The Nomad Series-Collectors Edition

by Janine Infante Bosco

  “Happy sweet sixteen,” I mutter between kisses. I nip her lower lip and slide my tongue along the seam of her mouth, catching the moan that escapes the back of her throat. Her hands slide down my chest and she palms my erection. Her first go at a hand job nearly cost me my dick, but she’s learning.

  I move her hand, cutting her lesson short because I’ve got big plans for my girl, and dropping a load in my jeans isn’t part of them. Peeling my eyes away from her pouty mouth, I reach into the back seat and grab the bouquet of flowers I picked up from the corner store.

  She slaps my shoulder as I hand them to her and smiles at me.

  “You bought me flowers?”

  “They’re just flowers,” I say with a laugh.

  “Shut up, you’re ruining the moment,” she scolds as she brings the colorful mix to her nose. “I love them,” she adds, lowering them from her face. “No one ever bought me flowers before. Well, my dad bought me flowers for my dance recital but that doesn’t count.”

  “Plan on taking all your firsts, Cel,” I tell her as I run my index finger down the slope of her nose. “Ready to get wild with me?”

  “Always,” she grins.

  “That’s my girl,” I laugh, starting up the car.

  She drops the flowers to her lap and fastens her seatbelt as I start the car. In the city you need to be seventeen to get your license and sixteen for your permit. I’ve got neither. But that won’t stop me and it won’t stop Celeste either.

  She’s been bugging me to teach her how to drive. Apparently having a boyfriend that robs his parents’ car in the middle of the night and teaches himself how to drive makes him an expert. Whatever—I’m going to run with my expertise and give my girl what she wants.

  I’m going to take another first.

  Give her another lesson.

  Take her smile.

  Add it to the tally and teach her how to drive.

  You’re only sixteen once.

  She blasts the music, singing along to each song as I drive down the side streets of Brooklyn, avoiding all major avenues—and cops. At every red light I glance over at her, watching as she dances in her seat, flipping her hair from side to side. A grin spreads across my lips because in that moment she’s living for herself and no one else.

  Mission accomplished.

  “Life is a highway...I want to ride it all night long,” she sings off key at the top of her lungs, using the flowers as a microphone.

  The light turns green and she leans over the console.

  “Sing with me,” she demands.

  “No,” I laugh.

  “Sing with me, Jagger. It’s my birthday!”

  “I don’t know the words,” I lie.

  “Bullshit, everyone knows this song,” she argues, transforming her fist into a microphone instead of the flowers. “If you’re going my way…”

  “I want to drive it all night long…” I sing into her hand.

  “Yes,” she cheers, smacking her lips to my cheek.

  We continue to sing as I drive and I realize that she’s not the only one learning things. I’m learning that everything she does is contagious. From her laughter to her tears, her happiness and her sadness…everything she feels I feel.

  I’m learning life carries on by loving someone else.

  Finally, I pull into the abandoned lot and turn down the volume as she glances out the window and back at me.

  “Oh baby, you shouldn’t have,” she teases before narrowing her eyes at me. “I’m not crawling into the back seat of your mother’s car on my sixteenth birthday. I’m going to need a more romantic story to tell my kids one day.”

  “Didn’t bring you here to crawl into the back seat,” I reply, pushing back my seat as far as it goes. “But I thought you might want to crawl onto my lap,” I suggest, raising an eyebrow as I slap my palms to my thighs.

  “What’s in it for me?” she questions, crossing her arms against her chest.

  “I don’t know, why don’t you hop on and we’ll see what pops up,” I joke.

  “So you threw away your aspirations of becoming a hotshot football player to be a mediocre comedian? You disappoint me,” she mocks.

  Laughing, I reach for her hands and pull her forward.

  “Come on, live a little, gorgeous,” I urge. “Do you trust me?”

  “Of course I trust you,” she murmurs.

  “Then hop on and let’s go for a ride.”

  Her eyes widen and divert between the steering wheel and my lap.

  “Really?”

  I barely have a chance to nod before she’s climbing over the console and positioning herself on my lap. I wrap my arms around her and place her hands on the steering wheel—somewhere between ten and two like I read in the ‘Driver’s Ed’ manual I stole from the DMV.

  “Put your foot on the gas pedal,” I instruct, dropping one hand to her waist and the other to the gear shift.

  “You ready?”

  “Yes,” she says with a nod.

  I’m about to shift the car into drive when she shrieks.

  “No! Wait! What if I crash?”

  “You won’t.”

  “You don’t know that!”

  “Ready?” I repeat, ignoring her.

  “Jagger!”

  I shift the car into drive, slam my foot over hers and we take off. She screams as she grips the steering wheel until her knuckles turn white and I remove my foot from hers. I place both hands on her hips and rest my chin on her shoulder as she drives for the first time.

  We both go flying forward when she slams on the break and then she takes off again. She does that a few times before she gets the hang of it and soon she relaxes in my arms.

  “I’m driving! I’m really driving,” she shrieks.

  “Yeah, you are,” I say proudly. “Shit, Cel, watch the tree!”

  “What tree? Where?”

  The laugh rumbles through me and fills the car as she slams on the break and turns her head from side to side like a tree is going to pop out of nowhere

  “Jagger!” she hisses, slapping my arms that are wrapped tightly around her.

  I press my lips to her shoulder and kiss her.

  “I love you,” I tell her.

  I don’t have to lift my head to know she’s smiling.

  Another smile.

  Another reminder that life goes on.

  -Fourteen-

  Cobra

  Age: 17

  I should feel some sort of remorse for disappointing my parents. They lost the better half of the Richardson twins and got stuck with the delinquent son. The son they signed out of high school after the guidance counselor told them there was no shot in hell I’d ever graduate with my class. Actually, he said I probably wouldn’t even graduate with the incoming freshman class and recommended I get my GED.

  My mother cried for about a second before she popped another Xanax and checked out of life like she usually did. My father remained his typical stone-faced self and ordered me to get a real job. I don’t think he feels anything anymore. He never shows any kind of emotion. I suppose that’s what happens when you have two children and one is born an angel and the other a devil.

  I guess that’s what happens when you learn not all angels end up in Heaven and sometimes the devil escapes Hell.

  I got a job with Celeste’s father working at his garage. For some reason, they feel bad for me and cut me some slack. I’m sure I’m not the guy they want their daughter to end up with, that they prefer her to be with someone who has a future. Yet they haven’t slammed the door in my face and still set the table for four every night.

  Maybe it’s because they know I love her and my poor decisions haven’t rubbed off on her.

  Maybe it’s because I’ve only been making a mess out of my life and not hers.

  Maybe it’s because they know their daughter is going somewhere in this life and it’s only a matter of time before she drops me like the bad habit I’ve become.

  Junior year brought a
lot of changes for Celeste—all of which were good. She stopped cutting class and really applied herself at school. She made up the thirteen credits she pissed away being rebellious with me and scored good grades. She’s got her sights set on college and while I learn how to rebuild a tranny, she studies for the SAT’s.

  We’re changing more and more every day, some of it good and some of it bad, but that damn cloud still drags behind us. There are days when she breaks free from it, away from the guilt and the burden. Days when she gets to be a normal teenage girl unscathed by the ugly world we live in. Those days don’t last because as long as she’s with me, she’ll always have a piece of that hell weighing her down. There are days I wonder if I should let her go, days like today when my mistakes and the road I chose darken her world.

  She should be at her junior prom making memories she’ll never forget, but instead she’s sitting beside me in my dad’s car all dressed up with nowhere to go. I peer at her from the corner of my eye and watch as she toys with the corsage on her wrist.

  I tried to do the right thing, I swallowed my pride and prepared myself to face a school full of people I have absolutely no use for. I rented this stupid tuxedo and picked out a corsage that matched her purple dress. I picked her up, held her door and looped her arm with mine as we headed into the prom. We never made it through the door.

  Apparently the school frowns upon dropouts and doesn’t allow them to escort any of the student body to any functions. So here we are, parked under the Verrazano Bridge listening to sad songs on the radio, wishing for another life.

  A chance to be normal.

  A chance to be two kids under the bleachers without a care in the world and bag of peanut M&M’s.

  Reaching inside the pocket of my tuxedo jacket, I pull out the bag of M&M’s and juggle them from one hand to another before finding the courage to look at her.

  “Hungry?” I ask pathetically.

  She turns to me and I watch as her eyes dip to the yellow bag in my hand. She doesn’t say a word and she doesn’t crack a smile, but she takes the bag of candy. Tearing the corner with her teeth, she pours some into her palm and knocks back a handful.

  “You’re welcome,” I joke, hoping she’ll take the bait but she doesn’t and simply eats another handful. “You going to share?”

  Her eyes slice back to mine and she raises an eyebrow before she digs into the bag and produces two M&M’s.

  “There,” she says, handing them to me.

  I bend my head and eat them straight from her hand before turning her hand over and pressing my lips against her knuckles.

  “I’m sorry you didn’t get to go to prom,” I rasp against her skin. Her gaze softens as she looks back at me and blows out a breath.

  “I never cared about prom, Jagger. It never mattered to me if I went or not,” she confesses. “Truth?”

  Narrowing my eyes in confusion, I nod and straighten in my seat.

  “I only went because I know it’s something Alexandria would’ve wanted to do. Before we even entered high school she was planning on what she would wear to prom,” she whispers, looking out the window.

  “Let me guess, it was a purple dress,” I say.

  She nods and I turn my head, dropping it onto the steering wheel.

  “I dreaded tonight since you agreed to go with me. I thought about all those people who talk shit about us any chance they get and I could picture them whispering as we danced.”

  The silence engulfs us as the ghost of my sister’s memory looms heavily between us.

  “She would’ve danced all night, smiled until her cheeks hurt, and when it was all over she would’ve wished she could do it again,” she whispers.

  I lift my eyes to her and watch as she wipes her cheeks with the backs of her hands.

  “She should be here. She should be wearing this dress,” she cries, fisting the material of the dress until it tears. “Not me.”

  “Shut up! Just shut the fuck up,” I yell, pulling her hands away from the dress. “Don’t you dare say you shouldn’t be here,” I order, holding her wrists.

  Staring at her tear streaked face, I immediately feel like shit for raising my voice. I release her hands, take her face and wipe away her tears with my thumbs.

  “Please don’t say that,” I whisper. “You’re the only thing worth sticking around for,” I rasp, leaning my forehead against hers. “You’re everything.”

  The last three years have been a nightmare, and she is the reason that has kept me from swallowing an entire bottle of my mom’s pills. She’s the reason I haven’t quit the nightmare.

  It’s her.

  It’s the stolen moments where we block out the rest of the world, it’s the tally of her smiles I keep in the back of my mind, and it’s the collection of firsts I’ll always cherish.

  It’s her.

  Always her.

  Struggling for control, I brush my lips against hers. I meant for it to be an apologetic kiss. I meant for it to be gentle. I meant for it to be slow and everlasting

  It was none of that.

  It was desperate, angry and sad.

  Symbolizing the burn of a brand, it was the beginning of the end.

  The end of our innocence.

  Her fingers urgently pull at my hair as her mouth opens and she slides her tongue deeper into my mouth. Tasting the slightest hint of chocolate on her, I lose the last bit of control I had left and kiss her harder, using my teeth and my tongue to claim her mouth.

  Breathless, she pulls back and drops her hands to my shoulders as she stares at me. I open my mouth to tell her I’m sorry, but her finger touches my lips, silencing me.

  “I’m ready,” she whispers.

  I’m sure I heard her wrong. I lean back and wrap my hand around her wrist, dragging her finger away from my mouth.

  “You’re upset,” I say, shaking my head. “You’ll regret it.”

  “You’re the only thing I’ll never regret. Make a memory with me, Jagger. Let’s turn a shitty night into a really beautiful memory.”

  I should probably put more of an effort into changing her mind, but I’ve never turned down the opportunity to take a first from her. I don’t want her to think back on her prom and remember crying in the car and wearing a dress she didn’t even like. In fact, now that I’m thinking about it, she doesn’t even particularly like the color purple.

  She fucking hates it.

  “Only going to ask once,” I say hoarsely as I lean back in my seat and stare back at the ridiculous dress begging to be on the floor of the car.

  “Go ahead, ask,” she insists.

  “You sure, Cel, because you can’t have it back once you give it to me,” I warn, blowing out a ragged breath as her eyes flicker with need.

  “I’ve never taken back a single first and I don’t want to.”

  “It won’t be a romantic story to tell the kids,” I remind her, glancing around the small car.

  “It already is,” she argues.

  “One more time…are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then let’s get you out of that fucking dress,” I growl. As the words leave my tongue, my lips quirk and I smile at her.

  “It’s hideous, right?” she laughs.

  Placing one knee on the console, she gathers the skirt of her dress and drops a quick kiss on my lips.

  “Can you unzip me?”

  As I lean over and drag her zipper down, it hits me—this is really happening. She’s choosing me once more, giving me another first…giving me all of her.

  That’s the last coherent thought that crosses my mind because that’s when she pushes the dress down her body and climbs into the back seat of my dad’s car wearing nothing but a pair of panties. I watch as she lays back against the leather seats and smiles nervously at me.

  I tally the smile as I shrug out of my tuxedo jacket and toss it to the side, along with her dress. She crosses her arms over her chest, hiding her perky tits from my hungry eyes and I quickly undo the bu
ttons of my shirt. Lifting the console, I pull out the condom I threw in there just in case and climb into the back seat with her.

  Her arms move away from her chest and she spreads them wide, welcoming me as I position myself awkwardly between her legs. She wraps her arms and legs around me and leans up to kiss me. I inch back to look her in the eye.

  “I love you,” I tell her before I thread my fingers through her hair and pull the pins until it fans across the leather.

  “See, I told you it was a romantic story to tell the kids,” she jokes. I note the nerves laced between her words.

  “You don’t have to be scared,” I soothe. “It’s just you and me making another memory.”

  “I’m not scared of what we’re about to do. I’m scared I’ll forget how I feel at this exact moment.”

  “You won’t.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “I’ll never let you,” I promise before I bend my head and take her mouth. With a single kiss, I wash away her doubt and seal my vow.

  She relaxes in my arms and when my mouth travels the length of her neck, she moans my name. It’s the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard and I become hungry for more. My hands snake around and squeeze her ass as I wrap my lips around one of her nipples. I suck, lick and bite, enticing another moan from her. It drives me wild and I lose myself a little more in her when I feel her fingers fumble with the button on my pants.

  A laugh escapes her as I lean back on my haunches and smack the back of my head on the roof of the car. Her laugh does something to me, always has and always will. But the sound quickly fades away as my hands glide over the insides of her thighs. Our eyes lock and we both inhale sharply as we reach for her panties.

  It’s not the first time I’ve peeled them off her. It’s not the first time I’ve seen her completely naked. It’s not the first time I’ve touched her there. It’s not the first time I’ve kissed that sweet spot.