I shake my head. He might be the ladies’ man but even he has to admit I saved his butt on this one.
Chapter 5
Rayne
H
ay bales. Two big, round hay bales pushed together in the pasture on the fringe of the bonfire crowd. And he wants me to climb them. Me. Climb them. This boy has a lot to learn about my shortcomings.
“Here?” This has to be a joke, but he’s not laughing.
“Here.” He unfurls the blanket across the top of both, and then nudges my elbow. “Don’t worry. I’ll help you up.” Grabbing one of the baling wires, he plants his foot on the side and hoists himself up in one seamless motion. Oh dear Lord. He’s already seen me half-covered in crap today, and now he’ll see me sprawled out at the bottom of a hay bale when I fall. Possibly bloody… and broken. On his knees, he reaches over the edge and grabs my hands. As he pulls me up, my feet scramble for traction like a cat being pulled from a flea dip bucket.
Finally making it to the top, I crawl beside him and sink into the crevice between the bales, legs thrown up on one side and back resting on the other. Like one of those adjustable beds, only scratchier. An unseasonably cool wind tousles my curls, and the bonfire flames pirouette in the distance, orange fingers spiraling against the blackened horizon that spice the air with aromas of charred wood.
Preston tugs me to his side, so close my hand smooshes into his thigh where his smooth skin edges out the bottom of his shorts—silky smooth. Preston’s clean-shaven from face to foot, and the peaks and valleys of the muscles hidden below his khakis tease my fingertips. He slides his right arm across his body and runs his fingertips up and down my arm. The sensation’s so gentle I glance down to make sure his fingers are, in fact, touching me. They are, and not on accident.
But why’s he not talking? I sweep my tongue around my cottony-dry mouth, ensuring the barbecue from earlier is gone and focus my eyes on everything except him. People talking around the fire. A few clouds swirling by the moon. A wily piece of hay sticking out from the others. Put me out of my misery already…
“So…” He drums his fingers on my arm. “Have fun today?”
Finally! “Yeah, I did.” I prop up on my elbow. The moonlight gilds the top of his hair, illuminating a brown clump lodged above his right ear. “Looks like you missed a spot cleaning up that mud.” I pinch out the dried clod and flick it to the ground.
“Thanks.” He relaxes into the bale, elbows behind his head and a slight grin settling into the corners of his mouth. “Tell me something about yourself.”
“Okay… I’m seventeen. Closet nerd with a slight coffee addiction. A cheerleader, but only because Jaycee forced me, and to relax, I enjoy long runs through downtown.” I stop and pinch my lips together. Desperate much? “Wow. That kinda sounds like a personal ad.”
“Yeah. Kinda does.” He smiles, both rows of teeth perfectly straight and bright white against the darkness, and traces meandering circles with his finger over the top of my knuckles. “So, Miss Personal Ad, what kind of guys do you like?”
I twist my mouth sideways, tapping my finger to my chin. “Hadn’t given it much thought.” Lies. All lies.
“Don’t. Thinking about anything too much ruins it. You have to let things happen. Ignore the rules—a famous Gage-ism.”
I squint my eyes. Rule-breaker is not a word I’d use to describe Preston. “And you’re okay with that?”
“Absolutely not. I don’t like surprises.” He reaches up and strokes my hair, singles out one ringlet and curls it around his finger. “So, tell me more. Favorite food, favorite color, college plans?”
So, he does want to know more than the shape of my tonsils or the feel of my ass.
“Sure. You first.”
He smiles. “All right. Lasagna. Red. Tech starting this fall, then transfer to a four-year school—probably Clemson.” He ticks each off on his fingers.
“Why Tech first? Weren’t you recruited for football?”
He presses his lips together. “I was. Got a lot of offers, too, but mostly up North and out West, and I want to stay here. My parents have this dream of me one day working in my dad’s accounting firm. That’s why I’ll be working there when the fall semester starts. Shadowing, going to meetings, that sort of thing.”
“Wow. Sounds grown-up.”
“That’s Mom’s philosophy. A nineteen-year-old high school graduate should act like a man and put away ‘childish diversions.’” He says childish diversions like he’s imitating her, but he’s not snide, just matter-of-fact.
“What are your childish diversions?” I wiggle my fingers in air quotes.
“Anything not directly related to school or the firm, according to mom. For me, it’s football. I miss playing, but...” He shrugs. “You do what you’re supposed to, right?”
“I guess.” A nasty grimace takes my face hostage, and I drop my head so Preston won’t see. My whole life’s been about doing what you’re supposed to, but sometimes I want to do what I want for a change.
“Anything else you want to know about me?”
I glance up at him. Something’s been bothering me since the news broke this morning, and if I don’t ask, I’ll wonder. And if I wonder, I’ll doubt. And if I doubt, I might as well forget this whole thing right now. “Why me?”
“What?” He rises back up on his arm and narrows his eyes.
“I’m not like any of the girls you’ve dated before. So… why me?”
He shifts his legs along the hay and blows out a loud breath. “The town’s gotten to you, I guess?”
I fiddle with some hay sticking out from underneath the baling wire, refusing to look at him. What’s the appropriate way to ask why he’s suddenly decided to go slumming? “I mean, yeah, I heard it around town, but that’s not why I’m asking. I just need to know.”
He tips my chin up with his fingers. The shadows haunt his face, the only light an orangey glow warming his chocolate eyes, which deadlock on mine. “You’re not like other girls I’ve dated. I’m tired of that.”
Who does he think he’s fooling? “The perfect guy is tired of perfect girls?”
He sighs and shakes his head. “You think I’m perfect? You think they were?”
Uh, yeah. My shoulders shrug to my ears.
“Rayne, people believe what they see, but what you see isn’t necessarily true. The other girls I’ve dated… oh, they had some issues, but I’m not perfect either.”
“Sure you are…”
He grabs my shoulders and squares me in front of him. “Okay, let me tell you a story. I’m the championship quarterback. Led the team to victory, right?” I nod. “My junior year, there was one game I got my ass kicked all over the field. I could throw it deep but not scramble, and once they figured that out, it was over. The coach was in my face, and I really just wanted to say screw it. When we got home, my dad took me in his study, sat me in the leather chair, propped his feet up on his desk and stared at me over his glass of scotch.”
“Was he mad?”
“No. He said he was glad it happened. It exposed my flaw, got it out there in the open so I had to deal with it. I still remember his words, ‘Son, address it, face it, beat it. The weak points are where you grow. Failures bring success.’” He snorts and shakes his head. “I thought he was drunk at first. Now I know he’s right.”
I study his face for a minute. He nods, eyes wide and smiling as if he’s just revealed some great truth. “So much good advice to be had from you Howard men. And that’s a convenient answer, but…”
“It’s truthful.” He pauses, swallows, and starts again. “You want to know why I’m interested? At prom I saw you with that geeky dude… Thad, right?”
Oh God. I bury my face in my hands. No good deed goes unpunished yet again. I’d gone with Thaddeus McKelvey, grade-A class nerd, because I could relate to him. We both had that square-peg-in-a-round-hole-thing going on. Besides, Mama wouldn’t agree to my going with an
yone else. Jaycee swore it’d come back to bite my ass, and here it is.
“Anyway, everyone was making fun of him, but you stayed on his arm all night. That dude had a smile on his face the whole time, while I was stuck with a date that complained about everything, hated her food, hated her hair, and hated all my friends. I wish I could’ve smiled like Thad.”
No freaking way. My going with Thad won Preston over? So much for Jaycee’s theories.
I drop my hands to my lap, grab his fingers, and squeeze. A new connection, a better understanding of each other, smolders in the touch. “Now I guess I owe you some answers. Chicken-fried steak, blue, and I have absolutely no idea, but Mama’s got a whole crop of college applications waiting on me at home.”
He reclines into the bale, running his fingertips up my backbone, and then pulls me into the niche between his neck and shoulder. In between our school discussions and quiet moments of gazing up at the multitude of stars freckling the inky blackness, Preston meanders his fingers to mine and interlaces them, the length almost double mine, folding nearly all the way back to the meaty part of my palm. The warmth radiates up my arm. With his other hand, he scours the bale and plucks out single strands of hay he twirls between his fingertips before letting them drop into a little pile beside him. Maybe he wants to ask me about Mama and the Pig fiasco? If so, what do I say? I can tell the truth, but I don’t want him thinking Mama’s crazy because if Mama’s crazy then her daughter can’t be far behind, right?
He loosens his grip and props up on his elbow, hovering above me. He cups my chin and lines me up for a direct impact, my nose brushing against his. “I really like you, Rayne…” His words faintly stand out against the high-pitch humming of crickets and cicadas in the surrounding pasture.
His lips come at me like a shark in the ocean. Searching. Seeking. Intimidating. I’ve kissed a few boys over the years, but no one special. A peck here or there. A spin-the-bottle game. Never a hot guy like Preston. Never a make-out session. Oh my gosh—is this about to be a make-out session?
His lips greet mine in a flurry of kisses. I can’t catch up. By the time I acclimate my lips to one type of smooch, he moves on to another. Full-on contact to bottom lip nibbling to some sort of licking motion along my teeth. I’m glad I checked for leftover barbecue. His lips are more soft and supple than I expected, and they glide over mine with a faint heat.
I slit one eye open. His are closed. Stop it, Rayne. Enjoy this. Quit getting in your own way.
His lips still and linger close but not touching, our foreheads leaned together. I lift my eyes. He’s looking back. “It is okay if I kiss you, right?”
Not trusting my voice to actually work, I nod. He smiles and kisses me again, harder and faster, this time letting his hands roam over my body, down my shoulders, arms, side, and to my butt, where he digs in his fingers a little and tugs me closer. Mama would kill him. She’d crawl up on this bale and beat his… Mama. My curfew. I forgot all about it, so while he’s kissing me, I sneak a peek at my phone. All hell breaks loose when the digital numbers flash on the screen.
I rip my lips from his. “Oh shit! It’s almost eleven. I gotta get back before curfew.” I stand up, brushing hay from my clothes. I sure don’t need Mama wondering how I got straw stuck all over me tonight. “Talk to you later.” I jump off the edge of the hay bale, my ankle screaming in a jolt of pain as I hit the hard dirt.
“Wait,” Preston yells and jumps off right behind me. “I want to see you again.” He presses me into the hay bale and leans in close, past my lips to my neck. When Jaycee runs up, he jolts backwards.
“I hate to interrupt whatever this is,” she says, waving her hand around, “but it’s ten ‘til eleven. If we’re not back by curfew, your mama’ll send up the search helicopters.”
“I gotta go.” I grab his phone and hand him mine. We quickly enter our numbers in the other’s contacts. “Call me.” I run to Jaycee, who grabs my hand and pulls me to the car.
Chapter 6
Gage
T
he flames are head-high now, big wisps of smoke curling up into the night sky. I sniff the air. Charred wood with a hint of pine from the broken branches they threw on for kindling. The base of it’s so wide I can’t see the people on the other side. Not that I care. From the swell of loud laughs and shrieks coming from the abyss, I’m content to be over here on the quiet side. Just me and my trusty pair of camp chairs, one for my butt and one for my feet. Other than my Coke and a few bags of chips I snagged from the food table, I’m alone, and have been since Preston dragged Rayne off to the hay bales and Barrett made his move on Jaycee and they disappeared somewhere toward the barn. The way she was gawking at him, I’m surprised his Wranglers didn’t peel up and fall off right there on the grass. God help him.
I pop another chip in my mouth. The crunching echoes so loud in my head, it blocks out all the other noises around me. Without warning, the chair underneath my feet disappears to the right and sends my legs flopping to the ground like heavy weights, the momentum nearly flipping me forward out of my chair.
Preston plops it down beside me and sits back, arms folded behind his head. Barrett walks behind him, chewing on a long blade of field grass.
“You two back already?” I glance at my watch. “Damn. That must be some sort of record to get dumped by 11 PM.”
Barrett slaps me on the shoulder and spits the straw to the ground. “This from the boy who got no play, all day.”
I shoot him a nasty smirk over my shoulder. He’s obviously qualified to make the “no play” statement. From the looks of it, plenty came his way tonight. Barrett’s button-down is no longer tucked in, and deep creases cut across the front, like it’s been pushed up or crumpled underneath something—or someone.
Ugh. The mere thought of Jaycee mauling my friend punches my gag reflex, inducing a burning in my stomach that inches its way up my esophagus.
Preston laughs. “Gage would rather sit here alone all night than worry about impressing a girl.” He turns and fixes his eyes on me. “But one day, brother, someone will change your mind.”
“I wouldn’t count on that.” I stand up, fold one camp chair and toss it in the back of my Scout while Preston folds the other. “Since you two losers are officially girl-free now, are you ready to go?”
Preston loads in the second chair and slams the tailgate. “Barrett rode with me earlier, so I’ll probably stick around for a while. Help him clean up after everyone leaves. Would you take us up to the main house to get my car before you go, though?”
“Sure. Get in.” I nod toward the passenger side.
Barrett gets in the backseat and leans forward over the front bench. “Go out the gated entrance and up to the third drive on the right. It’ll be easier at night instead of trying to drive across the fields.”
I turn the key and the engine rumbles to life. I love the sound of it. Heavy, tough, and gritty. Kinda like me.
We peel down the gravel path to rocks clinking against the underside of the Scout and yank our seatbelts around us. “Y’all never did tell me. Why’d your night end so early?”
“Preston’s girl has a curfew.” Barrett sulks in the backseat, arms folded across his chest. “Sucks, too, cause things were just getting good between me and Jaycee.”
Good and Jaycee—isn’t that a contradiction in terms? I didn’t know her on any sort of personal level, but there’d been a few rumors over the years that’d run their course through the school. Some speculation on her being a little bit wild and a lot clingy, usually with guys considered the “uppercrust.” Apparently, she has a thing for latching on and bleeding them dry—of money and patience—and then discarding them like filthy rags. Why Barrett’s even bothering with her confounds me. The allure of wild fun must trump certain drama.
“Yeah, it’s all good until she gets what she wants then chews your head off.” I laugh, glancing up at Barrett in the rearview mirror, imagining him as a doomed praying ma
ntis.
He scowls. “You salty?”
“About you hooking up with Jaycee?” I laugh, circling my finger in front of my face. “This is not salty. This is pity.”
“Come on, Gage, she’s not that bad.” Preston presses his head into the front seat where Barrett can’t see and makes a face then thumbs over his shoulder into the backseat. “Besides, if anyone can handle her wild streak, it’s him.”
Barrett leans forward, head and arms creeping over the back of the bench seat. “I can confirm that part of the rumor is true. Jaycee’s… not shy.” He pulls down the collar of his shirt, displaying two big purplish welts marking the slope of his neck like a badge of honor. Preston takes one look, closes his eyes, and shakes his head as Barrett slugs him in the arm. “What about Rayne? She hidin’ a little tiger inside her goody-two-shoes self?”
Definitely. Her shit-talk comebacks this afternoon were on point, with just enough sarcasm to undercut that honey voice.
“Nah. She’s level, man. Smart, mature, kind.”
“Yeah. Kind of boring.” He flicks down the collar of Preston’s polo. Tanned skin with no splotches whatsoever. “Obviously.”
A wave of relief floods over me. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I’d formed my opinion of Rayne already, seeing her ankle-deep in cow patty and still slaying the sarcasm. A fire danced in her eyes—not of bitchiness but of competition. A fire I know well. Preston’s lack of hickeys only proves she is, in fact, nothing like Jaycee.
Good. That’s the last thing my brother needs.
“Did anything happen between y’all?” I ask, not sure if I really want to hear all the details.
He shrugs. “We kissed.”
“And?” Barrett asks, rolling his hand, beckoning for more.
“And talked.”
“That’s it?” I joke. “Did you invite Ashlyn up there with you, too?”
The corners of my mouth inch up, and as we pull out onto the main road, Barrett meets my smile with one of his own and nudges my ribs with a snort. “Sounds like a perfect PG evening. Afterwards, did you hold hands and skip?”
Meant to Be Broken Page 4
