She waved me off.
“Um, so,” I began. “A woman named Nicole came into the parts store while I was there and bothered Porter. It wasn’t pretty. Are you sure they weren’t together? Because she’s acting like a jilted girlfriend for sure.”
“I’m sure,” she told me as she grabbed a jug of water from the fridge and began pouring it into the glass on the counter. “Porter hasn’t had a girlfriend ever. Don’t worry about her. I’m sure he’ll take care of it. Zac mentioned her last year but I don’t think I ever met her.”
I chewed on the corner of my mouth before deciding how much I wanted to tell her. “She called him a toxic man with a good dick.”
Water sprayed up from Laney’s glass of water over her face. “Oh, god.” She coughed. “That’s probably the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. Though I don’t think he’s toxic. Porter is mostly disturbingly honest. But I’ve heard about the good dick part.” She walked over to me and patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.”
Laney and I spent the afternoon eating chips on the couch while watching stupid reality shows. But I obsessed about Porter in my head as well as going over the idea of being a teacher. Did I want that life? Was I only avoiding it because it was what they wanted me to do?
I cleaned up just before Porter arrived to pick me up.
“Thanks for doing this,” I told him as I climbed into the truck he’d brought. It wasn’t his, I didn’t think, but I didn’t really care whose it was. I’d seen his car several times when I came here with Laney but I wouldn’t know if he had a second one.
“Not a problem.”
I glanced at him as I chewed my bottom lip, unsure of whether talking about the incident earlier was the right thing to do or not. “Sorry that happened earlier. Can’t be easy to have such a good dick that women won’t leave you alone.”
Porter snorted. “It is. Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of her. She’s a clinger and whenever she breaks up with the last guy she comes around. No idea why.”
I raised my hand and said, “I do.”
“Tell me then.”
I laid my hand on his shoulder like I was offering my sympathy. “It’s the good dick, obviously.”
His loud laughter filled the cab on the truck as we pulled into the home improvement store.
We both got out and walked into the store. He pushed one of those flatbed carts out to the garden center, where we picked up a ton of paving blocks. Porter had done the calculations based on what he thought would be the best size for Laney’s yard. I had to agree. It was a good size and his math was right, so we were good to go.
After adding in the other things we needed, like sand for the bottom and the rocks for around the sides, I paid and we were out loading everything into the truck. One of the employees helped.
Then we were back at Laney’s, where Zac waited to get to work.
Laney and I sat on the bench on the back porch, watching two hot, muscular guys work the land. They pulled up the grass, leveled the ground with the sand, then began laying the bricks. They also snipped back and forth, threatened each other with physical violence, and took their shirts off just to make Laney and me drool.
“Not a bad way to spend an evening,” she said quietly before taking a sip of her water.
“Not bad at all,” I agreed. “But we should feed them, right? Dinner?”
“Yeah, probably. Pizza would be easy.”
“Let’s do that. I need to get a salad with it. You guys are a bad influence on my eating habits. I’ll grab my purse and be back.” The amount of pizza being consumed this summer was going to be a problem for me. But if I just had a ton of salad beforehand, I figured it’d be OK.
She tipped her glass at me to let me know she’d heard me and agreed but never once took her eyes off Zac.
I went to my bedroom and grabbed my purse and was back out quickly, yet as I turned into the kitchen, I saw Porter approaching Laney on the porch. I froze. What could he be doing?
“Got a question for ya,” he began.
“What’s up, Porter?” Even I could hear the humor in her voice.
“Rhian OK?”
Her head snapped his way, her eyebrows drawn down. I couldn’t see the entire face, but it looked like concern. “Why wouldn’t she be?”
“Uh… ” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Nicole came into the store while she was there and was a total bitch. Just wanted to make sure it didn’t spook her.”
“Spook her? From what?” she asked.
His jaw tensed, but he didn’t answer. “Just, did she seem weird?”
Laney shook her head. “No more than usual. Rhian is fine.”
“OK, good.”
“But she did tell me that Nicole said you have a good dick.”
“What the fuck?” I heard Zac call out, but he was out too far for me to see.
Porter smiled then turned away to go back to work.
Chapter Ten
We didn’t bother to call in an order for pizza first and just figured we’d decide when we got there. I also didn’t mention overhearing Laney’s conversation with Porter. But I was curious about why she looked concerned. Turned out I didn’t need to ask.
As we waited for our order, we walked over to the grocery store to get a few things we’d been needing, but especially drinks. The guys would probably appreciate some beer for tonight.
“Porter asked if you were all right,” Laney told me down the beer aisle.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“That’s what I said, but he thought the run-in with Nicole might have spooked you.”
“From what?”
“That’s what I asked. He didn’t answer, but it was weird.” She pulled a twelve pack into the cart.
“Why is that?”
She pushed the cart away from the beer and went to the soda aisle. Or pop as she called it.
“Well… ” She grabbed a pack of Diet Pepsi and added it to the cart. “Porter rarely shows concern for anyone other than his closest friends. He cares about us, but he doesn’t really ask about people in general like that—and especially not women. Or not women other than Maddie and me.”
“So that’s concerning?”
She nodded and put another case of soda in the cart. “I think he might be catching the feels.”
“For who?” I followed her to the cash register.
“You, dummy.”
“No. We aren’t like that. We’re friends.”
She nodded as if she agreed but definitely looked as if there was something more she wanted to say. Something she was holding back. Instead, she let the cashier ring up the purchases, adding on a small bundle of firewood that lined the front of the store outside, and paid.
On the way out of the store, I caught a glimpse of Maddie on her way in. She saw us, stopped, and came over.
“How are you?” she asked and honestly, it was to both of us.
“I’m good,” I answered.
“Me, too,” Laney agreed. “What are you up to?”
“Work, as you know. We’ve gotten really busy all of a sudden, which is good because work equals money, but bad because my hands cramp.”
I had no idea what that was like, so I chose to keep my mouth shut. Since she was a hairstylist, her hands really got a workout.
“Hey,” I did say, “we’re going to have pizza and a fire in Laney’s new fire pit. Why don’t you come?”
Maddie flinched. Not quite like someone had slapped her, but more like she was utterly surprised. “Well, I have Dylan tonight. Obviously.” She snorted and smiled. “Sorry.”
“Bring him,” Laney said automatically. “The invitation is for both of you. Ian, too, if you’re still dating.”
“We are.”
“Then there ya go,” I said. “It’s just going to be Laney, Zac, Porter, and me, so no worries about anything too weird happening.”
She giggled. “Yeah. That sounds fun. I’ll see if Ian wants to come, but Dylan and I
will for sure be there.”
“Excellent.”
We left her then so that we could load the drinks in the car before picking up the pizza and getting back to the guys.
When we got home, Porter and Zac both looked like they’d just showered. Wet hair, fresh clothing. The smell of soap in the air which I had never thought of as a turn out but it was becoming one pretty quickly. As we put the drinks in the fridge, I glanced outside and saw that the pit looked amazing. I’d known this would be an excellent idea.
Not long after, Maddie and Dylan arrived with Maddie’s boyfriend, Ian, right behind them. That kid was one of the cutest I’d ever met. Same dark hair and eyes as his dad, round chubby cheeks he’d likely one day lose. I assumed he’d be popular with the girls the same way I’d heard his dad was. Ian was pretty boy good looking. Clean-cut, short blond hair, probably always freshly shaven and he dressed like he was always on the verge of going somewhere nice. Even his jeans were expensive. I’d grown up with my mother’s obsession on appearance so I knew this guy was clearly trying hard to convey a certain image.
Dylan ran over to his dad, and Zac swooped down to bring him into his arms for a huge hug. Dylan talked a mile a minute and while I didn’t catch most of what he said, Zac and Laney seemed to.
Zac and Porter headed out to my car to get the firewood with the intention of starting the fire. Dylan ran outside behind them. The sun hadn’t started to set yet, but at eight in the evening, it was getting closer. Enough to where we weren’t going to boil under the hot sun next to a fire.
Laney and I went into the kitchen to get dinner set up. While we did, I could hear Ian whispering to Maddie and it didn’t sound like a good conversation. She snapped a little then brought Dylan into the kitchen with us.
I wasn’t going to ask and I didn’t think Laney was going to, either. Instead, everyone filled their plates, though mine was with the antipasto salad not pizza, with the guys coming in to get theirs, grabbed our drinks, and headed out to the backyard. Maddie and Ian came out of the house a minute later.
Once we were each settled around in chairs, I said, “See? I knew this would be perfect.”
“It was a great idea,” Laney agreed.
“Around a fire in the summer is where the best stories get told, so spill. You’ve all known each other forever, so catch me up,” I insisted.
“What do you want to know?” Laney asked. She was sitting next to me, but at about an arm’s length away closer to Zac, who had Dylan on the other side of him. Porter was directly across from me and the fire wasn’t big enough to block him from my view. Maddie and Ian were to my left.
“Everything. Catch me up.” I looked from Zac to Porter. “You have to tell me what Laney was like because I think she was changed when I met her.”
“What was she like when you met her?” Zac asked.
I glanced to Laney because I had no idea if she wanted me to give details. She shrugged, so I guessed that was my go-ahead.
“Sad. I met her at school and she wouldn’t talk to anybody.” Might as well be honest.
Zac’s jaw tightened and Porter pursed his lips then shook his head.
“But then I met her in English class and made her be my friend.”
“Made me?” Laney asked. “I guess that’s true. Remember when I told you to leave me alone and you said you couldn’t because you’d get demerits?”
I laughed and nodded. “We didn’t even have demerits, but I thought you wouldn’t want to get me into trouble, so I went with it.”
“You did that a lot with me. Got me to do things by saying if I didn’t, you’d get into trouble.
I nodded again. “It was honestly the best way to get you to come out of your shell. But then you were less sad. Then, dare I say, you got happy.”
Zac ran a hand down her back. She’d told me about the guilt he still carried over what had happened with them when they’d been in high school. She was over it now, mostly, but the guilt remained. By the look of Porter and Maddie, they felt it too.
“So, come on. What was she like before that?”
“Almost fearless,” Maddie offered up. “These two were always doing crazy things, and Laney was the one to tell me we had to do it too.”
“That’s true,” Porter agreed. “It became my mission to find shi—” He glanced at Dylan. “Stuff she wouldn’t do.”
“Jumping off the train bridge,” Zac said. “Going inside that abandoned house.”
“With the rats,” Laney added then looked at me. “It was disgusting.”
“She was still like that with me.” I scrunched up my eyebrows. “But I never wanted to go into abandoned houses. Were there any near us?” She shook her head. “I didn’t think so and besides, that was probably where the hookers would’ve been.”
They all laughed and this was exactly what I’d been hoping for when this firepit had come to mind.
“So, since Laney is the one person we all really know here, let’s share our favorite memories of her,” Maddie suggested.
“I really don’t like this being all about me,” Laney protested.
I brushed her off. “We’ll get to the others.”
“I’ll go first,” Maddie volunteered. “I think my favorite is the way that she wouldn’t back down from Mr. Sheenan.” She took a drink of her water while Zac and Porter agreed with her. “He was this pervy teacher we had in high school and he’d try all kinds of things to get a look down your shirt. But also, he was a terrible teacher. Got things wrong most of the time. Hell, I think he was drunk most of the time.”
Dylan piped up. “Language.”
“Sorry, buddy,” she said.
Then I looked to Porter because he was next in line. I felt a twinge of guilt over skipping Ian altogether, but he couldn’t participate in this part because he was the one person who actually didn’t know Laney.
“In tenth grade, we basically all did everything together. Well… mostly everything.” He wriggled his eyebrows suggestively. “I had no idea that our principal asked Laney to come get me and bring me down because she knew she would. But I was fu—” He glanced at Dylan again. “With this girl in the custodian closet. I don’t know how she knew I was there, but she flings the door open and just stares me down.”
“I heard about that for weeks,” Zac said, but he didn’t sound happy about it.
“I bet you did. Because she didn’t look away. She just folded her arms over her chest and waited.”
“Yeah, but you saw me and didn’t hurry up.”
Porter held his hands up in front of himself. “It takes as long as it takes.”
I shook my head.
“Mine is easy. The blue and white bikini,” Zac said with a wide grin.
Porter and Laney burst out with a loud round of laughter. Loud enough for Dylan to perk up from whatever game he was playing on his portable game console to see what was happening. Though he quickly lost interest while I still wanted to know.
“What blue bikini?”
Laney rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I’ll tell you later,” she promised.
“Fine.” I didn’t like that I didn’t know what was so funny, but it sounded like she couldn’t tell me in front of the little guy. “So what are we doing for the rest of the summer? What do you guys do here in the summer?”
“Work,” Porter answered right away.
“Yup,” Zac agreed.
“Well, I don’t work until the fall,” Laney said. “So I’m up for whatever you want to do.”
“I’d like to take Maddie away for a few days this summer,” Ian said but I wasn’t sure if he was addressing all of us in an informational way or speaking directly to Zac. “But it’s hard with Dylan, ya know.” This might’ve been the first time he’d spoken this whole time. “Unless Zac took him for an extra weekend. You wouldn’t mind doing that would you, Zac?”
Zac’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. The way his face looked like concrete and his eyes narrowed on this guy to
ld all of us that Zac wasn’t a fan of Ian. He’d said once that Ian seemed like a decent guy, but now, I wasn’t so sure he really believed that.
“’Course not,” was all he said.
We talked just a while longer before Maddie stood up and said she had to get going to put Dylan in bed. The poor kid had been yawning for the last half an hour. I was sure she didn’t want to leave, but the kid came first. When he was with Zac, Zac and Laney had left things early many times. I’d been around this kid enough in the last year to know he came first.
Once they were around the other side of the house where we could no longer see them, Zac took a long drink of his beer. “I’m really beginning to hate that fucking guy.”
“Yeah, what was that?” Laney asked. “Asking you if you’d mind taking Dylan for an extra weekend? When have you ever minded?”
“No shit.”
“I don’t think they’ll last long,” I offered as a consolation. They all turned to me, their faces silently asking for more. “I heard them in the living room before we started eating. Couldn’t hear what they were saying, but whatever it was, it wasn’t a pleasant conversation.”
“Good.” Zac was the only one to say a word. “I hope she fucking gets rid of him.”
“Me too. I liked him last summer,” Laney agreed. “But I don’t know what happened since then.”
Laney and Zac decided to turn in just after eleven, leaving me and Porter out by the fire alone, which we were letting die down. Porter said he’d make sure it was completely out before he left.
When we were alone, he pushed off his chair and came around the fire then dropped onto his knees in front of me.
“I’ve been waiting days to get my lips on you,” was all he said before leaning in and kissing me.
His lips were wet and soft as he pushed against me. His hands clasped my hips and pulled me to the edge of the chair. Holy hell, he was a good kisser. His tongue touched the seam of my lips, asking for permission, which I gladly gave. If I were being honest, I’d been waiting days for him to get his lips on me.
But then the reality of the day set in and I had to push his shoulders gently. That was all it took for him to pull back.
A Little More Touch Me (The Fallout Series Book 2) Page 9