by E. M. Moore
“There’s cereal in the cupboards,” he says after clearing his throat.
I head that way. “Are you the only one up?”
“No, we’re all up. It’s almost noon, you know.”
“I must’ve lost all track of time when I was locked in a fucking room.”
Footsteps sound from another direction. “Is that Shortie sounding so bitchy this morning?”
I look over my shoulder when his footsteps stop. He’s in the mouth of the living room, just staring at me. When he sees me looking over, he chuckles and shakes his head. “This ought to be fun.”
“If by fun you mean torture,” Lex says.
Cade makes a non-committal sound and shrugs. “Whatever.”
I shake my head. I have no idea what they’re talking about and the only thing I can think about right now is food. My stomach growls, reminding me of my quest. I find some cereal and a bowl and fix it myself before sitting at the kitchen island. “Just where is Lucky Number Seven this morning?” I deadpan.
“Talking to Sasha out front. They had a bit of a fight last night.”
“I can’t imagine why.” I roll my eyes. “And you guys say I’m a bitch.”
“She’s jealous,” Cade says. “You should go out there and let Reid know you’re up. He wanted to know.”
“No thanks. Reid doesn’t need to know my whereabouts all the time.”
“Aw, come on. It’ll be fun. Plus, you’ll probably be getting her back for dumping gravy all over you.”
I lift my gaze to meet his. “How so?”
He smirks. “I don’t think you understand how you look right now, Briar. Trust me, she’ll want to kill you showing up in Reid’s jersey like that.”
A small smile flits across my face. I shouldn’t be so petty…but I am. I finish my cereal up, wipe my lips with the back of my hand, and stand. “This look okay?” I ask the two of them.
“You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into,” Lex cautions.
I turn toward Cade. If he approves, I know I’m gold. “You look perfect, Shortie.”
I strut toward the front door. I look through the glass and see that the two of them are talking a little way down the sidewalk. They’re separated by about a foot, and I can only see their profiles. With a deep breath, I pull the front door open and lean out. “Hey, Reid.”
They both turn. Sasha’s face goes from surprise to fury within a nanosecond. After I’m satisfied with that reaction, I turn toward Reid to complete the reason for coming out here. His look takes my breath away. His stare is all consuming, eating me up from my head all the way to my toes.
I force words from my mouth. “The guys said you wanted to know when I was up, so…I’m up.”
“What the hell is she still doing here?” Sasha cries.
Reid’s already walking toward me. “Got to go,” he calls out over his shoulder to his supposed girlfriend. “Talk to you later.”
He moves inside, making me step back. Just before the door closes on Sasha, her mouth is open wide, and staring daggers at both Reid and me. Reid blinks as he locks the main house door behind him. I can feel the eyes of both Cade and Lex on us too.
“What the fuck are you wearing?” Reid asks.
I shrug. “I found the old jersey in your closet and the shorts in your dresser. The clothes I wore yesterday either smell like gravy or an ale factory. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“He doesn’t,” Cade says.
“Fuck you,” Reid spits back at him, glaring at his friend over his shoulder.
Then, Cade just laughs and slips back into the living and dining room. Lex stays there for a few moments longer. He shifts his weight from foot to foot until Reid gives him a look, then he swears and walks away, his neck splotchy red.
“I hear you and Sasha got into it last night,” I say.
Reid just keeps staring at me, his eyes wide as he mostly zeroes in on the jersey of his I put on. I cross my arms in front of myself, trying to shield me from his stare. What’s his problem?
He shakes his head. “Yeah. We did.”
“Isn’t she a little too bitchy for you? I mean, not that you’re the King of Nice, but she’s just…mean.” This isn’t a new thought for me. I’ve been thinking this ever since he and Sasha started dating. I know my brother was wary of her at first, too, but then I think that they’d all pretty much gotten use to her. He’d still complain about her from time-to-time, but not like in the beginning. She was just a necessary evil when she was around, but she wasn’t hardly around either. Not until Brady died. Now she seems like a permanent fixture at his hip.
“You need to take that jersey off, Briar.”
I blink at him. “Why?”
“Now,” he says, his voice hardening.
“Fine,” I say. I pull the jersey over my head right there in the hallway and then throw it at him. “Happy? Jesus.”
His eyes zero in on my chest. Typical male. He whips his shirt off and throws it at me. “Put this on.”
His nostrils flare. I go to tug it over my head, and I’m suddenly doused with the smells of Reid Parker, a sweet, musky scent that makes me breathe in deep.
As soon as his shirt is pulled over me and draping toward my mid-thigh, I look up at him. I ogle his pecs up close, tugging on my bottom lip with my teeth. Typical female.
Reid is a specimen of athleticism. He’s gorgeous, has the perfect body, with the attitude to match.
“Anything else you need me to do?” I ask, my voice clocked in annoyance even though I’m anything but right now.
“Yeah, you wear a player’s jersey like that, you suck his cock. That’s the rule.” He slinks forward until my back hits the hallway wall. “You got that.”
My heart starts pounding like mad in my chest. He places one hand by my head and towers over me. I’m surrounded by his scent now. He’s in front of me and on me. There’s a feral nature to his eyes that send a yearning through my core. I don’t know what Reid is thinking about behind those green eyes, but I like it. I like it a whole lot. “I-I didn’t know.”
His free hand moves between us. “I can tell. Should I make you? Now that you know, I mean?” He’s not really asking me. He’s asking himself, so I don’t bother answering. His body starts to shift, and it’s only then that I realize he’s stroking himself right there in the hallway in front of me.
My pussy clenches. My eyes drift down, and I get a glimpse of him that makes my heart stutter.
“Eyes up here, Briar,” he snaps.
I do as he says, squeezing my back against the wall some more and planting my palms on the wall as I stare into his eyes.
His breathing ratchets up, and his movements become more pronounced. He groans. “Oh, fuck.”
I suck my lips between my teeth and groan with him. Every nerve ending I have in my body is fired up. Heat patches blaze all over my skin.
“The only way this would be better is if you were on your knees, your lips—”
“Around you?” I ask. “Taking your length inside my hot mouth.”
All I see are his pupils. His eyes are like big, black circles. His body shutters a couple times with his climax, then his other palm grips the wall as he leans forward over me. “Next time you pay the price, Briar.”
He leaves with that. I look down to see his cum spilled between my feet on the floor. I drop my head back against the wall. I think next time I’d enjoy paying the price. My entire body flushes red as I stare up at the ceiling.
Lex comes around the corner then. “You okay?”
I nod and swallow at the same time. “I’m good.”
“Come on, I’ll take you home.”
“Briar’s not going home,” Reid calls from somewhere in the house. Then, he comes into view, drying his hands on a hand towel. “I believe someone has homework to catch up on and since I told her mother last night that we all stayed up late to help Briar do her work and then it got too late to take her home, I’m sure she doesn’t want to make a liar out
of me.”
I’ve been wondering why my mother hadn’t called freaking out. When I ran away before, I got calls from her almost every thirty minutes.
I look from him to the spilled cum. If my mother only knew about the boy trying to help her.
“Get your bag and get to work, Briar. No fucking excuses.”
“Bag’s already out on the kitchen island,” Cade calls out.
I look both Lex and Reid in the eyes. Neither one of them is going to budge. I’m not getting out of here without their say. Walking forward, I step over Reid’s release like it didn’t even happen and push past him to sit in front of my bookbag. I can’t believe the three jocks are telling me to do my homework. Not that these three are the typical jocks you see on TV. They’ve always kept decent grades. The teachers don’t have to mess with their grade books just to give them passing averages so they can play. No, they take their position on the team seriously. They make sure they have the right to play both academically and physically. They study, they do their homework, and they attend practices with workouts on top of that. I remember my brother coming over to Reid’s house during the early summer for a makeshift football camp. They ran drills, upped their skill level. They pushed themselves to be this good by themselves.
With that thought, I crack open my first book and get to reading. A folder is slipped next to me. Lex nods. “I took the liberty of making sure you had every assignment you need to turn in.”
For being only the third week of school, it’s surprising how much there is to do. It’s because I’m still on the accelerated track. I’m taking college level courses where the work is no joke.
Hours go by without me noticing. By the time I finish, I have a splitting headache and the guys are nowhere to be seen. I grab a bottle of water from the fridge and head out onto the back deck. They’re all there, shirts drenched in sweat as they pour over game footage from the previous day. Coach must have sent it to them.
“Is that Winthrop?” Lex asks, pointing to the screen.
Reid grunts in agreement.
“I hate that fucker.”
Reid glares over at him, but he catches me in his peripheral. He shuts the laptop, and I continue fully outside, his shirt still swimming halfway down my legs.
“You finished?” he asks.
“Yes.” I sound ungrateful because I’m trying to sound that way, but in reality, I’m relieved to have all that work done. It was sitting like a weight on my shoulder. Despite my actions lately, I really do care about school. It’s hard to just turn one-eighty and think something completely different no matter how hard I try. “Everything’s done. I’m caught up.”
“Was that so bad?” Cade asks.
I roll my eyes. “Don’t fuck with me right now, Farmer. I have a headache.”
Lex’s chair scrapes across the concrete, and he slips past me through the back door. Reid watches him go and then turns toward me. “You actually did it? No fake answers? No writing anything down just to get it done?”
“You think it would’ve taken me that long if I just wrote random shit down?”
His gaze narrows like he’s trying to tell if I’m being honest or not.
“You want to check it over?”
Lex comes back out on to the deck. “Here,” he says. He holds out his palm. There are two white capsules there. “For your headache.”
“Ugh, you’re a lifesaver,” I tell him. “Thank you.”
I take both pills with the water bottle in my hand and then look up at all of them. Reid is still eyeing Lex suspiciously as he stands near me. “Can I go home now?”
Cade scratches his jaw. “Everyone’s at the lake…” He’s not looking at me. He’s staring at Reid.
Reid shrugs. “Just keep Sasha away from me. I’ve had enough shit for today.”
I look between the two of them. “Can you drop me off on the way at least?”
Reid shakes his head. “You’re coming with us.”
My whole body sags. “I don’t want to be anywhere Sasha is.” Or you for that matter.
“You’re in luck.” He stands and walks past me. When he gets to me, he leans down. “Neither do I.”
I know what happens at the lake. A lot of drinking and swimming. “I don’t have a suit,” I tell them, trying to think of any excuse.
“We’ll figure something out,” Cade says, patting me on the head. He’s grinning from ear-to-ear. The lake is the place to be for someone like Cade Farmer. Half-naked girls everywhere. Wait, correct that. Half-naked, intoxicated girls everywhere.
Joy.
13
“The Lake” as everyone calls it is actually Lake Neavarro. It’s about a quarter of an hour outside of Spring Hill. In the summer, it’s filled with families and teenagers, everyone looking for relief from the summer heat. Now that school is back on, there’s barely anyone here. When we pull into the public parking lot, there are more cars than normal, but I know it’s probably just other students from SHH who heard that other people were going to be here today.
Brady loved it here.
He wanted a lake house when he grew up. Not here, of course, but somewhere else. A place he could escape to during the off-season of the NFL. A place he could fish, bring the family, just a place to relax from the rest of the world.
I had a stomachache all the way here because I wasn’t sure how I would react being at the lake again, knowing it was one of Brady’s favorite places and that he’d never be able to see it again. When we get out of the car, though, only the best of Brady’s memories hit me in the chest. He and I as little kids playing frisbee by the water’s edge. Coming here with these three knuckleheads as we got older. They started liking girls before I liked guys, so I didn’t understand why they’d stop playing a game of volleyball right in the middle just because another cluster of girls walked by.
The thought makes me smile, looking out at the very spot the volleyball net is still located.
“Whoa, are you delirious, Briar?” Cade asks. “Because I could swear you’re smiling, but you’re not known to do that these days.”
When I look up, I catch Reid’s eye over the top of his car. Coincidentally, he’s smiling, too, but when I see him, I drop my gaze and look away. “You’re mistaken, Farmer.”
“Of course. Can’t let anyone see that you’re happy,” he deadpans.
He’s not wrong. If people see that I’m happy, they’re going to think I don’t miss Brady and that’s not true. I miss him so much it hurts. “Are we doing this or what?”
“You sure know how to have fun, don’t you?”
“Fuck off.”
He gestures toward me. “Exhibit A, Jury.” He leans over, brushing his shoulder with mine. “Come on, Briar. It’ll be fun, I promise. I’ll swim with you out to the platform.”
I smile again even though I don’t mean to. There’s a diving platform out toward the middle of the lake. The swimming area is sectioned off with buoys. The shallow area ends at about five feet, but when you keep going out, you can’t touch at all. My parents would always get worried I wouldn’t be able to make it, so that was their one rule: Brady, or one of the others, would have to swim out there with me. They usually would, but they always would if there happened to be a cute lifeguard on duty. “I don’t think I need your help anymore, Cade, but thanks for offering.”
I already texted my mother on the way here, letting her know I’d finished my work and that we were headed out to the lake. She told me to have a good time. I get the feeling she doesn’t care where I am as long as I’m with these guys. If I were out by myself, then she’d be calling or texting every half hour making sure I’m not headed toward Calcutta—the big city where I’m bound to get raped and murdered and taken advantage of.
I lean back into the backseat of Reid’s Escape. He threw together a bunch of beach towels in a bag his mom had. Lex takes it from me as we walk toward the sand. There’s a little concession stand to our left along with a store where I’m hoping I can find a decen
t bathing suit. The guys didn’t want to waste time to stop at my house, so I could find mine. Instead, I’ll be buying a new one. When we find a good spot near some other football players with a huge cooler, I tell them I’m going to go to the little store.
“Cade,” Reid says, motioning toward me with his head.
Cade sighs, then wraps his arm through mine. “Babysitting duty.”
“I don’t need you to go with me to the store.”
Cade turns my head, and I find Sasha with her crew there. Sasha is glaring daggers at me, sitting there in her hot pink bikini. “If you want to be left alone, fine by me.”
It’s not that I can’t handle Sasha by myself, but she’s a ruthless bitch. She doesn’t care about the scene she makes, and I know for a fact that when Cade or one of the other guys are with me, she won’t be tempted to start her shit. “Fine,” I tell him. “But please don’t say babysit. I’m grown up now. I even showered by myself this morning.”
“So I noticed.”
We walk past the concession stand, the smells of grilled hamburgers and hot dogs assaulting us. I might have to get something to eat here sooner rather than later because I only had cereal so far today.
The little shop is exactly as I remember it. It’s just big enough to sell towels, bathing suits, and beach toys. I head to the rack in the back with the sign that reads fifty percent off End of Summer Blowout Sale with a black Sharpie. There isn’t a lot to choose from and even less so that matches my size, but I settle on a plain turquoise suit. It’s a mix between a one piece and a two piece. The part connecting the bikini top from the bikini bottom is a flimsy see-through mesh. I take it into the very small room in the back that just has a curtain that you pull across to try it on. It’s a little small on top for me. My breasts spill out a little, but it fits perfectly in every other way.
I walk out of the room wearing it, taking my clothes with me. Cade is talking the girl at the counter up. When I get to the register, he turns toward me, the little pout in his lips falling for a brief second. “Looks good.”