The Prom Queen's Sinner
Thornwood Forbidden Small Town Romance
J.E. Bradley
Copyright © 2021 Eve Bradley, J.E. Bradley
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Cover design by: JS Designs
To all the perfectionists and procrastinators.
The Prom Queen’s Sinner
© J. E. Bradley
(A Thornwood Dark Small Town Romance: Book One)
Thornwood is a small forested town hugging the Pacific Ocean filled with men and women from all walks of life. Although many of their stories may be taboo, their hearts and minds will illuminate your life. Whether their romance is heart-wrenching, dark, or as dirty as can be, Thornwood has a romance for you. The Thornwood dark small-town romances are standalone’s within the same fictional universe that interweaves families and friends and can be read out of order.
Wyatt
Savannah loves my son.
But love is fickle at such a young age. I’m sure it’ll sort itself out soon enough. He’ll break her heart and then she’ll break someone else’s, and the cycle will continue. So it goes for kids like them. I remember how it was for me at that age. If I can teach my son to keep it in his pants, he won’t end up growing up too fast like I did.
You’re not meant to have kids at sixteen; society just isn’t kind to people that do, and mentally, you’re not prepared. All the raging hormones—it makes it impossible to keep yourself in check. Maybe that’s why I was divorced at twenty-five, now sitting in consistent bachelorhood at thirty-four, living out my days one pizza-box after another, fixing one car after another, working long hours trying to sweat away whatever suppressed bullshit feelings I ever had.
I’m cranking the wrench on the car-jack in my shop, and it’s easy to work mindlessly, and I know I shouldn’t, but she’s there in my thoughts. Dirty, gritty, grimy thoughts. Savannah is no ordinary girl. She’s got a depth to her most women envy, with long dark hair and innocent aqua eyes that somehow seem to harness both mystery and naivety all the same. The image of her slender curves as she walks up the creaky stairwell in our old family home to my son’s room haunts me, the sway of her hips making me tense. Even the memory is enough to cause my shoulders to lock up and my abdomen to crush in tension.
I wipe a stream of sweat away from my forehead, noting that the weather’s been getting hotter. It’s the same every September here in Thornwood, summer has its last hurrah, blisters us for a good week or two, and then leaves.
I shouldn’t think about her. If I were a holier man, I’d be confessing every day about the sick things I want to do to her. But I’m not holy, nor am I even good. I’m a lonely dad who sees his son only every other weekend, who has wet dreams about his son’s girlfriend, and who can’t seem to catch a fucking break. The fact that I’ve imagined her alone makes me the villain. But I always knew I wasn’t meant for love. There’s nothing about me consistent enough to make a woman stay.
“Ay, my man Wyatt!”
Jerry comes strolling into the shop, stinking of booze and cigarettes. Beneath the car, I can roll my eyes without him seeing, but damn if he asks for another day off…
“Your wife left you a message earlier,” he spouts off. “I’ve been manning the office all day. Forgot to tell you.”
I grit my teeth and roll myself out from under the ’65 Camaro.
“What did she say?” I grunt.
“She said she’s dropping Derrick off at your house tonight,” he says, making a show of adjusting himself.
“Fuck, Jerry!”
I swing myself up off the ground and wipe my hands on the shop towels, the blue taking the majority of the grime away, the rest of my calloused skin stained and tinged from dirt and grease. It’s five pm, and if Krista is on schedule like she usually is, she’ll be at my place within ten minutes.
“What, got a hot date?” Jerry grins at me with his rotten yellow teeth and I sidle past him, heading the grab my keys out of our shit-hole office. “You got this? Bill wants it running by tomorrow.”
“Oh yeah.” Jerry makes the A-okay sign with his thick thumb and forefinger. “I got you, boss.”
“Sure you fucking do,” I mutter under my breath as I jog out to my red 1998 Chevy Silverado. The truck is beaten up. It’s been in a fight or two, and the leather seats are all tore up from Nuke, my now eight-year-old golden retriever. Usually, I take him with me to the shop, but today I left him chained in the yard not thinking it would be this hot. Poor fella.
I ram the engine to a start and it judders and clunks to life. Piece of shit anyway. But who has money to spend on new cars? Only those rich fuckers who like to show off their wealth by purchasing the nicest car they can afford without going bankrupt, all while struggling to pay the bills because their cash is so thinly spread.
I speed down Main Street, watching as pine trees and salty blue water glistens on the horizon, and quaint little shops and restaurants blur in my vision. Derrick will have football practice this weekend. That means Savannah will most likely be with him, watching from the bleachers. I can already see her now, watching in silent support, maybe surrounded by some of her slutty friends, wearing those ripped booty shorts. Shit…there I go again, thinking about that high school beauty queen.
I’m a dirty old bastard, aren’t I?
Savannah
Krista’s car rolls to a stop in front of Derrick’s dad’s two-story house and I can’t help but press my nose against the glass. I’ve only ever been here a handful of times, but there’s something about the house that’s oddly relaxing. I stare at the wildflowers popping up amongst the overgrown dead grass and then frown when my eyes settle on Nuke, Wyatt’s golden retriever. The dog is panting in the heat, chained up on the line in front of the house.
“What a shit hole,” Krista mutters, popping her gum as she leans to inspect the house and yard in front of her.
The house itself has shingles missing, and the faded blue paint on the siding makes it look ten times older than it actually is. But many of the homes in this neighborhood look the same, all somewhat nice, but older, as if they’ve seen their best days already and what lies ahead is rather dismal.
“He might not want you to spend the night, Sav,” Krista tosses her head back and glances at me in the rearview mirror.
“That’s fine. I don’t live far from here,” I say.
I only live around a mile away in a smaller gated community just on the outskirts of Thornwood’s main hub. My dad and I have lived in the same house for nearly fifteen years. When mom died, I was three, and dad decided to move us someplace safe. Someplace plastered with the same idealistic principles that he did. The same ideals that I now have to paint onto myself; layer by layer, to prove that I’m good. That I’m worthy of existing in everyone else’s world.
Not that I’m not good.
Oh, I’m one of the best. At faking it, yes, but you can only fake it so long before becoming what you’re pretending to be. The lines blur, and you fade into that persona. I’m a varsity cheerleader, a part of the Associated Student Body, and I’m dating the football quarterback. Derrick and I are a perfect picture, but I suppose if you step back and squi
nt your eyes, maybe cock your head just right, you’d see us for what we truly are: fake. At least, I know I am. Derrick never lets me get beyond his pristine golden-boy walls.
But I have to be this person because otherwise I’d be lumped in with all the other mixed-race girls in our High School. I guess I’m lucky I have blue eyes. My dark hair and naturally tan skin make me look “exotic” to the rest of them, but my blue eyes push me over the line enough that I can come across as Caucasian. I recall many times when my dad would come to the school for parent-teacher conferences and both teachers and students alike were shocked. Your dad is Arab? They’d ask quizzically. He’s from Dubai, I’d say, crumbling beneath the pressure of my precious façade.
“He should be here,” Krista grumbles under her breath.
She’s heading out for a romantic weekend with her husband, Charles, which means that Derrick and I are dropped here while they’re gone. Krista is one of the head real estate agents in Thornwood and Charles works as a financial analyst. Both are glowingly rich. One of the only reasons my dad lets me stay with them so much is because he thinks it’s good for my social standing. He’s convinced that I’ll be one of the top socialites in town when I’m in my twenties.
“Oh, there he is,” Derrick says, shifting in his seat and hopping out of the car, dark blond hair flopping as he goes. He grabs our stuff from the trunk and I reluctantly peel my sweaty legs away from the caramel leather seat and follow him around back, slipping my backpack over my shoulder and standing in his shadow as he muscles our duffels and his football equipment out of the back.
Derrick gives me a slight smirk as he glances at me. I watch his eyes slide up my legs, then to my bleached shorts. I wish I could put my money where my mouth is and offer my body to him, but all we’ve done so far are intense petting sessions. I know he wants more from me, but there’s a virginity standard that I have to uphold too. My dad would legitimately kill me if he knew I’d let Derrick into my pants, even though I’m eighteen. Even though I spent the night at his house nearly half the week. Even though, even though, even though.
I blush when Derrick’s eyes rove over my chest, covered by a teal t-shirt with the Hollister logo spread tightly across my c-cup breasts. Then his dad stalks up and takes all the attention, which mildly relieves me.
“Hey, bud.” Mr. Wyatt Draper comes around the back of the car and takes some of the bags from Derrick. His dad doesn’t even look at me. It’s like I don’t exist to him. But this is always how it is; awkward as hell. Maybe he doesn’t like his son dating someone of mixed race.
“Hey Dad,” Derrick sidles up alongside him, and I hang back. I glance at Krista in the car mirror and she seems impatient to get on her way. She gives a huffy sigh and puts the car into drive, holding her foot on the brake so that we can all see the red lights. “Can Savannah spend the night?”
Mr. Draper looks offended. He carries the bags up to the front steps, through the forest of weeds, and unties Nuke from his line. The spastic golden retriever flies toward us and I reach out to pet him, running my hands along his shiny coat and happy face.
“That’s a good boy,” I murmur to him, standing halfway in the road still, waiting for some sort of yes or no answer. But of course, the man doesn’t say anything until he realizes we’re all patiently waiting.
“Fine.” The word is gruff, and he opens the front door to let Derrick in and I hurry after him, calling Nuke to follow. The sweet, boisterous dog ambles along beside me and I shuffle past Derrick’s dad into the entryway.
As I pass him, I smell grease and sweat. He’s a tall man, and I see, out of the corner of my eye, the clenching of his jaw as I slip inside. I hear Krista speed off and then I follow Derrick up the stairs.
Wyatt is nothing like any man that I’ve met. He’s younger than my dad by maybe eight years, but that’s due to him and Krista having Derrick when they were sixteen. I suppose the reason he makes me uncomfortable is because I can’t figure him out. When I first met him, I was drawn into his mystery, hating that every time I left Derrick’s house I’d been unsettled for more reasons than one. Wyatt is silent almost all the time and spends his days working in his car shop, but other than that I don’t know much about him. Though, it’s not for lack of curiosity.
I can’t fit him into any of the boxes crafted for the people in this town, and it suggests that maybe he doesn’t belong. And that alone is unnerving because if you don’t belong, then where does that put you?
At the top of the stairs, I stop and glance over my shoulder. Wyatt hurries to stomp into the living room, but he’d been standing there in the doorway the entire time I’d walked up the stairs. Had he been watching me?
I doubt it. He’s probably just lost in his brooding like all the other times I look his way. The rare times that happens. Still, my heart pounds sharply in my chest at the thought.
I don’t like to look at him. I don’t like to let my eyes soak in his rugged features, the messy dark hair, the narrow chin and nose, his thin cruel lips, and the freakishly bold lines of his muscular arms and chest that pop out from beneath his tank tops. I don’t like what his eyes do to me. In fact, it gives me a strange feeling in my stomach.
“Derrick?” I call, swinging around the corner as I find the door to his bedroom. I stand in the doorway as Derrick lays back on his twin bed. The room looks untouched from the time we were last here. This room is quaint compared to his bedroom in Krista’s house. There’s a small TV set in the corner, posters of all his favorite football legends on the walls, a few pictures of girls in bikinis, a busted old dresser, and a closet with a grimy sliding mirror door.
“Told you he’d eventually come around.” He snickers and reaches out for me.
Even though we’ve been dating for around a year, I feel shy with him. Like every time he touches me it’s the first time, and his hands are forever foreign. Sometimes I try to remember what I first liked about him. What brought me here to this place, where I somehow belong to him and the image we make together? The puzzle of us is that we combine to make a picture that’s so whole you might think it’s made that way. And shouldn’t I be happy with that?
I smile sweetly and lean against him, his finger tracing my thigh.
“God, those shorts Sav! It’s been hard to keep my hands off of you,” he whispers, staring up at me longingly.
I don’t know what to say, so I twist out of his overly intimate touch and amble around the room, lifting my arms.
“We really need to redecorate little Derrick’s bedroom,” I laugh.
He chuckles with me and nods, knowing that this is true.
Suddenly, Wyatt appears in the doorway. He looks straight at Derrick.
“She’s not sleeping in the same bed as you. Don’t even ask. She can take the couch,” he grunts coldly and then places his hands in his pockets.
I assume Wyatt has skipped the dad-bod phase and remains fit from the constant physical labor, and I avert my eyes so that I don’t look at the grease smudges and sweat droplets on his chest, revealed from the low cut of his tank. Nuke bolts into the room and hops up onto the bed with Derrick, panting happily.
“Dad,” Derrick starts to argue.
“No. I said don’t even ask,” Wyatt is firm. “And if you can’t follow the rules here, she’ll have to go home.”
“Jesus, fine,” Derrick rolls his eyes.
“Alright, good,” Wyatt seems less unsettled now and huffs out a breath. “What kind of pizza do you kids want?”
Kids. The way he says kids stings me a little. Derrick doesn’t seem to mind it because he begins spouting off a few different orders. Derrick asks if that’s okay with me, and I mindlessly agree. I don’t really eat pizza because it’s too fattening, and if I start to gain weight now I won’t look my best for cheer or prom. Two things that are the highlights of my entire High School career.
Last year Derrick didn’t take me to prom because he’d already promised another girl he’d go with her. It was early on in our datin
g, and I didn’t really mind. This year, we’re supposed to do it all; we’ll have a big group get together, dance the night away, and even score a top-secret hotel getaway complete with booze and bad decisions. I think about giving my virginity to him this night as many girls do. Sometimes I’m for it, sometimes I’m against it.
The days that I’m for it it’s because I think no one will find out, that it’s my body and my choice. The other days I oppose it for the very same reason. My body. My choice.
Wyatt leaves, his grouchy shoulders stiff as he retreats down the hall. Then Derrick laughs, and I laugh with him. Typical Mr. Draper.
***
“Hey,” Derrick ruffles my hair before leaning down and kissing me shortly on the lips. I’m startled awake and I roll over to look up into his hazel eyes, his dark blonde hair combed and lifting away from his forehead as he leans over me. “I have to go to practice early today. I’ll meet you at school later?”
“Sure. I’ll see you there,” I mumble, trying to piece together where I am and what’s happening.
“My dad usually leaves for work around six, so you’ll be here alone for a while. No rush.”
It’s Friday, and I’m sleeping on the sunken couch in Derrick’s dad’s creaky old house with a ruffled comforter wrapped around me. I reach around for my phone to check the time.
The screen brightly and much too cheerfully tells me that it is five o’clock am, and I groan. Derrick shuffles quietly out towards the front door. The front room is where the TV, the couch, and a small table are set. A hall extends out towards the front doorway, and an archway nearly in front of the couch leads to a shabby kitchen with a trifold breakfast nook. It’s not a spacious house, but its many small rooms make up something that from the outside might look roomy.
The Prom Queen's Sinner: Thornwood Small Town Forbidden Romance Book One Page 1
