[The Social Experiment 01.0] The Social Experiment

by Addison Moore

  “My other half is probably literally crapping. He tapped out and sent me into the wild. I knew you’d be here, and I wouldn’t miss it. Did you see Mom?”

  “Only for a second. My flight came in late, and by the time I dragged my luggage into the house, she and Dad were already headed up to bed. She pointed me to the party and hit the sack.” It’s true. Everybody, including my mother, knows that the Starry Nights Bar and Grill is the place to be on this the lustiest night of the year—and every night outside of that, considering that it’s the beating heart of Oak Grove. This is basically it as far as the party scene goes, and judging by how packed it is, the locals and the Denver overflow alike don’t seem to mind it.

  “So, what do you think?” Sadie hooks her arm through mine as she nods over toward Jax and the horny little harem amassing around him.

  Mack leans in and sinks her gaze in the god of Oak Grove’s direction. “I know you’re wondering—and yes—he’s single as a slice of cheese.”

  Both Sadie and I groan. Mack is the queen of the cheesy one-liners.

  “Of course, he’s single,” I grunt as the girls crowding him block him from view. “He’s a manwhore. Everyone knows you can’t hold a good manwhore down—especially not one with his bank account lined in solid gold Krugerrands.”

  “But we can try!” Larissa Debeers, a dark-haired vixen, face of a cold-hearted bitch, who looks as if she belongs on a Victoria’s Secret runway rather than holed up in Oak Grove, pops up swilling a cherry red cocktail in her well-manicured hand. Yes, Jax is panty-dropping gorgeous, but he’s also loaded, which means he brings the gold diggers to the yard, case in point Larissa. “Nice to see you slumming, Pop Top,” says the Krugerrands’ huntress herself.

  Wow. You flash the boys’ track team just once in your entire scholastic career and you garner a nickname that endures time immemorial.

  “I see L.A. is doing well by you,” Larissa muses as she takes me in from head to toe. Larissa had her own stint in L.A., and thankfully our paths never crossed. She was out trying to progress her modeling slash acting career, but after one mediocre commercial touting the ills of a yeast infection, she packed up her yeast-infected behind and hightailed it back to Oak Grove. I’m guessing that vaginal itch for Jax and his billions never quite went away. There’s no cure for greedy.

  “Louboutin heels in a snowstorm?” She snorts. “Snug leather jacket—that fits as if Cinderella’s mice themselves adhered it to your body? And those jeans?” Her brows rise in amusement. “I’d ask if you painted them on, but my guess is you’ve gone pantless and your flesh has turned a healthy shade of blue.”

  I’d laugh, but I promised myself long ago I wouldn’t waste the energy on Larissa. We have a brief yet tumultuous history not worthy of repeating.

  I’d ask why she’s kept her feet planted in Oak Grove, but according to her body language, her own painted on clothing, it’s apparent why she’s hanging around. “Still working on your MRS degree at the U of Oak Grove, I see.” I nod toward Jax without meaning to, not that it’s a secret she’s heavily into the town’s honorary playboy.

  “Mmm,” she moans, taking him in with the rest of us. “It’s true. I’ve always had a hankering for tall, filthy rich, and gorgeous. But Jaxy Boy is untouchable. I think that’s why the girls swoon twice as hard.” She looks to me with those dark amber eyes. “A girl always wants what she can’t have. Isn’t that right, Pop Top?” She gives a sly wink before slinking away.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” My foot twists in my Louboutin as if doling out a threat.

  “Don’t listen to her.” Sadie shoves her cosmopolitan in my hand, and I take a quick sip. “She’s just bitter because the closer you are to her favorite boy toy, she knows that her chances of landing him horizontal for the night decrease dramatically.”

  “That might be true,” Mack muses. “But nonetheless, she is one of his regulars. That boy has every available girl in town on a crop rotation—they’re well-trained to his nefarious ways, too. The only catfights that take place are at his request. Rumor has it, all of those wrestling matches take place in bed at his command. Dave says he’s taking them three at a time now.”

  “Disgusting,” I hiss as Jax slowly becomes enveloped by the harlots vying for a chance to become one in three. “God, when did he morph into such a pervert? And it’s shocking his mother puts up with that.” His mother just so happens to be my own mother’s lifelong best friend, and if they’re about anything, they’re about getting into every sloppy detail of their children’s lives. To them, it’s not only a haunting pastime— it’s research. Charlene—my mother, and Debbie—the one who sponsored Jaxson’s birther movement, have in recent years embarked on the precarious world of blogging.

  The Mischief Mavens’ Baking Blog has had over a million hits last year. Yes, you’ve read that right. A million hits means that they’ve actually spellbound a jury of their peers and tricked them into coming back time and time again. And believe you me, that whole baking thing is just a confectionary ruse. The most popular feature of their blog falls under the category of mischief. You see, pranks and all things shenanigans happen to be our mothers’ specialty. Donning fuzzy pink robes and curlers just to drop us off at school was a regular running gag—the irony being that neither of them slept in curlers. I can’t even count how many Halloween nights they followed close behind the two of us with demonic clown masks and axes. If you’ve surmised the fact that we never trick-or-treated with other people, you’ve guessed right.

  Then there was the time they showed up to our prom. They made no bones about the fact they were chronically pissed that both Jax and I chose to go stag rather than as each other’s plus one. Of course, the mischief mavens decided that what better way to mark the occasion as regrettable than dancing the Macarena right beside us? And the last, but I’m sure not final stunt they pulled on the two of us was altering the acceptance letters from the universities we applied to, informing us that we had swiftly been rejected from each and every school, when in fact the opposite were true. They copped to it soon enough, but the laugh was on them once I chose a school thousands of miles away from them at a private university in L.A. that came complete with a major scholarship. Only it wasn’t the two of them I was running from.

  Sadie steps in close with her arms crossed, that oddly vexed look on her face, and it makes me wonder if she wants her cosmo back. “Of course, his mother knows he’s a pervert. Everybody with a pair of eyes knows that. But I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want that for her precious baby boy. In fact, you of all people should realize what Jaxson’s mother wants for him—or should I say who?”

  “Not this again.” I down the rest of her drink and slam the glass on the table next to me like a gavel.

  “You know it’s true.” Mack shakes her head. “Mom and Deb have always thought you two belonged together. As soon as you were born, they pressed your little hand in his.”

  “I know. I’ve seen the picture.” It sits in a frame just outside my old bedroom along with an entire childhood montage of the friendship Jax and I once shared. Our mothers delivered us three months apart—and were they ever thrilled to have a bride for baby Jaxson. Little did they know their precious JJ, as they affectionately called him, would turn into a petri dish for all sorts of new strains of syphilis. “But, poor Deb will have to find another bride for her wayward slutty son,” I huff. “One that doesn’t mind sharing the marriage bed with a revolving door of hussies.”

  Jax and I used to be the best of friends—and then puberty hit and ruined that good time. Jax and I started with the puppy dog eyes about fifth grade—but a quick peck of a kiss in the middle of our freshman year landed us in an unspeakably awkward place. It didn’t help that our mothers glommed onto that pimple-laced opportune moment to plan our upcoming nuptials.

  Then, in our sophomore year of high school, Jax cornered me next to the old oak in his mother’s front yard that we must have climbed a thousand times to sit in the tree hou
se perched in its branches—and he straight up asked if I liked him. Of course, I lied. I said I was totally in love with Miles Frampton from history class, and that if he ever cornered me with that I’m-going-to-land-you-horizontal look in his eyes again, I would have Miles tear his hairy little balls off. That, right there, launched us onto a rocky road that we have never recovered from.

  Jax didn’t seem too afraid of my quasi-violent verbal exchange. Instead, he happily starred in a parade of vaginas—an entire sisterhood of girls who fell to their knees and worshiped at the altar of his boxers.

  I know what you’re thinking. Why the lie? I wish I knew that myself. But sex, lies, and vagina parades aside, Jax has morphed from the sweet, kindhearted boy whom I once made mud pies with, to an obnoxious sex machine that sees prospective bedmates as nothing more than walking unruptured hymens and pillowy boobs he can bury both his face and junk in. Jax Stade is not the boy I grew up with, and that’s too bad because I actually miss that boy on occasion.

  “Oh, hon”—Sadie shakes her head in his direction—“if I know one thing about Jaxson Stade—it’s that there will be no marriage bed.”

  “And if you’re lucky”—Mack holds her drink in the air—“you’ll both escape that thorny matrimonial cage yourself.”

  Both she and Sadie whoop it up in honor of their shared disdain for the diamond-clad union.

  Mack shudders as she downs the shot in her hand and lets out a howl that nearly pierces my eardrum. “Who’s in for another round? I’ve got you covered, girls.” She takes a few dancing steps away as she edges toward the bar. “We’re going to get M.C. Hammered tonight!”

  “Nice.” I frown over at my lush of a sister. It’s clear I’ll be the designated driver of the evening. Hunter, my old buddy who owns the Starry Nights Bar and Grill, actually has a system in place to make sure there are no drunk drivers on the loose in Oak Grove. There’s an entire volunteer force ready and willing to pick up the sloppy drunks as they stumble out of the bar.

  “Nice?” Sadie nudges her shoulder up against mine. “Or is it naughty thoughts infiltrating your undersexed brain? That boy has it going on, Poppy.” She lets out a deep, unruly moan. “You do realize you are the sole reason I haven’t pounced on that Christmas package he’s got tucked away in those tight in all the right places, naturally distressed Levi’s. This is the first night I’ve seen him in anything but a suit, and, dear God, you have not lived until you’ve seen Jaxson Stade in a well-sculpted Italian masterpiece.” She swoons on cue, and as much as I hate myself for it, I swoon right along with her.

  “I’ve seen him in a suit plenty of times.” True. And I can attest to the fact he’s just as sexy and swoon-worthy as she claims.

  “Not lately. Not with that new body of his. Jax has been hitting the irons like a prisoner. He’s practically a fixture on the main road as he jogs that rock-hard, shirtless, glossed with sweat body of his. Mmm...” She gives a wistful shake of the head. “You should see the backup on that two-lane stretch from seven to nine.”

  “Seven to nine in the morning? I see he’s going after the MILF demographic.” Not surprising since everyone knows he’s just about raising his sister’s son ever since Jules’s husband ran out on her. Jules is a few years older than us, and my heart broke when I heard her oaf of a husband took off for the concrete pastures of Manhattan.

  “He doesn’t care about the MILFs, Poppy.” Sadie cocks her head as if she wants me to read between the MILF-fy lines, but I refuse to do it. There is absolutely nothing to read at all. Jax and I simply aren’t happening.

  And then, just like that, his clear blue eyes settle over me, and he rises a notch out of that crowd of estrogen enough for me to see his dimples digging in on either side of his cheeks, and both Sadie and I lurch a bit.

  “He’s spotted you in the wild!” she squeals.

  I open my mouth to protest the idea, but it’s too late. She’s right, and he’s headed this way.

  “Oh my God!” Sadie does a quick tap dance in her ruby red slippers, and suddenly I’m feeling like there’s no place like home. Why did I think showing up at Starry Nights was a good idea, again? “He’s coming over! He’s parting the sea of redheaded skanks, and he’s coming to see you! Oh my God, this is so exciting! And to think, all those girls have waited all night to see where his penis compass would lead him, and here it’s been pointing to you all along. I bet that needle-dick of his has been pointing hard your way for the last five years—not that he has anything as minute as a needle-dick. It’s just a play on—”

  “I get it!” I give her a quick swat over the arm, but oh my God… It’s as if the world takes life down a notch, and suddenly everything is unfolding in slow motion.

  Jaxson Stade walks steadily toward me with that cocky grin curling up his lips, those dangerous sapphire eyes fixed over mine, holding me hostage right where I am, helpless to do anything but wait for him to close the distance between us. His flannel is split open down the front, revealing a white T-shirt stretching taut over his chest, the contours of which demand that the cotton adhere to every sculpted ridge. Damn, that boy is sexy as hell. A breath gets locked in my throat as he swoops in so close I’d swear those lips were coming in for the kill far earlier than midnight.

  “Poppy Montgomery.” He pulls me into a tight embrace, his heavy chest presses to mine as I take in the spiced scent of his thick cologne. Those strong, heavy arms, those thick fingers pressing into me, evoke a choking sigh from me. I try to tell myself that I’m not interested in his basic bad boy persona and those basic unearthly good looks. That the fact I’m shuddering from a spontaneous orgasm is just an aftereffect from the rather prolonged dry spell I’m currently enduring, but Jax’s stark sex appeal demands I tell the truth. His heart-stopping looks, those cobalt bedroom eyes, coupled with the fact his rock-hard girth is pressed tight against me, have my body quivering in all the right places.

  “Jaxson Stade.” I try to sound equally as jovial, but it comes out more of a whimper after a long wild romp. Something I’m sure he’s accustomed to—both the whimper and the long wild romp.

  He pulls back, his arms slipping down toward my waist, and our eyes lock a moment, and there it is—that unspoken secret we have lingering between the two of us about as welcome as head lice, but neither of us is willing to give in to it.

  “Good to see you.” His fingers press in over my arms just enough, and a part of me wonders if that’s sexual code for let’s hit the sheets later. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that he and his hussies have established their own perverted language through a series of clicks and whistles. “I hear you’re killing it in L.A.” He winces a little when he says it as if it pained him on some level. “I always knew you would.” He offers a congratulatory tap to my back before taking a step away, his arms hanging awkwardly at his side as if that were the last place they wanted to be.

  “Of course, I’m killing it.” I am so not killing it. Unless, of course, you categorize fetching coffee and flagging down Uber drivers as a success. In that case, I am totally killing it. I avert my eyes to Sadie. My little blonde nymph of a friend is the only one I’ve divulged the truth to so far. I was too afraid if I told Mack, she’d tell Mom who would understandably tell Dad and they’d both veto my very adult decision to stay on the West Coast sans friends and family as I venture daily to the beach for a sand nap. The horrible truth is, I recently quit my job. As soon as my boss made it clear he wanted me on the mattress more than he wanted me decorating the mattress, I told him he could bend over and suck his own fat dick because I wasn’t about to do it. I believe his parting words to me were you’ll never decorate in this town again! And true to his prophetic utterings, I’ve yet to find a firm that will take me. I put out the feelers far and wide, and I’m still hoping against hope I come up with something fast because my bank account is running on fumes and my roommate already has a pair of Russian twins in the wings who make a steady living down on Hollywood Boulevard dressed as Wonder Woman
and Supergirl ready to replace me.

  “And now you’re killing me.” Jax steps back enough to take in the rest of me. “Bringing L.A. back to Oak Grove, I see.” He shakes his head at my ensemble of choice. “The boys better watch out.” He tips his cocky yet impossibly gorgeous head my way. Those dazzling eyes of his latch onto mine once again. “So you’re here for the big birthday slash announcement, I take it.” His lips twitch as if he’s holding back a laugh, and the thought of Jax having a good chuckle at my expense enrages me. I’m sure he’s been laughing at me all along. I can’t shake the feeling he sees through my façade, right down to the dirty glorified Starbucks’s secretary details.

  “Exactly that.” I swallow hard. It’s only partially a lie. Yes, our mothers are set to announce something they promise will knock our socks off in just a few short weeks at their shared sixty is sensational birthday bash, but I’m also hoping to score a small personal loan from my father that will get me through the spring.

  “Mmm.” He gives a quick moan while drinking down my features as if he hadn’t seen them one too many times already. But there’s something about hearing that moan—watching the way his left eye came just shy of winking as if he were indulging in something far too delicious for words sends my thighs trembling once again. In the five years since I’ve seen him, he’s grown into a full-blown man. His chest has filled out, his face is that much more comelier, and those lips, those cutthroat deep flame blue eyes—God Almighty, someone call the fire department. This boy has set my panties on fire.