Reaching into the bucket, I pulled out a salty peanut, cracked it open, and used my teeth to get the nuts from their shell. Their salty, nutty flavor filled my mouth, and I tossed the shells to my floor. Bits of salt clung to my finger, so I stuck my digit into my mouth and sucked it off. It wasn’t until I pulled my finger from between my lips with a loud pop that I realized every guy, including Josh, was staring at my lips with wide eyes.
“What?” I asked, annoyed. “I was just sucking it off.”
4
Josh
JJ laughed with beer in his mouth, making it spew from his nose.
The fucker.
He was thinking exactly what the rest of us were thinking. Jenny sucking anything off was hot.
She looked around in confusion before she realized what she’d said. Her cheeks pinkened, and I wanted to reach out and feel the heat of them against my fingertips.
She was fucking clueless. She was being seductive without even trying, and the guys at the table were probably sporting massive boners just from watching her suck the salt from her finger. I know I was. Then again, being hard around Jenny had become a problem for the past year of my life.
She was just “sucking it off,” she said, as if her words and actions were innocent.
They weren’t.
Not even fucking close.
Not to mention, the guys had been drinking. We weren’t supposed to be drinking since we were all underage, but JJ’s cousin worked the bar and had no problem whatsoever slipping us a few beers here and there.
“I’ll give you something to suck off,” Vaughn teased, making everyone at the table laugh.
Jenny’s cheeks flushed, and she rolled her eyes. “Please. Everyone’s heard you ain’t packing. You’re just a big boy with a tiny dick.”
And then she stood before Vaughn could respond and left us at the table staring at her back with gaping mouths.
“She’s such a bitch sometimes,” Vaughn mumbled around the mouth of his beer.
“You pushed her. You can’t expect her not to come back with something. Everyone here knows Jenny’s a hard-ass. You get what you give. Be happy she didn’t climb across the table and knock you out,” JJ said, making me proud of my girl.
JJ was right. Vaughn was lucky she only gave him a tongue-lashing. Jenny had been known to climb across tables and go for blood. Not to mention, if she hadn’t said anything, I sure would have.
The guys teasing Jenny had never bothered me this badly, but it seemed these days, they were getting more perverted toward her. I didn’t like it.
She went to the bar, and I watched from my corner while she asked and paid for a bottle of Pepsi. Seeing that she wasn’t drinking, I accepted a bottle of beer when Maggie, the waitress, stopped at our table again.
The room continued to fill the later it got. More people from school showed up, all sunburned from a day on the river. Brandy and her crew came, and I didn’t miss the look in Jenny’s eyes when Brandy leaned over me and whispered how hot I looked in my ear.
She hated girls flirting with me as much as I hated it when the guys flirted with her. Not that it meant anything. At least, I didn’t think it did.
Who knew?
I wasn’t about to ask.
“I don’t know how I managed it, but the top of my ass is sunburned,” JJ said, tugging the back of his jeans down to show how red the top of his ass was.
“Probably because you never pull your damn pants up, and you floated on your stomach most of the day,” Jenny muttered.
“You’re welcome.” He winked.
“It’s not a good thing, JJ. No one wants to see your white ass.”
At her words, the rest of the group at the table laughed.
“I’ll have you know, there are plenty of girls who want to see my ass. You can deny it all you want, but we both know you look at it.”
“Nope.”
The room continued to fill with high schoolers, all seniors ready to graduate. Most were ready to say their goodbyes to our four stoplight town, Jenny and myself included, but as I looked around the space, taking in the faces of the people I had grown up with, I couldn’t help but feel a sadness sweep over me.
Our childhood was officially over.
Our teenage years were ending.
We were on the brink of adulthood, and it filled me with anxiety. Not that I would ever admit that. I wondered if anyone else in the room was as nervous as I was.
JJ’s and Jenny’s teasing became a buzz in my ear as the reality of not seeing Jenny every day settled over me. I was leaving. She was leaving. And it wasn’t together.
I lifted my bottle of beer from the table and chugged it, the cold brew putting out the fire in my chest. It wasn’t like we were going to be a few hours apart.
No.
She was going to be in Texas, and me … well, I had no fucking idea where I would end up.
“Put your money where your mouth is.” I heard Jenny say, already preparing to take JJ’s money.
“Fine. A game of pool. Loser streaks naked through town.”
That caught my attention.
I had no doubt Jenny could beat JJ’s ass in a game of pool, but I wasn’t about to take any chances. Before she could agree, I spoke up. “No. Jenny’s playing me. Y’all can compete with each other later over something else.”
I stood from the table and grabbed my beer around the neck.
“You coming?” I directed my attention at Jenny.
She rolled her eyes, knowing what I was up to without me admitting it.
“Yeah.”
JJ followed us even though for the first time in a long while I hoped he wouldn’t. Maybe going out wasn’t a great idea. Maybe instead of being around everyone, we should have planned a night alone with video games and candy like the old days. But even as the thoughts flowed through my mind, I knew it was a bad idea.
Being alone with Jenny no longer felt safe. I worried my self-control was close to snapping when it came to her, and the last thing I wanted to do was push her away when we were so close to leaving each other. When we finally went our separate ways, I wanted it to be on good terms. It was the only way. Changing the shape of our relationship at such a vital time was a terrible idea. I wasn’t willing to lose her completely.
“You rack ’em,” she said, pulling her hair out of her ponytail holder.
It fell around her shoulders in long waves before she pulled it back up again, smoothing away the flyaway hairs. It was something she did when she was preparing to beat some ass. Jenny was the most competitive person I knew.
Next to JJ, of course.
We stopped at an empty table in the corner, and I collected the balls and arranged them in the rack. Once they were settled, I plucked the rack from around the balls, leaving them in a perfect triangle.
“You break,” I said, pulling a pool cue from the holder screwed to the wall.
I took another pull from my beer before setting it on the side of the pool table. Then I packed the tip of my cue with the blue cue chalk. As I twisted the chalk onto the tip, my eyes caught on Jenny as she slid her hands over the white talcum powder before she stroked her pool cue.
Fuck.
Jenny and I had played pool about a million times over our friendship, but never had dusting a pool cue been a sexual act. I closed my eyes, and a flash of Jenny’s hands stroking my cock rushed through my brain before I banished the thought.
What was coming over me?
At my side, I heard JJ hiss, and I knew he was thinking the same thing I was.
Moving to the end of the table, she bent over and placed the white cue ball where she wanted it. Then she lined up her pool cue as she readied herself to start the game. The tip of her stick struck the racked balls in a loud smack before they scattered across the table, sinking several balls.
“Stripes,” she called out, chalking the tip of her cue once again.
I swallowed, enjoying the determination on her face.
“Eleve
n. Side pocket,” she called her play.
She leaned over once more, priming her cue several times before she went for the target. Her attention was on the table, and every male in the near vicinity’s attention was on her ass.
I didn’t like it.
She sank her ball, standing and moving to a new position on the table.
“Thirteen. Corner pocket,” she said, chalking the tip of her pool stick.
She slid her palms over the stick, getting it nice and smooth, and my dick grew hard.
She bent over the table, her shirt rising a bit to show her side. Jenny was built. It was one of the advantages of staying as active as she did. She never went to the gym, but when she wasn’t at school, she was working in the garage or running drills with us on the field even though Coach would get pissed about it.
The truth was, she was better at football than almost half the guys on our team.
My eyes followed the curve of her side, landing on the dip of her lower back before going over the rise and fall of her plump ass. Jenny’s ass was amazing, especially when she wore tight jeans on a night out.
“Fuck,” JJ whispered at my side, lifting a pool cue like he was going to poke her in the ass. “That ass, though.”
“Do you like your teeth, JJ?” I asked.
He grinned my way and shook his head. “If you don’t claim it soon, one of us will.”
“And one of you will get your ass kicked too.”
She pushed her pool cue straight and slammed the ball she was aiming at right into the corner pocket.
She stood with a grin, moving along the side of the table until she was where she wanted to be. Again, she leaned over. This time, she was facing us, and her T-shirt dipped, giving us the perfect view of her beautiful cleavage.
The necklace I had given her for her sixteenth birthday, a sterling silver rope chain with an oval-shaped locket, was nestled between her gorgeous breasts. There was a tiny picture of the two of us covered in mud tucked inside the locket. In the picture, we have gummy worms hanging out of our mouths and our arms wrapped around each other. It was the summer before third grade, and the memory was still vibrant in my mind.
I stared down her shirt, the necklace disappearing until the only thing I could see was her cleavage.
It was perfect.
Plump.
Tan.
Kissable.
Jenny could wear sports bras all she wanted, but the fact was, the girl had an amazing rack. There was no hiding those gorgeous breasts. I swallowed hard, my eyes following the swell of her breasts before landing in the center of her cleavage and onto the locket once more, knocking me out of my horny daze and making me feel sick with myself.
“Nine. Side pocket,” she said, tapping her cue on the side close to her intended hole.
Again, she jabbed her stick, and the sound of the balls clapping together rang out before the nine ball slammed into the side pocket.
Damn, she was good.
“Fucking A, man, she’s kicking your ass!” JJ laughed, slapping me on the arm.
“Fuck you,” I muttered.
The truth was, it was hot. I loved that Jenny could beat me at things.
When we were younger, I would sometimes let her win, but that didn’t last long, and soon, she was besting me.
Races.
Video games.
You name it. She was always good at it.
She grinned up at me, before standing and moving to another side of the table. I grinned back at her, and something she saw in my expression made her smile drop. She looked away before taking the shot and missing.
I didn’t know what it was, but I didn’t dwell on it as I moved to the side of the table and started sinking balls until I scratched, accidentally sinking the cue ball when I hit it too hard.
We played, her pulling ahead until we got to a point in the game where she just needed to land the eight ball, and she would win the game. I didn’t care. The show she was giving me was worth the loss.
Again, she bent over the table.
“If I make this shot, you owe me gummies,” she said.
I swallowed again, my eyes roaming her face. “Deal.”
I had bags of gummies in my room ready for any occasion.
We played a few more rounds of pool before finding a table in the corner. More friends from school showed up, and our quiet corner soon became loud. Something was off with me. I was all about the party on any other night, but I felt anxious and annoyed. Every time I tried to talk to Jenny, she was being pulled away from me, and I knew it had nothing to do with her conversational skills and everything to do with her coming out of the river earlier without her shorts.
The guys were like a pack of horny dogs chasing after a bitch.
My bitch, to be exact.
Instead of laughing with the crowd and socializing, I sat in my corner with my chair leaning back and my feet resting on the top of the table. I lost count of how many beers I put down but fuck it. I needed something to lessen the anger simmering inside me.
“Come dance with me, Josh,” Brandy called from the center of the room where she and a group of girls had started a small dance floor.
I smiled, my face feeling stiff, and I waved her off. I wasn’t in the mood to pretend. The truth was, no other girl had done it for me in months, and I wasn’t going to bullshit myself and act like I didn’t know the reason for my sudden change.
Jenny.
I bobbed my head to the song playing and took a long pull from the fresh beer the waitress had just set on my table. My eyes roamed the room, taking in the final moments of our teenage life, when I caught Jenny in my sights.
She was in the corner, and Colton Lane was leaning toward her, his arm resting against the wall above her head. Whatever he was whispering in her ear was making her blush.
These fuckers didn’t listen. Only this afternoon, I was telling Colton to keep his eyes and hands away from Jenny. Everyone assumed it was because she was my best friend, which a good bit of it was for that reason, but no one suspected it was because I wanted to be the one whispering dirty things in her ear.
The one touching her.
The one kissing her.
The one … I stopped, my cock growing and pressing into my zipper.
Fuck.
Standing, I went over to JJ.
“Go tell Colton to come here,” I said, only realizing then that there was a slight slur in my words.
He nodded, moving away from my side to do as I asked without any questions.
From my vantage point, I watched as JJ went up to Colton and pulled him in to speak in his ear. Colton’s eyes darted my way before he nodded and said something to Jenny. She smiled, said something, and then moved away from the wall.
Colton’s eyes were hard while he made his way across the room toward me, but he knew better than to start shit.
“What’s up, man?” he asked, sliding into the chair across the table from me.
“Nothing.”
I wasn’t going to make excuses. He knew why I called him over.
Feeling the tension, JJ spoke up. “Man, I wish we had one more season of football to play. I’m going to miss kicking asses on the field.”
Colton’s eyes stayed glued to mine as he said, “Speaking of asses, when did Jenny Michaels turn into porn star material?”
He was taunting me—trying to get me to break. He would have to try harder if that was going to happen. I wasn’t about to out myself when it came to my feelings for Jenny. I was sure a few of my closest friends had a clue, but everyone else, including Jenny, were clueless, and I wanted to keep it that way.
I didn’t respond.
Instead, I locked eyes with him, raising my brow in warning when I lifted my beer to my lips.
“I mean, who knew she had all that sexy hiding under her baggy clothes?” he pushed.
No one at the table responded, somehow knowing he was playing with fire. He had been drinking and so had I. I would give him pass for
the night, but if he kept it up, I couldn’t be responsible for my actions.
Lifting a brow in challenge, he took a swig from his beer before he said, “She’s so fucking rough and rowdy. I bet she fucks like a porn star, too. Guess I’ll find out later tonight when she comes over after she takes you home.”
That was all I needed to hear.
I leaped across the table and went for Colton’s throat, wrapping my fingers tightly around it. The beers on the table went crashing to the floor as I slid over it and jumped him. He rolled us, using my momentum against me, but before he could get in a hit, I pushed him off me and went for him again. Grabbing him around the neck, I landed a punch in his face before I felt someone pulling me off him.
“Fucker!” I heard Colton call out from the floor.
My breath was rushing out, my knuckles aching as I stood over him.
“Say one more fucking thing. I dare you,” I growled down at him.
He wiped at the side of his mouth where a tiny drop of blood had begun, and he stood. He was wobbly, and I wasn’t sure if it was from my fist or if he had drunk too much.
“Fuck you! When I’m done with her, I’m going to tell you all about what an amazing fuck she is!”
I broke out of JJ’s hold, moving too quickly for Colton to block me, before once again wrapping my fingers around his throat and slamming him against the cinder block wall behind him. He growled at me, his fingers digging at mine for me to release my hold.
“Josh, stop it!” Jenny voice broke through.
She clawed at my arm.
“Let him go! He can’t breathe!”
“I don’t care,” I muttered.
And at that moment, friend or not, I didn’t care. I wanted to break him.
“Joshua Black, let him go right fucking now!”
She was strong. She always had been. So, when she buried herself between our chests and pushed against me, I budged. She pushed me farther, a palm on Colton’s chest and one on mine. I looked down, her hand was small and warm, sending a ripple of ease through me.
“What the fuck is going on? Why are y’all fighting?”
Thick & Thin (Chubby Girl Chronicles Book 3) Page 4