Don't Let Me Fall Again

Chapter Two - Get-Together

Warning - There's gonna be Irish in this, so I've put the pronunciation beside it ... Hope you enjoy! 

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'Oh, here he is!' Sinead cheered, clapping her hands together. 'C'mon, lads, get your bags and suitcases ready. The sooner the better we get there.' 

When Uncle Cormac stepped out of his typical dark green farmer's car, Sinead and I ran over to him and almost jumped into his arms. He hugged the two of us back, a little bit shocked, and looked around at the young men watching us. 'So, who do we have here? Which ones are the boyfriends? Or are they all your boyfriends, huh?'  

'No, no, no ... Of course not ... This is James Pollard,' Sinead said, letting go of Cormac and holding James's hand. 'He's my boyfriend - my only boyfriend, and this is Scott Huffman, Drake Poynter and Kyle Williams.' 

'Pleasure to meet yous, lads,' Uncle Cormac said, and then he turned to me. 'Laura, where's Mr Morris? I thought he was coming with you? Is he too afraid to meet us all, or something? Did he get cold feet?' 

'No, don't be ridiculous. He's actually really excited to meet yous, so don't you worry ... I'm sure he'll be here in a minute. He's just going to get a car to rent, because we thought that you were gonna -' 

'Well, he'd better hurry up, now ...' he said gruffly, crossing his arms. 'I don't have time to be waiting around here all day. We've got to go home.' 

'Is there something wrong, Cormac?' my sister asked, frowning. But before Uncle Cormac could reply, a loud noise sounded behind us, causing us all to leap with fright. We all turned around to see Ryan and Sam sitting in a flashy dark navy Mercedes car, which looked very expensive. I noticed Uncle Cormac's eyebrows were as raised as the rest of ours were. 

'How much money did you bring?' I said as Ryan hopped out of the car. 

He smirked. 'What, are you planning on robbing me, or something?' he chuckled, and then he saw Cormac and his smile dropped. He stood up straighter, and held out his hand in an extremely formal way. For some reason it looked as though he had rehearsed this over and over to himself in front of a mirror, especially when he said, 'I'm Ryan Morris, sir, very pleased to meet you.' 

'Cormac Gallagher, same to you,' my uncle replied, not as politely, but still shaking Ryan's outstretched hand. I frowned. There was something wrong with the way he was acting. Why was he so grumpy when it came to Ryan? I supposed I was just going to have to talk to him about it ... or maybe he'd warm up to my boyfriend by himself .... He'd come around, right? Hopefully, because if he didn't like Ryan too much, I didn't reckon he'd react too well when he was going to find out about the baby. Maybe I was just worrying too much, though. I was thinking into things too much, as usual. 

Sam suddenly appeared beside Ryan and took my uncle's hand enthusiastically. 'I'm Sam Armstrong!' 

'Er - hi,' said Cormac awkwardly, and then turned to Sinead. 'Right, well I'll take you, Sinead, and James ... and Scott. Ryan, you can take Laura, Sam, Drake and Kyle with you, because there's obviously more room in your car. Okay, lads, help me get all the bags into the cars.' 

I took this as an opportunity to notice the difference of Cormac since the last time I saw him. He was definitely getting older, anyway, because flecks of grey were starting to appear in his light brown hair, almost the exact same shade as my dad's hair. Cormac still looked the image of my dad, although maybe a slightly younger version since Cormac was the youngest in all of his brothers and sisters. I couldn't wait to get settled down and have a nice chat with him, and tell him everything that had happened over the past year ... Well, maybe I'd tell him all of the happy things that had happened over the past year - the more shocking stuff could wait until I was ready to tell him. I had to tell everyone else, too ...