclear power plant would be attacked, and we’d all be dead from radiation.”
“Yep. And the east coast would be the worst hit if that ever happened. So, you and I would be pretty much screwed.”
“Better live life to the fullest while we can then,” I said, jokingly.
“It wouldn’t even need to be a terrorist attack, you know,” Dylan continued, like he was suddenly on a roll. “There’s already a huge nuclear dump just a hundred and sixty kilometres off our coast. If it ever leaks, and there’s a good chance it will, we’ll all be living in a Chernobyl-like situation.”
“Wow, you really know how to cheer a girl up,” I replied, though I was impressed he knew all this. Plus, I had been the one to bring up the topic.
His mouth dipped at the edges as he scratched his jaw. “Sorry. I have a problem with fixating on negative stuff sometimes. My dad is the exact same. You wouldn’t want to live at our house. Like Dad says, the sky is always falling for the O’Dea men.”
“I’m sure you’re not that bad.”
“Want to bet? Just wait until I get started on global warming and how it’s going to set civilised society back to barbarian times. You’ll be slitting your wrists within the hour,” he quipped, but there was an odd note of truth to his words.
“Well, Amy and Conor haven’t resorted to suicide, and they’re your best friends,” I countered.
“That’s because Amy’s a goth. She loves doom and gloom. And Conor’s known me so long he’s desensitised. Why do you think I can’t get a girlfriend? I depress every girl I meet.”
I found that very hard to believe. Besides, it wasn’t true. I heard the talk around the school. I knew there were plenty of girls who fancied Dylan, but thought he was too preoccupied and aloof. I was pretty sure most people didn’t know how to broach a conversation with him. And when they did they were probably intimidated by his imposing form and intelligence and gave up.
“I don’t find you depressing. I find you interesting. Plus, you don’t fall asleep when I talk about my allotment, so you get points for that.”
He nudged me with his shoulder. “Want to be my girlfriend then?”
My heart skipped a beat, but I didn’t let it show. “Funny,” I deadpanned, while on the inside I hesitated. Was he being serious? Nah, he had to be kidding.
Despite the quiet between us, it didn’t feel uncomfortable, which surprised me. We ascended the steps when we reached the Villas. Since Dylan lived a few floors below me, we arrived at his flat first.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you at school,” I said, glancing at him. “Unless you want to invite me in?”
It wasn’t like me to be so forward, but I didn’t want to say goodbye yet. Hanging out with him and talking felt oddly exhilarating. We weren’t doing anything exciting, just walking home from school, but still, my pul
se sped like we were riding a rollercoaster.
Weird.
“My dad’s inside,” he said, a bit uncomfortable. “So, it’s probably best if you don’t.”
I furrowed my brow. “Why?”
Dylan rubbed his neck, obviously torn. “He’s, um, kind of eccentric.”
“I like eccentric,” I replied, though I thought Dylan was exaggerating. I’d seen his dad around from time to time, and he looked pretty normal to me. Nothing weird or unusual about him.
The tiniest hint of resignation claimed his features. “Okay well, let’s see if you still feel that way after you meet him.”
He slotted his key in the door and stepped inside. I followed, finding a neat but very overstuffed living space. Shelves packed with books lined the walls, newspapers and magazines were stacked high on the coffee table, and there was a tower of plastic storage boxes full of miscellaneous stuff beside the couch. Dylan’s dad sat on an armchair by the TV watching one of the news stations.
“Have you seen the latest story about MRSA?” he asked when he heard us come in, not turning his attention from the screen. “They’re now saying it can be spread from ordinary objects in the hospital, like folders and pens. The organism can stick to things and live for up to eighty days. I think I might need to cancel my check-up next week. With my compromised immunity, I’d die if I caught the bug.”
“You don’t have a compromised immunity, Dad. You’re just run-down because you don’t sleep enough,” Dylan replied, setting his bag on the floor as he walked over to open the window.
“I had a throbbing pain in my neck this morning and my glands are swollen. It could be leukaemia,” his Dad went on, totally serious.
Dylan took a second to rub his temple then knelt in front of his dad and reached out to feel both sides of his neck and under his jaw. “Your glands feel fine to me. Like I said, you just need to sleep. And you’re not cancelling your check-up. You need your prescription refilled anyway.”
His dad tutted and turned his head, finally seeing me. His cheeks reddened, and he appeared embarrassed he didn’t notice me sooner. “Dylan, you should’ve told me you brought a friend over. Hello, I’m Tommy,” he said, standing and coming to shake my hand. I was surprised by the welcome.