The Firsts Series Box Set

by M. J. Fields

  “Well?”

  “We’ve established they are actually B’s, so you can cut the barely, your highness.”

  I can’t help laughing.

  She looks away, and I see the corner of her eyes crinkle. I don’t like it, not one bit.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She shakes her head.

  “I want the truth, Ray.” And I want a smile, not the blank expression she so easily switches from.

  She gives out a loud sigh and shakes her head. “Apparently, she thinks I’m a hooker.”

  I stop dead in my tracks. “What the fuck did you just say?”

  She looks around like she always does.

  “Ray, that pisses me off almost as much as what that big-tittied, bleached-out, saggy ass, wannabe Cover Girl bitch called you.”

  I stop when she smiles. She smiles really big, too. A smile I could just lie there and soak up. Hell, I have been for a week now.

  I shake my head. “Don’t sidetrack me with sunshine, Ray. Give me the truth, or I’ll go back in there and—”

  I stop when she puts her finger over my lips. “Shh … Okay, fine. She called you my boyfriend. I corrected her by saying you weren’t. She likes the movie Pretty Woman.” Her nose scrunches up when she says the name of the movie, like it disgusts her.

  “She likes a movie, so she assumes you’re a fucking—.”

  Again, she puts her finger over my lips. “Look at me, Trucker. Then look in the mirror. I mean, seriously.”

  “You look like the farthest thing from a fucking hooker I have ever seen. You’re naturally beautiful. You don’t show off your barely …” I stop and hold up the bag. “Your B’s.”

  She smiles softly, almost sadly, and I wonder if anyone has ever told her how fucking gorgeous she is.

  “You need to look in the mirror, Ray, and see shit straight, not by the way of bitches who would drop their panties for free just to have my cock tear them apart.”

  We stand there, looking at each other, her eyes smiling. Those fucking eyes are everything. God. Damn. What is it about her?

  I feel a tug on my shirt and turn to look down at a kid, maybe five or six years old, holding a pen and a receipt of some sort.

  He lifts his chin. “Sup?”

  I give him the same look and ask, “Sup with you?”

  He throws his thumb over his shoulder, toward a man with brown hair. “My pops thinks you’re Trucker Cohen.”

  “He does, does he?”

  He nods again. “I don’t. Trucker looks bigger on TV.”

  I cock my head and look down at the little shit as I hear Ray giggle.

  “Anyway, if you are, you wanna sign this for my pops?”

  I reach down and take the receipt and pen. “You ‘Cuse fans?”

  “Heck no. We love Pitt. SU tanks.”

  Little fucker.

  I stop signing and look down at him. “Then, why the hell would you want my autograph?”

  “Trucker,” Ray whispers, warning me to check the temper she clearly knows I have.

  I don’t like kids, but she sure as hell doesn’t need to think I’m a monster because of it. I’m not. I just don’t like the little shits.

  “ ’Cause Pops said, if you keep playing like you did yesterday, you’ll probably get drafted. Then we’ll have your rookie signature and be able to sell it.”

  “You’re kidding me, right?” Snot-nosed little bastard.

  He shrugs. “A man walked on the moon, right?”

  I wanna kick his dad’s ass in front of him.

  “Trucker,” she whispers again.

  I scribble on the paper then hand it back to him. “Tell your pops, when he sells it, he should buy you some manners.”

  He snatches it out of my hand and huffs at me, “Okay, fool.” Then he runs away while Ray tugs my arm so I don’t go after his little ass.

  “Come on; people are staring,” she says, clearly amused.

  “Can you believe that little shit?” I ask, following her.

  “Hey! Hey, Trucker Cohen!” I hear Mr. Manners yell from behind us.

  “How fast can you run?” I ask as I pick up the pace.

  “Why?”

  “HEY!” the demon kid yells.

  “That’s why.” I laugh.

  We run to the escalator and down them, all while that damn kid yells my name. I hear her behind me.

  “Pardon us. Excuse me. Oops, sorry.”

  I can’t help laughing as we run out of the mall and toward my truck.

  I open the door for her, and she jumps in. Then I run around the truck, pulling out my keys. Inside, I start it up.

  “Buckle up, Ray. We need to get the hell out of here.”

  “What did you do?” She asks while laughing as we peel out.

  “Fuck!” I can’t help laughing when I see the kid and his dad running toward us.

  I slam on the brakes, throw it in reverse, and then hit the gas. When there’s room, I crank the wheel, head us in the opposite direction, and floor it.

  “Trucker! There’s a big curb. Big. Curb.”

  I glance over and make sure she’s buckled. She is.

  “This is a big truck. Big. Truck. Hang on, babe.”

  When we hit the cement, she lets out a squeal, grabs the ‘Oh shit’ handle, then starts laughing again. She has the cutest laugh I have ever fucking heard. Not fake, not forced or practiced. It’s real. It’s genuine. It’s … her.

  Holding her hand, I weave in and out of traffic as the fresh air mixes with her scent, along with the sun blasting down on us while music plays loudly. She’s smiling, beaming … squinting.

  I pull my spare key out of my wallet and hand it to her. “Grab the sunglasses out of the glove box.”

  When she opens it, I look over. “Right … there.”

  She laughs. “Next to the five boxes of condoms?”

  “After what we just went through, I’m gonna wrap it with every one of those fucking things so I never have one of my own.”

  She laughs as she asks, “What did you write?”

  “I signed my name on the damn receipt,” I say, trying not to smile.

  “Truth.” She laughs. “Truth, Trucker Cohen!”

  I was beginning to like your highness, but the familiarity, the pure joy in the way she says my name, trumps that of any other female I have spent time with moaning, Fuck me, Trucker.

  “Spill it.”

  “Your attitude sucks as bad as your team and your loyalty to ‘Cuse Nation. Sell that.”

  She laughs out loud, from the bottom of her belly, and shakes her head. “That’s not nice.”

  “That, Keeka …” I pause and laugh when I realize I don’t know her last name. “What the hell is your last name?”

  “Garcia Lopez.”

  Someone stirs in my pants. Boom. “That’s fucking sexy.”

  Thankfully, we are at a stop light, because I have to have those lips.

  I lean over. She’s already turned the hat around so I have immediate access. As soon as my lips touch her soft, plump, sexy as fuck lips, a little burst of hot, sweet breath escapes, and I realize it’s like fucking heroin to a junky, something I crave. Thankfully, I have a four-month pass to it.

  I suck on her lower lip, and then both. I lick them and suck them again before a horn is blown and she pulls back, eyes closed, smiling.

  “What are you smiling about, Keeka Garcia—”

  “Ray. I like when you call me Ray.”

  “I’ll call you anything you want, if you keep letting me feast on you.”

  To that, her eyes pop open and fuck if she doesn’t smile.

  God. Damn.

  Sitting on the blanket I grabbed from my truck, I watch her nibble on a damn Big Mac. “You’re lovin’ it, huh?”

  She smirks and nods. “Haven’t eaten one of these things in forever.”

  I look up at the sky. “I tell her pick anything, and she wants to go through the McDonalds’ drive-through.”

  “No drive
-throughs in New York.”

  “You lived in the city?”

  She nods and continues, “It’s the special sauce.” She takes another bite then licks the “special sauce” off her lips.

  “I have something better.”

  “You got a chicken sandwich.” She rolls her eyes, totally missing what the special sauce is that I’m talking about.

  “Still can’t believe you wanted this shit.” I lean down, resting my head on my elbow.

  “It was always a treat.”

  “Eat at home a lot?”

  She nods as she takes another mouse-sized bite then licks her lips again. Boom notices. “Organic, whole foods. Not this poison.” She laughs and holds it up.

  “What’s your mom? A doctor or something?” I bite into my sandwich.

  She shakes her head. “Just very health-conscious.”

  “She’d die if she saw you McLovin’ that thing.”

  I see her trying not to smile.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing at all.” She looks up and shakes her head.

  “Come on, Ray; truth.”

  She’s thinking, trying to figure out the truth.

  “Truth doesn’t require a lot of thought.”

  “When you’re trying to spare feelings, it does.”

  “My feelings or your mom’s?” I laugh.

  She laughs softly. “You’re not making this easy at all.”

  “Spill it.”

  She scrunches up her nose. “She’s dead.”

  Talk about feeling like a fucking idiot.

  “Jesus, Ray, I’m sorry.”

  She laughs. “You didn’t know that. And you’re right; if she was alive and saw me eating this, she might toss herself over a bridge or something.” She lies back, looking up at the sky.

  “Ray, seriously, I’m sorry.”

  “See? Sometimes the truth is hard.”

  “Didn’t mean to make it hard.”

  “I’m talking about it’s hard for you. I lived it. I’m good. I literally packed a bag and hopped a train to get away from the memories, to start over, you know?” I nod, and she smiles. “It made you uncomfortable, and I don’t want that. I’m having more fun than I’ve had in … forever. I just want to enjoy moments and not relive bad memories.” She rolls to her side and props her head up on her hand like mine is. “The truth is, Trucker; even when you’re running into me, acting like royalty, getting me called a hooker, or bullying little kids—”

  “Hey, he started that shit.” I smile like she is.

  She leans forward, licking her lips. Then she plants one on me. It’s soft. It’s sweet. It’s the first time she’s done it.

  When she pulls back, she nods. “Moments, Trucker. Moments that are happy. I just want to be happy.”

  I nod, knowing exactly what she means. Endless fucking falls. Then I kiss her back, not as soft as she did me.

  When my phone vibrates in my pocket, she starts to pull back from our kiss.

  “Fuck it,” I say then kiss her harder.

  I roll onto my back, pulling her on top of me. The weight of her feels less than when I’m suited up to play ball. When I run my hands up her sides, I can actually feel her fucking ribs.

  “I’m gonna feed you McDonalds until you’re fat.”

  She laughs against my mouth then licks my lips. “This will do.”

  I hear a little girl’s voice ask, “Mommy, what are they doing?”

  “Oh, my God!” a woman gasps.

  Ray laughs as she rolls off me and starts gathering the wrappers, shoving them in the bag.

  “You see why I don’t like kids?” I laugh, sitting up and helping her. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  We run to the truck, her hands full of McDonalds’ trash and mine full of the SU blanket we were sitting on.

  I throw the blanket in the back then open the door for her to climb in.

  “Hot damn, Ray,” I say on a laugh, closing the door.

  “What?” she asks after I run around the front of the truck and jump in.

  “You may be a tiny little thing, but you got an ass that is like boom.”

  “Like boom, huh?” she asks as I start the truck.

  “Can’t wait for you to meet boom,” I whisper under my breath.

  “What?”

  I look over and can’t help smiling. “Nothing, Ray, nothing at all.”

  “Tell me.” She reaches over and grabs my hand.

  I pull her hand up and kiss it. “When the moment’s right.”

  “What happened to truth?”

  “Truth based on facts, Ray. Feelings and shit. We can keep thoughts, like very private thoughts I may have about your ass, to ourselves.”

  Her eyebrows rise, and her cheeks pinken.

  I’m McLovin’ it.

  A block before her place, I pull over and hand her my phone. “Call yourself so I have your number.”

  She looks at me.

  “What? I can kiss you, hang out with you, but I can’t have your number?”

  “Is it bad that I don’t know it?”

  I shake my head in answer as I reach over and open the glove box, grabbing an old envelope and a pen, jotting down my number.

  She looks at it and laughs. “Did you pay for your jersey number to be a part of your phone number?”

  “Didn’t have to pay, Ray. Just batted my eyelashes. The chick at the cell shop did a search of 2121. Just so happened to be available.”

  “Just had to bat your lashes, huh?” She bats hers, and I lean in and kiss her forehead.

  My phone blasts off again. I grab it and look. Logan’s called three times.

  “That Links?”

  I nod.

  “You should call him back.”

  “I have twenty minutes more with you. He can wait.”

  I start to set the phone down when it sounds off again.

  “Apparently not.”

  “Apparently not,” I agree, hitting accept.

  “What’s up?”

  “What the hell is wrong with you, man?” Logan sighs.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The kid at Destiny?”

  “He was an asshole.” I look at Ray, who cocks her head to the side like a puppy when you say walk or treat. I reach out and scratch behind her ear, and she scrunches up her face.

  “Well, the asshole sent a tweet saying, Trucker Cohen, number 21 from ‘Cuse, says Pitt sucks and posted a picture.”

  I laugh out loud. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Bro, it’s not fucking funny. They’ll be all over you at next week’s game.”

  “So?”

  She cocks her head again, so I scratch behind the other ear. She bats my hand away.

  “You can’t say another team sucks.” He’s trying to scold me, but I know him. He’s cheesing.

  “You said there’s a picture. Read what I wrote, Links. Never said Pitt sucks, even though they do.”

  “You’re such an asshole.”

  “You love me, regardless.” I laugh.

  “No fucking way,” Logan gasps.

  “What?” I ask, cocking my head like she did.

  She scratches behind my ear.

  I move the phone away from my mouth. “You’re quick, Ray.”

  “Remember that, your highness.”

  I wink, returning the phone to my ear and catching the tail end of what he said.

  “Can you believe that shit?”

  “What shit?”

  “Are you fucking listening to me, man?”

  “Kind of, sort of.” I smile at Ray.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, just get on Twitter. You’re tagged all over that shit.”

  “Will do. Love you, man. And by the way, your ass better be working overtime to protect your boy on Saturday.”

  “Such a dick,” he mumbles before hanging up.

  I look at my phone, hit the app, search my name, and then laugh. “That little asshole.”

/>   “What?” She leans in, and I show her. “Oh, my God.”

  “Yeah, keep reading. Pitt is giving them sideline seats for being loyal fans.”

  “Wow, he must be super excited.” She smiles and sits back as I scroll and I read the shit outloud.

  “At bombshell replied: He’s not that much of a dick. He bought his … friend some sexy undergarments from #VictoriasSecret #DestinyUSA #CUSENATION. At PITT replied: Those were for him #crossdressingQB. What the fuck!”

  I look at her, and then we both start laughing.

  I scroll down and see a picture of her and me running out of the park.

  @jesuslovesmoms: His morals are questionable.

  I hold it up and show her, “What the hell?” I laugh, but she doesn’t

  I look over to see she is looking down when my phone rings. Logan again.

  “What?” I laugh.

  “You just made her the most sought-after piece of ass on campus, Trucker. She down for that?”

  “That shit’s not funny, man.”

  “No, it’s not, because it’s about the game, Trucker. You wanna fuck Shakira, the hot little Latino bartender, you better keep it behind closed doors. I know you’ve been acting like an idiot because of her. I don’t need to break up fights or to do this shit alone. You want pro, keep it pro.”

  “Later.” I hang up then lean back, letting out a slow, held breath.

  “Would you be offended if I said we need to keep kind of quiet?” I don’t even want to look at her. I don’t want to see the disappointment or hurt—none of that shit.

  “I don’t want my picture blasted all over the internet, or for all those girls you’re with when you’re not with me causing issues at my job. I like hanging out with you,” she whispers. “Kissing you. But like I said, I’m really trying to live each moment I can just being happy, Trucker.”

  “You think I’m playing with anyone else?”

  She shrugs. “Just make our moments fun like today. When it’s no fun for you anymore—”

  “I’ll make them fun as fuck, Ray. But what the fuck do you mean other girls? You wanna hang with other guys, let me know. I’ve turned down ass after ass since I met you.”

  “I don’t, but—”

  “No buts, Ray.” I take her chin and turn her face toward me. “Cuddle season, Ray.”