“Go grab some free pussy, the kind you’re allowed to sink your dick into, and forget all about that one. I have no doubt she’ll forget all about you in the next two years too. Mark my word.” With that, Timeless wandered off giving Shannon a smack on her ass and a scolding for her bad behavior as he went. What the hell was I supposed to do when no other woman compared to the girl who wasn’t quite woman enough for me to have yet? Shit.
Chapter 3
(Lucy – age 16, Double-D – age 19)
Over the next few months Double-D was suddenly everywhere I turned. I would have thought maybe he was following me or something, but he always seemed to have legitimate reasons for turning up in the same places. It was sort of fun to go out and wonder if I’d see him somewhere, or if I’d go home disappointed again. The best parts though were the stolen moments we managed when we were able to talk, get to know one another a little, and the way the butterflies in my belly went nuts when that happened.
I had just arrived at a house party that my parents definitely didn’t know I was attending when I saw a couple of motorcycles sitting out front. My friend Angie had an older brother who was throwing the party. They were mostly college-age guys attending since her brother was three years older than us so we figured we would go and have some fun too. The unfortunate part of our plan was that I recognized one of those motorcycles as belonging to my neighbor, Johnny. I had no doubt he would try to take me home if he saw me. He knew my parents wouldn’t approve, but worse, I knew he wanted me for himself and was just biding his time until I was a little older. Johnny was 18 to my 16. That wasn’t a big deal for most teenagers, but my parents had already laid down the law with him and he was being respectful of their wishes. If only he’d be respectful of mine. I didn’t like him in that way, and I’d been plenty up front about it.
I wish I could make him understand, but our parents had been pushing our nonexistent union for as long as I could remember. At first, they just wanted us to be friends. As we got older I started overhearing our mothers talk about our wedding. They were legitimately planning it out, as if I would just go along with whatever they wanted. If I were to get married, it would be my darn day, and I would not want someone else planning it out for me. That definitely goes for the hideous disasters of southern debutante frilly lacey craptastic ideas of wedding dresses they had. I shivered as I remembered the day they showed me several different types and asked me to pick my favorite. I took them, looked them over, and proceeded to throw them all in the garbage right in front of them. My momma had not been happy with me, but of course, Johnny’s mom just waved it off.
“She’ll come around,” had been her response. Whose mom wanted a woman to ‘come around’ to the thought of getting married to her boy? Ugh.
“We need to avoid Johnny like the plague,” I muttered to Angie as we entered the party.
“Are your moms still planning your wedding?” She asked while laughing at my expense.
I just sighed and rolled my eyes. If she only knew how bad it really was. I didn’t get the chance to clue her in either, because there he was. Johnny. Thankfully, he hadn’t seen me yet, but that was probably because he had his tongue so far down Rachel Thompson’s throat it would be a miracle if she had tonsils left when they were finished. I made a gagging noise that sent Angie into a giggle fit just as a pair of black motorcycle boots came into view beside me. I glanced up to see Double-D watching the show I’d just caught with a smirk on his face.
“You ladies wouldn’t be making fun of our poor prospect would you?”
“No one needs to make fun of that,” Angie corrected. “We might need to send help for Rachel though. She’s going to come away from that kiss with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
I couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled out of my chest then. I also turned away from the scene once Johnny had hiked Rachel’s skirt up in the back in order to grope her ass better. I wondered if she realized that the entire room was getting a good view of her strawberry covered cotton panties?
“That’s just…” Double-D started to say, but shook his head and took my hand in his own. “Come on, I’ll get you a drink and make sure no one tampers with it.”
“What do you mean?” I asked quite naïvely. Here I had thought we’d be safe at this party since Angie’s brother was throwing it.
Double-D gave me a dubious look before turning to face me and leaning in so that I caught exactly how serious he was. “Look around you,” he ordered. I did. “Do you think that girl, Rachel?” He questioned her name before continuing on. “Do you think Rachel is the type to show everyone in a room her panties?”
“Um,” I hesitated. “I wouldn’t have thought so,” I admitted.
“You’re probably not wrong, and she most likely won’t even remember until someone teases her for it.”
“You saying Johnny drugged her?” I asked, taking a step back. I didn’t want to be with Johnny, but I didn’t believe for a minute he had to go around drugging women to get action either.
“He wouldn’t be a prospect for my club if he had,” Double-D told me in all seriousness.
“But, if she’s drugged,” I started to say and he just shook his head.
“He won’t take it any further than that if she is. I’m just saying, at a party like this, you get a drink it better have a sealed cap on it when it gets put in your hands. Liquor you weren’t expecting, drugs, and any number of things are really easily slipped into a drink. Keep that in mind, yeah?”
I nodded my head at him, and Angie did as well. She was staring at him with a certain amount of hero worship in her eyes as she drew closer and ran a long painted pink nail down his chest. “Well, aren’t you just the southern gentleman hero?”
He removed her hand and put it back down by her side. “No, I’m not.” Double-D then took hold of my hand again and started moving us through the crowd toward the kitchen.
“That was rude,” Angie huffed. “I’m going to find something to do.” With that she stomped off in the opposite direction from me.
“You might want to pick better friends to go to parties with too, honey.”
I turned back away from where Angie was storming off and glared at Double-D. “She only ran off because you were rude.”
He laughed at me then. “That wasn’t rude. Rude would have been calling her out for putting her hands on me when she saw that you were obviously interested.” I was about to argue, but he kept going on. “She put her hands on me even though I was holding onto yours.” I glanced down seeing that our fingers were still entwined with one another. Angie also knew I’d been talking about Double-D and hoping he was here tonight. He wasn’t wrong, so I didn’t try to argue. That had been a horrible thing for her to do considering I thought we were supposed to be friends.
I took the can of Coke that Double-D offered me, noting that it hadn’t been opened and I smiled at him. “Thank you,” I managed to get out as I popped the top on the can.
“You’re welcome.” He just stood and watched me as I nervously took a sip of the soda. My nerves were on high alert forcing me to feel all the bubbles tickle my throat as I swallowed. “You ever going to tell me your name?”
I tipped my head to the side taking in his knowing smirk. “I think you already know it,” I told him while that smirk grew into a grin confirming that he did.
“Maybe, but isn’t it still polite to introduce yourself to the man who just saved you from witnessing anymore of that scene out there?”
I laughed. “You know I have two feet and was capable of walking away all by myself, right?”
He leaned in close again. “I know it, honey, but it’s hard to pull away from a train wreck when you see one happening right before your eyes.”
“I suppose that’s true enough.” I held out my hand to him for shaking. He took it in his, but didn’t shake it. Instead he just held it in his palm gently as we made eye contact and waited. My face heated up at the strange gesture before I realized what he was w
aiting on. “Lucy Carter,” I managed to get out despite my embarrassment.
“Lucy Carter,” he repeated before bringing my hand to his lips and kissing the knuckles of my fingers with his warm plump lips. Butterflies were running rampant inside my belly, and oh dear Lord, I thought I might just pass out on the spot. Maybe there was something to the old stories about southern women swooning over gentlemen. I completely understood in that moment. At least I did until it was interrupted.
“Lucy?” My butterflies went immediately dormant and I cringed inwardly as the voice grated across the bliss I’d experienced only moments before, wiping it all away with just the utterance of my name.
I turned to see Johnny standing there looking madder than a wet hen. Angie was standing just behind him, back to the wall watching. I couldn’t believe she would do this to me. I thought we’d been friends. Granted, we weren’t besties, but still. I would remember her actions tonight. She was never to be trusted again. “Johnny,” I intoned as I turned away from him and toward Double-D once more while sipping from my coke, which was quickly batted out of my hand.
“What in the world did you do that for, Johnny?” I shrieked.
“You don’t know what’s in that,” he chided.
“I sure as heck did. It was probably 99 percent coke and 1 percent my backwash.” I heard people laughing in the background and instantly regretted adding the backwash part even though everyone knew it was most likely true of their drinks as well.
“You don’t know,” he started to say when I cocked my hip out, threw my hands up on them, and stared him down until I saw him shrink in on himself a little.
“I most certainly do know, because Double-D here handed me that drink unopened. I popped the top myself, and you just went and wasted it while making that huge mess for no good reason.” I pointed at the spilled can on the floor and watched as he winced.
“I’m real curious as to what you thought I might have been done to her drink?” Double-D questioned him and Johnny’s shoulders went rigid.
“I didn’t know you were the one who gave it to her,” he tried to play it off.
“I’m the one standing here, aren’t I?”
Johnny didn’t get a chance to respond because Rachel showed up at just that moment and wrapped her arms around Johnny’s waist. “I thought we were going upstairs, John,” she whined. I cocked an eyebrow up at him and couldn’t hide the smirk that played at the corner of my lips either. He always tried to play like he was innocent and devoutly waiting on me when I had always known better, despite what our parents thought. He moved to push her off of him, but my laughter stopped him cold.
“Don’t bother,” I told him as I pointed in the direction of the room I’d seen them making out in earlier. “I already saw the whole show earlier when I got here.” His face paled as the color drained from it.
“Lucy, I can explain,” he started to say, but was cut off by Rachel.
“What the hell do you have to explain to her? She’s in high school.”
“So are you,” he answered back rudely.
“I’m already 18 though,” she pointed out as her bottom lip poked out in a pout.
“You’re also the girl who will let someone feel them up and show them off to a whole room full of people. She’s not like that.”
“You are though,” I told him, because he was making me angry. I may not behave like Rachel, but she didn’t deserve to be called out for the same behavior he was participating in.
“No,” he started to say.
“Johnny, I saw you. Just because your clothes weren’t being moved to expose your strawberry panties to everyone doesn’t mean you weren’t the one making sure hers were. You participated in that spectacle and I didn’t see anyone holding a gun to your head forcing you to do it.”
“You expect me to be a saint while I wait for you?” Apparently, he was going to change his tack since he’d already been caught misbehaving.
“I expect you not to be waiting for me, since I already told you I didn’t want you like that.” I hadn’t realized I had raised my voice so loudly until his face reddened and laughter erupted in the room. Taunts were bandied about by men whom I assumed were his friends before he turned and left with a still pouting, yet oblivious Rachel hot on his heels. Angie glared in the direction of Double-D before also turning and walking away.
When I looked back over my shoulder I could understand why. There was murder in his eyes. I didn’t think he’d legitimately kill her for organizing that mess, but he was clearly not happy with her. “You definitely need better friends, little Lucy.”
I sighed. “Yeah, that’s become quite apparent. Now, I think I have two less.”
He chuckled. “I’d say more like one. Johnny boy will get over himself, and no man in his right mind would give up on trying to persuade you to change yours. Though, I have to say, I really hope he does.” There was something more meaningful in what he was saying, but I didn’t get a chance to second guess anything, because once again he had hold of my hand and was tugging me toward the door to the back yard. There were a few camp chairs scattered about the lawn out back, but there was also an old porch swing hanging from the back end of the porch and that’s where Double-D took me.
We sat side-by-side there with the stars hanging out in the sky just above us and drunken teen and twenty-somethings making asses of themselves off in the distance. We were in our own bubble there on that swing though. “So, how did you get a name like Double-D?” I asked the question nervously, and obviously without thinking.
He chuckled. “You really want to know?” Suddenly it hit me that I might not want an answer to that particular question. My wide-eyed deer in the headlights look just made him laugh. “The guys at the clubhouse are strange. Something happens and it just sticks a name to you.”
“What happens to stick a bra size as your name?” I felt a little inadequate as I asked because I definitely wasn’t rocking a set of DDs. I was barely filling out a full B-cup at the time.
“I went out with this girl when I was prospecting for the club, and the guys were tormenting me since I didn’t want to bring her around for them to run her off.” He glanced off in the distance as if he could see the memory playing out before him off in the distance. “Patty was a sweet girl, smart, funny,” he went on describing her and causing an ache in my tummy. I was big enough to admit I was jealous of the way he smiled at the memory of her. “She should have never been on my radar, but we’d worked on a project in school together right as we were about to graduate, and I guess one thing led to another.” He shrugged his shoulders before taking a sip of the bottle of beer he’d brought out with him.
“The guys thought I wasn’t bringing her around, because she was some gorgeous chick with huge tits,” he laughed as he said that. “Little did they know she was the complete opposite and I wasn’t bringing her around, because I didn’t think she could handle club life or their particular brand of teasing. She was sweet – as I said – but in a way where she was also too delicate to handle anything rough in her life. I knew the life I was headed for, and didn’t lead her on. We went out a couple times and then she headed off to go live with an aunt close to the college she planned on attending. Before she left though she stopped by the clubhouse to drop off a sweatshirt I’d loaned her when the night had gotten too chilly for what she had on.”
He turned to look at me then, the smile wiped off his face. “Patty was about an A-cup as bra size went. She was stick thin with mousy brown hair and she wore glasses most of the time because contacts bothered her. She was cute, but not super-model good looking, you know. Like I keep saying, she was also super sweet. The guys took one look at her and lost their shit, acting like assholes. Patty fled the clubhouse and never spoke to me again. The idiots started calling me Double-D, to be ironic since the girl I’d been hiding from them had the body of a 12-year old boy instead of a super model like they all thought. Now, when people see or hear my road name they just assume it’s bec
ause I like big tits.” He shrugged his shoulder and took another sip of his beer while waiting for my reaction.
“Did you ever get in touch with her again?”
“What for? We had already said our goodbyes.”
“To apologize for their bad behavior?” I asked as if he should already know what for, because he should have.
He shook his head. “I couldn’t have even if I had wanted to. She was gone the next day, as planned. I had already warned her about the club, the guys, and why it wouldn’t work between us. She knew. I think maybe she had been testing herself by coming there that day to see if she’d be okay with the lifestyle I lived. Her running was proof that I had been right all along. Nothing against Patty, it just wasn’t for her.”
“I often wonder why my daddy keeps trying to warn me away from bikers,” I said purposefully leaving him out of it.
“From me,” he returned with a smile knowing what I meant and calling me on it.
“Anyway, he has no problem with Johnny and he’s a prospect for the club.”
“Maybe your dad hasn’t realized he’s prospecting for us yet?” Double-D surmised. I hadn’t thought of that. Johnny may very well have been hiding his affiliation with the club from my parents. Maybe if I told my parents he was part of the club they would finally leave me alone about him.
“So tell me a little something about Lucy Carter that I don’t know,” Double-D suggested.
I chewed on my bottom lip for a minute tasting the cherry Chapstick I’d swiped across them earlier. “I have a little more than a year and a half left of high school. I hate baking with a passion.” He chuckled at that admission. “I like to work in my dad’s garage with him, but that isn’t my dream either. I think I really just want to help people. I might become a nurse or something one day.” I shrugged my shoulders. “I haven’t really thought it all out. My mom is of the opinion that the only thing college is good for is to find your husband, but she says I don’t need to do that since she already found him for me.” I blushed as I admitted that to the man seated beside me.
A Love So Hard (Aces High MC - Charleston Book 2) Page 3