I took an extra long shower that morning, savoring every drop of hot water on my aching body. I’d likely be walking stiffly for days, but the discomfort was weirdly satisfying.
It usually felt strange to have someone sleep by my side. I hadn’t had anything that qualified as a “steady” relationship since sophomore year of college — and even that only lasted three months. I preferred to keep it short and sweet. The longer I was with someone, the more annoying they became.
But this was different. Sleeping next to Manson hadn’t felt strange. It felt like coming home at the end of a long day and sinking into your favorite pillow, like a warm blanket on a cold night. I slept like a rock, and when I woke up and saw his hair all messy, his face soft with sleep…God, how could I resist him?
It made no sense that a man who was so unlike me made me feel so heard. So seen. The messy, uncertain side of me that he brought out felt more like the real me than anything else. It was the side of me that craved scary, unusual, vulnerable things. Things that felt too close for comfort, too real, too raw.
This little game of ours was far harder to play when my heart was determined not to follow my own rules.
The number one rule was to not get attached. The moment that happened, I’d be in trouble. I could already feel it and it was starting to freak me out, the little ways in which I found myself trying to get more time with them. Even when I wasn’t fulfilling my “duties” as their toy, I still felt this pull to be around them.
I had to be careful. I had my own plans and I couldn’t allow them to be spoiled now.
Jason hadn’t told me what time he would be arriving, but when I stepped out of the bathroom, I could hear someone downstairs. My bedroom door was wide up and I walked out to peer over the railing into the entryway.
“Y’all really don’t like to knock, do you?”
Jason looked up at me. He was seated in the open doorway with a laptop on his outstretched legs, his shaggy blue hair contained under a black baseball cap.
“Knocking feels like asking permission,” he said. “And I wasn’t asking.”
Rolling my eyes, I turned away before he could see me smile. After hurriedly getting dressed, I came downstairs to find he was still sitting in the same spot, forehead creased with concentration as he stared at long lines of text on his screen.
“Do you want some coffee?” I said, peering at him through the doorway from the kitchen.
“I’m good,” he said, holding up a neon green and black energy drink can.
“Ah, I see, you prefer to fuel yourself with straight battery acid.” The coffee machine groaned and that delicious bitter bean juice began to drip. I added some sweet cream to my mug before I walked back to the entryway and sat down beside him. He was so focused on his screen it wasn’t until I bumped against his shoulder that he flinched in surprise and looked over at me.
“I thought your screen would look like The Matrix or something,” I said.
He chuckled, shaking his head. “There’s a lot less floating neon symbols and a lot more math.”
A minute in silence as I watched him, sipping my coffee. Math was one of my strongest subjects, but whatever he was doing didn’t look like the math I was used to. He was speaking an entirely different language in those long lines of code.
“I’m almost done here. I just need to test one more time…”
He hit the Enter key and looked up at the alarm’s control panel. The screen blinked, its message changing from ERROR to READY TO ARM.
“Damn, that was fast,” I said. “What did you do?”
He cleared his throat awkwardly, getting to his feet. “I may have overengineered it a little.”
“Meaning…?”
“I made a few changes,” he said. “Made it a little more difficult for anyone else who decides to try to get in here.” He shut the front door, went to the keypad, and typed in our code. The system chimed and the screen switched to ARMED.
“And how exactly do you know our pin?” I said. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“You can change it after I leave,” he said, glancing back at me. “Or don’t.”
“I’ll change it,” I said, pushing up to my feet. “Don’t want to make things too easy for you.”
“Brat.” He scoffed as he disarmed the system again and disconnected his laptop. “Your parents shouldn’t notice anything, although you may need to have them reconnect any key fobs they had for it. That’s how I did it, by the way. Your key fob.”
“You stole my key fob?”
“Nope, I intercepted the radio signal it sent to the security system,” he said. “Most of these systems don’t encrypt anything, so all the data I need is right there. Easy.”
“Most people don’t think that’s very easy.”
“I’m not most people.” I was standing by his side, and when he turned toward me, he brushed his fingers over my neck, over the slight red line the collar had left on my skin. “Your parents come back tomorrow, yeah?”
“Unfortunately.” The touch of his fingers gave me goosebumps over my arms, and I quickly rubbed them. “I’m sure my mom will find something to complain about the second she’s in the door.”
“She just got back from vacation,” he said incredulously. “What could she have to complain about?”
“Anything and everything.” He followed me into the kitchen, leaning against the island when I took a seat on one of the stools. “Let’s see. She’ll complain that there’s dishes in the sink, I ate all the cookies in the pantry, my nails need to be filled…”
He snorted. “Your mom gives a fuck about your nails?” Then he paused, looking off in thought. “Then again, my mom was always scolding me over wrinkles in my shirts.”
I’d seen his mom a few times when she’d drop him off at school. Where my mom did everything she could to be the glamorous center of attention, Mrs. Roth had seemed more like she was trying to blend in with the local retirement community. Uptight had been her entire vibe and that had reflected in her son — at least, it used to.
Uptight was far from how I’d describe him now. Intense was a far more accurate word.
“It sounds to me like you need to get out of the house tomorrow,” he said, finishing off his energy drink and tossing the can into the trash. “I have a competition at the Fairgrounds Speedway. You should come.”
“Competition? Like drag racing?”
“Drifting,” he said, meandering around the kitchen as he talked. “You’ve probably seen some videos Vincent posted.”
I hurriedly sipped my coffee so he wouldn’t see my guilty face. He couldn’t possibly know how hard I used to stalk their social media, could he? But he was smirking at me as I lowered the mug, and I said, “Is this an invitation, or an order?”
“Let’s say…an invitation you can’t refuse,” he said. “We’ll pick you up in the morning.”
I did want to get out of the house. But holy shit, having them show up here to pick me up meant having my mom see them. If she didn’t already have plenty to complain about, she definitely would then.
But I couldn’t always cater my life to my mother.
“All right,” I said, bracing my elbows on the island and leaning forward toward him. “As long as I don’t have to dress as a cat again.”
Despite my misgivings, my mom was in a good mood when she and my dad got back the next morning. She was sunburned as a lobster, but that only made her cheerier as she gushed about how tan she was going to be.
But of course, all that cheeriness flew straight out the window when she spotted my ride arrive.
I’d warned my parents I was going to be spending the day with friends, but I hadn’t specified which friends.
“Jessica!” Mom hissed my name as she marched into my room. I was in front of the mirror, blending out my eyeshadow as she came over to me and perched one hand on her hip. “Who did you invite over here?”
“It’s just my ride,” I said, putting away my palette and brushes. Loud music was thumping from outside, and I wondered whose car it was, my stomach light with excitement. I didn’t know what to expect from today, but I was looking forward to seeing something new.
But mostly, I was excited to spend all day with the four men who’d been consistently blowing my mind for the last couple of weeks. The Fairgrounds were about an hour’s drive away from us, which meant I didn’t even have to worry about bumping into anyone who knew me.
It would be the first time I was going out in public with all four of them. The idea was as intimidating as it was thrilling.
I had to deal with Mom’s judgment first though, and she was not pleased.
“No, absolutely not.” Mom shook her head, her lips pursed as she turned on her heel. Her feet pounded down the hallway as she called back to me, “I wasn’t born yesterday, Jessica.”
The doorbell rang, and I hurriedly grabbed my bag, going down the stairs two at a time. “I’ll get it!”
“No, no, I think your father should get it,” Mom said sharply. She was standing in the entryway between me and the door, glaring into the kitchen where my dad sat at the table with his e-reader and a coffee. “Roger. Roger!” She snapped her fingers, and my dad turned his head, tipping down his glasses as he looked at her. “There’s a strange man at the door. Answer it!”
“Oh my God, he’s not a strange man,” I said. “Everything is fine, Dad. You don’t need to get the door.”
“Mm-hm, I thought so,” he said, turning back to his book with an exhausted sigh. Mom looked absolutely exasperated. I headed for the door, but right as I reached for the knob, she barreled ahead of me and opened it.
If Lucas was surprised to see my mom, he certainly didn’t show it. He was standing back from the door, his hands shoved into his pockets as Mom stared him down. He was wearing ragged denim jeans and boots laced up to his knees, his tattoo-covered arms bare. He was the furthest thing from “parent friendly” possible.
It was strangely satisfying knowing Mom was horrified and there was really nothing she could do about it.
“Can I help you?” she said in the kind of icy tone that usually sent people running for the hills. I tried to mouth, Sorry! to Lucas from over her shoulder, but I don’t think he caught it. The Bronco, El Camino, and the Z were all parked along the curb, making quite an entourage for them merely being “my ride.”
Mom wasn’t buying it; I could see it on her face.
“Morning, ma’am. I don’t think we’ve formally met. I’m Lucas Bent, a friend of Jessica’s.”
My mouth dropped open. Holy shit, what version of Lucas was this? He sounded polite. If it weren’t for the massive boots and tattoos, Mom may have actually thought his soft drawl was charming. Apparently he could clean up that dirty mouth of his after all.
But Mom regarded him like he was a bag of flaming dog shit discarded on her doorstep. “I know who you are. What exactly are your intentions with my daughter?”
Okay, now was the time to intervene. I gently grabbed her arm, ushering her back from the door so I could squeeze past her.
“Mom, that’s enough, seriously, I’ll take it from here,” I said. If she hadn’t cared so much about what the neighbors would think, she probably would have yelled at me right there on the front porch. I was shocked that fire didn’t shoot out of her eyeballs as I slipped out the door, waving to her as I said, “I’ll be fine. I’ll text you on the way home.”
Her mouth was pressed into a thin line of fury. “We are not done with this discussion,” she said, jabbing her finger at me as I grabbed Lucas’s wrist and hauled him down the sidewalk.
“Pleasure to meet you,” he said, and the door abruptly slammed.
“Sorry,” I said, grimacing up at him. “She’s uh…protective.”
“I don’t blame her,” he said, his voice returning to its usual gruffness. He yanked me back to him, obviously not pleased that I was currently the one dragging him along, and put his arm around my waist to keep me close. “She has good instincts for trouble.”
The Bronco was parked in front of the El Camino along the curb, with Vincent in the driver’s seat and Jason beside him. A flatbed trailer was hooked up to the Bronco with the Z secured on top of it, its wheels strapped into place. Music was playing loudly from inside the cab as Jason rolled down the window and whistled at me.
“Damn, look at those legs,” he said, leering out the window at me in my tiny denim shorts. Manson was leaning against the back bumper of the El Camino, and he stubbed out his cigarette as Lucas and I came down the driveway.
“Hey, Jess.” His smile made my stomach flutter as he came to greet me. I anticipated a kiss, and was caught by surprise when he hugged me and nothing more. But he was thinking clearer than I was. My mom was undoubtedly watching us from one of the windows, and if she saw a kiss, I was never going to hear the end of it.
But I didn’t like that he felt as if he had to hold back from kissing me. I didn’t like it at all.
“Have you ever seen this guy try so hard to be polite?” I said, giving Lucas a teasing poke as Manson and I separated. “I had no idea there was such a good boy in there.”
Manson laughed, and to my surprise, Lucas stopped me before I could open the passenger door. He made a face as he opened it himself, waiting expectantly as I stared.
“Well? Sit your ass down,” he said, when I didn’t move. I certainly hadn’t thought he’d opened that door for me. I blinked rapidly in surprise, lowering myself into the passenger seat as I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Are you…are you blushing, Lucas?” I couldn’t believe it. It had to be a trick of the light or something because there was no way his face was red right now. He scowled deeply, waiting for Manson to sit down in the passenger seat before he slammed the door and stomped around to the driver’s side.
“He was blushing, right?” I whispered quickly. “Don’t tell me I imagined that.”
Manson laughed again. “Careful, Jess. Getting Lucas flustered is risky business.”
“I don’t even know how I flustered him!” I said, but then it was too late to discuss any further, as Lucas wrenched open his door and got into the driver’s seat.
He cranked the engine to life, shaking his head as I kept staring at him. “It’s a hot day out, fucktoy, so you can stop gaping at my face being a little red. Here.” He handed me the auxiliary cord connected to his radio. “You pick the music.”
