When Ember saw me, she quickly waved.
I pushed my way toward the stage, shoving people out of my way.
The years of playing football in high school paid off when I exploded in size right after my sixteenth birthday. I quit that fucking shit a long time ago though but stuck it out in the weight room. I went from playbooks to just being a player. Bigger muscles, some ink, and a love for fast motorcycles and faster women, and here I was.
I reached up to the stage and waved for Ember to come to me.
Anyone who dared to question what I was doing would get a punch in the mouth.
Anyone who dared to not get out of my way would be forcefully removed.
Ember got within reach and I pulled her off the stage.
She let out a yell and laughed as I wrapped my arms around her back and buried my face into her chest. She threw her head back and dug her nails into the back of my head. Knowing I only had a few seconds here, I quickly eased my mouth over her left breast and nibbled at her piercing. I tugged at the silver bar.
A hand clamped on my shoulder and pulled.
I didn’t move.
I felt a hard thud against the lower left side of my back.
I grunted and grabbed Ember by the ass and helped her back on stage.
All I could smell was cucumber lotion and sweat.
“You’re out of here, dickhead!” a voice yelled behind me.
I turned, and a gigantic bouncer stood there.
He had been the one who punched me.
He expected me to go down.
But I never went down.
I’d fight to the fucking death.
“Yeah?” I asked him.
“Get the fuck out of here,” he ordered. “You and your boys. Night’s over.”
I looked back at Ember. She blew me a kiss and I nodded.
She’d text me when she was done.
I’d come back.
She’d ride my dick for an hour in the back of my truck until she couldn’t take anymore. Then she’d finish me off with her mouth, my treat for her, and then she’d go home.
I walked through the strip club with Jared and Tristian.
Once we were outside, I had no intention of anything else happening.
But then the bouncer decided to give me a little shove at my back.
“Stay the fuck away,” he ordered.
“Don’t do it,” Tristian said.
Too late.
I spun around and threw a right hook.
I smashed the bouncer in his jaw and he toppled to the ground, covering his face.
Two other bouncers came out of the puffy leather doors of the strip club and just stared.
“We’re leaving!” Jared called out.
He grabbed my shoulder. As I walked backwards, I curled my lip and stared at the other two bouncers.
It was time to go though.
I had left my mark on the night.
* * *
I woke up in my truck and looked down at my jeans halfway down to my knees. I was standing tall and thick, the bottom of my dick resting against the bottom of the steering wheel as though it was going to drive.
Morning wood.
For me it was more like morning redwood tree trunk.
I put my head back and felt the night before playing out the best it could.
My life was lived on the edge of danger and stupidity and I knew it. And I didn’t give a shit.
To be fair, I only had two drinks at the strip club before we left.
When we got back to the shop, I pounded a bottle of water before driving.
I went right back to the strip club and drank a bottle on my own as I waited for Ember’s shift to end.
Ember.
Fuck.
I looked to my right and the passenger seat was empty.
I rubbed my face and sucked in a breath.
In some twisted way I had become immune to hangovers. I would just get tired. That was it.
So, the plan now was to grab a bite and head home to wash the night off and then sleep until tomorrow. A solid twenty hours would do me good. Especially after the last week of work.
I looked down at my dick again and frowned.
What a waste of a good hard on.
And there was no fucking way in hell I was going to be that chump jerking himself off out back of a strip club. That was for husbands and losers who couldn’t get laid on their own.
I reached for my jeans when I heard a noise behind me.
I turned my head and saw Ember in the backseat of my truck.
She was in nothing but a pair of black panties.
“Good morning to me,” I whispered as I scanned her body.
From her black painted toenails all the way up to her delicious looking tits to her pretty face. There were a few fleeting seconds where I almost wanted to know everything about her. Take her on a date. Fuck her properly in a bed.
But those seconds came and went.
She was good for one thing.
She knew it. I knew it.
I was good for one thing too.
I knew it. She knew it.
That’s how it worked.
She slowly started to wake up.
She sat up and moved her messy hair out of her face.
“Morning, babe,” I said.
“Hey,” she said. “I guess we crashed hard, huh?”
I looked on the floor of the backseat and saw three condoms.
I nodded. “Guess we earned it.”
Ember laughed.
She leaned forward as though she were going in for a good morning kiss.
Which would never happen with me.
By morning, you were already out of my mind.
Instead, she looked down at me and groaned.
“Good morning to me,” she said.
Without another word, she climbed into the passenger and put her ass against the window as she leaned over me.
I sucked in a breath as her lips slid down me.
Yeah, not a bad morning at all.
* * *
I needed some damn coffee.
My eyes kept trying to close on me, which wasn’t a good thing.
I had full condoms, an empty bottle of whiskey, and pieces of Ember’s clothes in the backseat of my truck. I didn’t need to crash and end up as a fucking spectacle.
As soon as I spotted the first coffee place, I pulled over.
I had no idea what the fuck PB stood for other than peanut butter, but I saw people leaving the place with coffee.
When I opened the door, I was hit with that beautiful smell of coffee.
It was almost as good as the beautiful smell between a woman’s legs.
I stuck out like a sore thumb.
My size. My ink.
The fact that I probably stunk like sex and whiskey.
I looked half dead, one foot in the grave, but I didn’t give a damn what anyone else thought of me.
I respectfully waited in line, my mouth damn near watering the entire time because of how good the coffee smelled.
When it was finally my turn, the woman behind the counter looked at me and her eyes went wide. She was cute as anything. This little thing I could toss around my bed for a few hours. She looked like an artist. The way her hair was messy, off to the side on purpose, it was obvious as fuck.
I ordered my coffee and she refused to take her eyes off me.
Which meant I now had plans for the night.
I waited for the moment I could put my hand to hers as I paid and tell her to keep the change in exchange for her phone number, someone came from the back of the cafe.
I saw her from the corner of my eye and I turned my head.
She looked right at me wearing big, black frames on her face.
I instantly started to laugh.
Her cheeks turned bright red.
So, she remembered me.
I definitely remembered her.
The girl I used to pick on… who was now all woman…
4
(Lauren)
THEN
I watched him from my bedroom window.
All I wanted to know was why he was such a jerk to everyone. Especially to me. My friends told me it was because he liked me. That when a boy likes a girl, he picks on her. Because he never hurt me, he just picked on me. I didn’t feel in danger near him. I just hated him.
I asked Gram about it and she told me that any boy who picks on a girl, whether he likes her or not, is a moron. I agreed with Gram.
Except I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Or the fact that he wanted to kiss me.
I refused to kiss him, so he brought me a frog to kiss.
Maybe he was used to other girls just kissing him…
My cheeks felt warm.
Other girls? Kissing?
I had never kissed a boy before.
Most of my friends had though.
Sarah did. She kissed boys with her tongue. She let a boy… feel her up. And she even touched…
I couldn’t think about it.
I wasn’t sure how all that stuff was supposed to make me feel.
I secretly regretted not kissing Asher when I had the chance.
The baddest boy in school. The kid who spent more time in the principal’s office than in class. He was forever in detention, but never suspended or kicked out because he played football. Coach Harrison was always there to bail him out.
All of it just added to this crazy mystery that I for some reason found intriguing.
I heard the clanking of the fence and put my face to the window.
A second later I saw Asher’s silhouette as he carried his football stuff. His shoulder pads over his helmet and he carried it so coolly. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and he looked like a model from a catalog selling young men’s cologne or something. He was sweaty, his hair messy, and he tossed his stuff to the porch. He looked around and reached behind him and brought a sort of flat bottle out of the back of his football pants.
It was booze.
He liked to drink.
He bragged about it.
He could get drunk and handle himself.
I stepped back and bit my pointer finger.
Sarah told me if I didn’t get my first kiss out of the way, I was in big trouble. She said I needed to get everything out of the way now when it was okay for it to be awkward. Which made total sense.
I looked at myself in the mirror and tucked my hair behind my ears.
This was nothing.
This was stupid.
It was Asher.
He was a complete jerk.
It would be quick and that would be that.
He’d make a comment about my glasses and I’ll call him Ash-hole and walk away.
I hurried out of my room to sneak a kiss.
I was going to kiss the bad boy next door.
* * *
My grandmother used to tell me that I was like a butterfly. For a moment it felt right to hear but then I realized what that kind of meant. Sort of like the ugly duck story. That I was a fuzzy worm caterpillar thing and not a butterfly that was pretty.
No. I didn’t like that.
Even though I kept calling myself a butterfly as I walked down the sidewalk toward Asher’s apartment building. We each lived in a house that had been cut up and split into three apartments. That annoyed me because if it was left as a single house, I’d actually live in a place that wasn’t so crammed and embarrassing.
But back to me…
I was more than a butterfly.
I was becoming a woman.
There were things about me that had changed over the summer. I was bigger in places than a lot of girls. And guys like Asher liked that kind of thing.
So, for now we’d start with a kiss. And maybe if he stopped being a complete and total jackass, there could be other things for him. And for me. We could be friends, neighbors, and two people who… you know… fooled around…
I was blushing by the time Asher saw me.
My mind raced with a billion things.
He stood there and stared at me.
His body so chiseled and ripped for his age.
“Want a drink, four eyes?” he asked.
I touched my glasses and swallowed hard. “No.”
“Have you ever taken a drink?”
“Of course.”
“I’m talking hard stuff,” Asher said. “Not that fake, bubbly shit you steal from the corner store.”
“Alcohol is alcohol,” I said. “You know, Sarah flashed her neighbor last time we drank.”
I cringed.
Was I trying to impress him with someone else’s story?
Asher laughed. “Sarah. Those little mosquito bites are impossible to see.”
I gasped.
“But you,” Asher said with a grin. “What about you, Lauren? Who have you flashed?”
“Nobody.”
“Let’s pretend my name is nobody,” Asher said.
“I didn’t come here for that,” I said.
“I’ve thought about it. About you. About them.”
He was referring to my chest.
I took a shaky breath. “Won’t my glasses get in the way?”
“I won’t be looking at your glasses.”
“I came here to kiss you,” I blurted out.
Asher raised an eyebrow. “Did you now?”
“You wanted to kiss me before…”
“I’ve wanted to kiss you for a long time, Loser Lauren.”
I hadn’t heard that from him in a while.
“Here I am,” I said.
Asher put the bottle of booze down and walked toward me.
His skin still glistened with sweat from football practice.
As he got closer, I thought about what he used to say and do to me. And what Gram used to say to me.
They both convinced me at one point that I could get pregnant by kissing a boy. I was pretty sure that was Gram’s way of keeping me safe and from experimenting. It was easier for her to scare me with getting pregnant rather than talking to me about how I felt. Which I sort of understood.
But Asher was the one who started it.
He said he saw a video under his uncle’s bed that had two people kissing and the woman got pregnant. We were only seven at the time, but I believed him. So, he would chase me around, making kissing sounds, laughing.
I never wanted to have a baby with Asher.
Then or now. Or for the rest of my life.
Although now I knew kissing a boy would not get me pregnant.
Asher reached for my cheek and curled his lip.
His eyes were evil. Mean.
It was like being at the zoo and putting your face against the tank of a nasty looking snake. Knowing you could mess with it and it would never get to you.
Except Asher wasn’t in a tank.
He was real.
He was touching me.
‘Gram, if you kiss a boy, will you have a baby with him?’
‘You are not to kiss any boys. Ever.’
‘But… can you get pregnant…?’
‘Yes, yes you can, Lauren. Never kiss a boy. Do you understand?’
The words echoed in my head.
I stepped back.
I put my hand out and touched Asher’s slippery chest.
‘You can’t kiss me, Asher. I don’t want to have a baby with you.’
‘I’m going to kiss you, Loser Lauren. We’re going to have a baby together. It’s going to be just like me.’
‘That’s the worst thing in the world! You’re a terrible person, Ash-hole.’
And then Asher would pucker his lips and chase me.
There wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t tell me stories of how when boys and girls kissed, they would have a baby together.
When I was seven it made sense.
Seven years later it was ridiculous… but it still irked me.
“Never mind,” I said.
Asher
took his hand from my face. “You’ll regret it someday, four eyes.”
“Better than having a baby with you.”
Asher started to laugh. “Tell me you don’t believe that still.”
I swallowed hard. “I’m going home.”
Asher laughed louder. Obnoxiously louder. He clapped his hands and cackled.
“You’ll believe anything! Hey… hey… if you lick a piece of dog crap, you’ll find a hundred dollars in your pocket. No, wait, better yet… if you shave your head, you’ll pass all your tests! Because your hair won’t be weighing down your brain.”
Anger flooded my body.
Tears filled my eyes.
I ran home to the sound of Asher laughing at me.
I couldn’t wait to never see him again for the rest of my life.
5
(Lauren)
NOW
Asher.
Ash-hole.
Asshole.
He stood at my counter, in my cafe with that same look on his face. The whole bad boy thing had paid off as he was now a man. That clean cut, surfer boy face was now a very well-defined jaw with a line of messy scruff. His eyes were the same dark and evil color. His hair was in all directions as though he just woke up in the backseat of a car or something. He wore a t-shirt that was maybe purchased a size too small on purpose to show off his muscles, although he didn’t need to do that at all.
He had gotten big over the last summer of high school, right before he quit the football team and became this cigarette smoking, motorcycling riding, bar fighting kind of guy.
Now he was built like a steel wall.
Tattoos grazed both arms and when he wrapped his hand around the coffee cup, it damn near disappeared.
There was a silver chain around his neck that was crooked as it rests against the left side of his chest.
Everything about him was different yet somehow the same.
If anything, I figured he was either on the run from the cops or maybe just got out of jail.
I had no desire to talk to him.
I hadn’t seen him in almost ten years.
Marissa looked back at me then looked at Asher again.
She looked back at me again and raised both of her eyebrows.
“I think we should bring that one pastry back, Lauren,” Peggy said from behind me. “The one where-”
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