The Prom Queen's Sinner: Thornwood Small Town Forbidden Romance Book One

by J. E. Bradley

  Derrick has these early practices four times a week, and I’d forgotten that he’d be leaving me alone here this morning. Luckily our High School is only a mile and a half away. Still, I wish I’d thought about that before agreeing to come with him. I don’t get up for school until seven, and the weight of my fatigue is so heavy that I can’t help but get sucked back into sleep.

  I wake two hours later, the sun peeking through the blinds, the musty scent of unwashed linens and dirty floors creeping into my nose. With how much the man works you’d think he could afford a housecleaner at least once a month.

  I swing my legs around, my feet feeling heavy. I hurry and gather all my things, my phone, charger, wallet, makeup, fresh clothes, homework, and books all into my backpack and then catch a glance at myself in the mirror. My black hair is extremely greasy. I can’t go to school looking like this.

  Instead of a simple change, I decide that I’ll use the upstairs shower. I’ve used it before, only that time Derrick had been here and I hadn’t felt so obscenely awkward. Best to hurry.

  But when I get upstairs, I realize that the hall bathroom shower is broken. The water won’t turn on, and as much as I try to budge the faucet it won’t move. Groaning angrily I grab my stuff. Wyatt’s not here, so I may as well use his shower. No one would know, and even if they did, it’s just a shower, right?

  I tiptoe towards the other end of the hall where Wyatt’s room is and open it to reveal a bedroom that is only somewhat tidy. His bed is made, shockingly, but there are random papers and clothes tossed about. I try hard not to let my eyes dawdle over details because all I’m here for is the shower. Not to snoop. But as hard as I try, I find that my fingers slide across the edge of his dresser, and I look at the photos there. Family photos including Derrick, and even Krista, out on the lake, fishing, at a carnival, and celebrating Christmas.

  It’s sad and reeks of loneliness.

  The bathroom is set at the far end of the room and I have to push aside clothes to get in, but once I’m in I rush to undress and start the shower. I will not look at anything else. I’m on a time crunch as it is, and I am never late to school.

  The hot water rains down on me and I can’t help but imagine Mr. Draper standing here, naked, washing after a hard day of work. I’m ashamed of my thoughts and try to fight them off. But the more I try to fight them, the more they seem to take root. I imagine him storming in the bedroom, angry that someone is using his shower. He’d tear the curtain aside and see my naked body…and then…my heart is pounding in my head and I let out a shaky breath. I can’t think like this. It’s wrong. The fact that I feel tingles in my pussy makes me even more embarrassed, and I frantically wash my hair and body with the men’s shampoo and body wash. I’ll have to do without conditioner for a day.

  The scent of his wash is cedar and tobacco leaf, strong male scents that tantalize me. With every sweep of the lathered soap over my body, I imagine that it is his hands, large strong hands that know exactly what I want, as I slide the soap over my breasts; around my nipples. Maybe it’s the mystery of him that haunts me, his shadow drawing my eye, drawing my attention even when I know it shouldn’t. He’s a complete enigma, unlike everyone else in this town.

  My cheeks redden with heat as I pull myself out of my reverie and wash off, then grab a towel. I can’t be doing this. Maybe I should just stay away from this house altogether because there’s something about this place that makes me want to stay and unearth every single secret its owner has. Why though? So that I can figure him out and parcel him off to one of the boxes? To make sense of him and finally say—ah, there you are. I understand you now. Now you aren’t so special?

  Coming out of the bathroom in the towel, I go to the bedroom to grab my bag that holds my extra pair of clothes. Then, I freeze. Nuke bounces around on the bed, and I race to the window, towel flopping around me, to see Wyatt’s old red truck parked in the drive.

  “Hello?”

  I hear his heavy footsteps, his angry voice coming from down the hall. Expletives fire off in my mind as I stand like a startled deer waiting for the hunter’s gun to shoot. Adrenaline plows through me and I try to get a hold of myself, but before I can, Wyatt is there, standing in his bedroom doorway. My entire body is drenched in cold; ice stiffening every finger, every hair, every molecule of me.

  His eyes travel over me for a moment that feels like many minutes, swerving into an inappropriate amount of time.

  “I- uh,” he starts, and then jolts away from the doorway, leaving me to dress in peace. My heart pounds like a drum in my chest, every beat resonating in my head. I barely manage to jostle my jeans on, then pull crazily at my shirt till it covers up my still damp chest. I’m so extremely mortified that I almost feel nauseous. If my father knew…If Derrick knew…

  But it was innocent, wasn’t it? I just wanted to take a shower. There was nothing else going on. A simple accident, a triumphant failure. An absurd coincidence.

  When I grab my things and shuffle out of the room, I find Wyatt standing, leaning against the wall at the bottom of the stairs, hands shoved in his pockets. For a man of thirty-four, he is youthful. There’s something about him that I feel embodies a true man, his silence, his dark scruff, his natural tan, and the body that allows him to do hard manual labor. It’s fascinating to me, and as I step down the staircase slowly, averting my eyes as my cheeks redden exponentially.

  He’s silent until I reach the bottom of the stairs.

  “I apologize,” he says, voice nearly a grunt. “I should have known it was you.”

  “No,” I shake my head, fighting for words as they jumble on my tongue. “My fault.”

  It is my fault. I shouldn’t have even stepped foot in his room. Perhaps he knows this because he gives me a short nod and then opens the door for me. This is it. He says nothing more, and I don’t even try to explain further. Explaining further would break a dam of uncalculated emotions that I don’t think I could ever get back, nor could I patch them up and correct them into something appropriate.

  Silence is always the better option.

  “Savannah,” he calls as I begin my walk down the road. “Tell Derrick I’ll leave the key under the mat for him.”

  I swallow, the lump in my throat blocking my response. I give him a small, curated smile and then pick up my steps, entering the maze of backroads, shaded by fir, pine, and oak trees that will lead me to Thornwood High. To my home, my prison, and my throne. Where all dreams and sacrifices are made. And I promise myself a thousand times, with every step that I take, that I will never think about that moment again. I promise myself I will bury it, along with all other feelings that prove to be a disruption in my perfect plan.

  Wyatt

  Fuck. What have I done?

  I rake my hands through my short hair and blow out a stifled breath, trying to think down my hard erection. I’m still standing in the same place, my legs shorting out. I don’t know what just happened. My chest is tight, and I go to the kitchen for a glass of water. Nuke comes and rubs himself against my leg, and I swallow great gulps. Wishing I could swallow down the sick feeling rising up inside of me.

  Does she know how hard it was for me to pull my eyes away from her body, wrapped in that skimpy little towel? The edge of it was just barely concealing her, her breasts pressed up against the tight material. I don’t even remember how long I stared at her, at the droplets of water running down her legs, her arms, her neck, and face. I’d immediately imagined licking them from her skin, tasting the clean wet warmth of her.

  But this is wrong. I know this. She is eighteen, and I am old enough to be her father. Hell, if I had a daughter and any man my age looked at her that way I’d beat their face in. I simultaneously want to protect her and yet crave her vulnerability.

  But, this is just my cock doing the talking. If I were a good man, I’d have better control over my body’s reactions. That is why, no matter what, I will stay away from her. She won’t be allowed to spend the night again.


  I send Derrick a brief text telling him that she isn’t allowed over anymore and then toss my phone aside. Then I remember the reason I’d come home. I head out to the backyard and into the shed grabbing a toolbox that I walk back out to my truck. Nuke follows me the entire way, a supportive, bouncy friend always at my side.

  The front yard is a wreck, the house is a wreck, my life is a fucking wreck. How did I get this swallowed up in self-pity?

  As I set my toolbox into the bed of the truck, my neighbor pulls up. Jade is the only female cop in town and lives only a block down from mine. Luckily my neighborhood is filled with older homes just outside the town’s main real estate: suburban cookie-cutters that are slapped on top of one another. There’s room between the homes in my back road neighborhood, and that’s the way I like it.

  Room to breathe.

  She pops out of her cop car with grace. She’s all strapped and ready to go. I wonder if she’s on the clock. I’ve never really enjoyed the idea of cops, most of the ones I’ve dealt with have been assholes, but, Jade Kim is an exception to the rule. We’ve been friends for a while, her and I. I help her with her yard work, and she’s made me dinner a few times. Seeing her jars me, and I flatten my lips, getting rid of the persistent scowl. Getting rid of the images of Savannah still circulating in my sick head.

  “Hey, Mister. How’s it going?” She smiles.

  She’s a thin woman with long black hair and hooded eyes. She nearly always has her long hair braided back, making her look more innocent than she really is.

  “Oh, you know. As good as it’s going to get,” I say, trying to feign some happiness. Try as I might, my depression seems to usually win.

  “I have a few weeds that need pulling this weekend,” she smiles at me, her fists landing on her hips. “Want to come help me out? There’s lunch and dessert included.”

  “Hm,” I grunt and slam the bed of the truck shut. “What kind of dessert are we talking about?”

  “Truffle fudge brownies,” she gives me a confident smirk, and I think that many guys would feel lucky this pretty twenty-eight-year-old cop was giving them the time of day. She’s young, put-together, and is blunt as hell. Not young enough? My twisted mind parries, and I swallow.

  “Yeah,” I nod once, then twice. “Yeah, of course, Jade.”

  She hides just how much this pleases her, but I can read people pretty well. The only person I can’t read is Savannah. She’s too pure, too naïve, too…childish to think the way an adult thinks. And I hate that I’m intrigued by the mystery of her silence. Her silence would be a brutal way to die, a suffering that I’m sure she places onto many of those bitchy little boys in her school.

  But I know their suffering, and I know that if I keep thinking about her, the silence between us will kill me. Maybe metaphorically. Maybe everything that’s left inside me will slowly die out. But I don’t know why I even care. Because I know that this is impossible, maybe even illegal. Age eighteen doesn’t make it less sick.

  “Okay, see you bright and early then?” she asks, moving back toward her car, black shoes crunching on the pavement.

  “Sounds like a date,” I incline my head again, and she gives me a pearly, seductive smile.

  Fuck, I shouldn’t have said that.

  The rest of the day I admit new clients, work on getting Bill’s rig all fixed up since I can’t ever count on Jerry to finish what I ask him to. My other two guys, Caleb and Randy are out for the day. We work half-staff on Fridays to save on hourly costs. That means for the rest of the day I’m running around like a chicken with its head cut off doing oil changes, running diagnostics, and making appointments for the weeks ahead. But the work soothes me, even though I’m jolted with random flashbacks from this morning.

  These flashbacks make me grit my teeth and work even harder. Every fiber, every muscle, every cell in my body determined to forget her.

  Savannah

  The halls are white with checkered floors, dark green spirit colors creeping along the walls shouting with the voices and vendettas of sports, clubs, and other High School social settings telling people to give a shit.

  There are a few pinned up on the walls that remind people of different events that I stapled to the broad corkboard. The board is filled with fliers and pamphlets, some from teachers, some from counselors. Sometimes you’ll see a page there inviting people to a weekend party until the teachers take it down.

  Lockers line the walls sporting the same dark green, and as a mass, the student body filters in and out of the hallways between classes, humming with life, gossip, and goals. Derrick meets me after the first period, standing next to my locker and before I can resist, he pulls me into a tight hug and his lips find mine.

  “Get a room!” one of my cheer friends call.

  I meet his kisses with the same enthusiasm, praying that he doesn’t suspect that I don’t want him. That I’ll never want him, and that the life I’m living right now seems displaced. Or maybe I feel displaced from it, like I don’t belong here and I’m living a lie. But this lie is what I need to stay sane, so I kiss him, play my role, and fake the smiles. I practice my cheers, lead the school ASB, and continue the path because there’ll never be any way off of this track. I’m stuck here—locked in forever.

  “How was practice?” I ask him.

  “It was good,” he shrugs, and I see something glide over his eyes, something that I can’t really place. I don’t read too much into it.

  “Dad sent me a message saying you’re not allowed at his house anymore.” He rolls his eyes in irritation. “What did you do?” Laughter clots in his throat and he reaches out to pinch my cheek.

  Instead of draining with self-loathing at the thought of Mr. Draper being angry with me, I force a smile and lean in to kiss him again.

  “Well, we tried,” I laugh, grabbing the books from my locker that I’ll need for my next class.

  My heart beats wildly in my chest. He doesn’t want me there? Why? I come to the conclusion that he must think that I’m beneath his son. Maybe he doesn’t like the idea of Derrick and I spending the night together, but still. My skin tingles with embarrassment as I try to shove down the memories. Flashes of Wyatt. Flashes of me standing there in a towel. Excitement.

  I’m thinking too much into it. It was just an accident, and it’s not like there’s much to be embarrassed about. People accidentally walk in on people in towels all the time.

  Except that I shouldn’t have been in his shower. I shouldn’t have stood there in his eyesight. I shouldn’t have been imagining his body in the shower as I scrubbed my body with his soap.

  I swallow the tight lump in my throat and try to tear myself out of my thoughts.

  “Oh my god.”

  I hear Elaina before I see her, and she rushes over and wraps her arms around me from behind.

  “Derrick, why don’t you leave a little of Savannah for the rest of us? You know I get lonely without her,” Elaina purrs at my shoulder, her long blonde hair falling over me as she teases, her fingers clasping at my front.

  “Will you be around to hit the Diner tonight?” she asks me.

  “Yeah.” I rest against her and Derrick rolls his eyes.

  “Don’t stay out too late. We’ve all got a game tomorrow,” he playfully chastises, and then he tugs me out of Elaina’s grasp, laughing at her pouty look. He takes me in his arms and a few of his buddies hoot and holler as they pass down the hall. They slap his ass and make lewd comments before Derrick tells them all to get lost.

  We embrace for a moment before the five-minute warning bell rings, and then I pull myself away from him, like a leech from skin. Only he’s the leech and I want to be rid of him. But no one would ever know that by looking. Only people with the finest observational skills might be able to decipher the lies that I speak with my body language.

  “So, how was last night?” Elaina asks me as we walk to English class. Our day is portioned into P.E., English, Calculus, lunch, and then finishes off with Chemistry, Fren
ch, and then History. Oftentimes many of the seniors skip the morning physical education class because they are so wrapped up in sports, which gives them a nice late start.

  “It was fine. Why?” I ask.

  “You look tired,” she said, linking arms with me.

  Elaina Kendall is the beautiful blonde girl that almost every girl in our school wishes they could be. The typical angel face, the typical perfect body, hair, and teeth. Everything about her is effortless, emotive, and believable. She is who she is without fail. Without trying. I don’t understand how she does it, but maybe people think the same thing about me. Maybe they see the same thing. Perfect. Effortless. Believable.

  “No,” she tugs at her tight t-shirt, covering the sliver of belly peeking from beneath. “I’m joking! I was just wondering because everyone talks about how scary Derrick Draper’s dad is. He’s got a bad rep in this town.”

  “A bad rep?” I repeat mechanically, avoiding her eyes.

  “Yeah. I mean, my dad says that he doesn’t know why people do business with him. He’s a creep,” she snickers. “I just was hoping things went well and he wasn’t like, coming on to you or something!”

  “Why would he do that?” I feel my face turn white, and considering my natural coloring, this is clearly obvious.

  “Well,” she tugs me along down the hallway through the crowds, leaning closer to me and lowering her melodic voice. “I thought you knew…”

  “I mean, I’ve been there before. I haven’t ever heard anything weird about the guy,” I try to giggle, but it comes out extremely forced and inauthentic.

  “I know. I just saw Derrick here this morning so early and was freaked he left you there alone. You’ve never asked why Derrick’s mom left his dad?”

  I nearly stop in my tracks, my stomach suddenly sick. My heart pumps like a beast in my chest—a drum that warns of impending doom.

  “I guess I just assumed it was a normal divorce,” I say, voice ghostly to my ears.