by J. Richards
His angel.
And I said yes.
Lilly’s driving now and Jimmy is passed out in the back seat. My feet are resting on top of the dashboard, something I can only get away with while Jimmy’s zonked out. He would kick my ass all over the Vegas strip if he knew my feet where up here. I peek behind me to make sure he is still sleeping and my lips twitch in a sneaky smile.
He’s so cute when he sleeps. His boyishly handsome face is relaxed, no longer pulled tight by whatever tension has been eating at him. His long legs stretch out behind Lilly and I, his arm is flung across his eyes and his other hand is tucked into the waist band of his pale jeans.
“Isn’t he just adorable, or what?” I ask Lilly while I carefully pull a bag of SmartPop from the bag Jimmy threw on the floor.
“Mmhmm,” Lilly moans and props her elbow up on the door while pushing her hand into her hair. Her head stays resting in her palm, her fingers curling tight in her hair.
“What?” I toss a perfectly popped piece of white cheddar popcorn into my mouth.
“Nothing.” She glares at me quickly then faces the road again. Not convinced, I stare at her until she looks at me again. “What?” Her eyes get big and I laugh lightly.
“It’s not nothing. I can see it all over your damn face.” I look past her and through her side window. We’re close to Utah and I’m excited to see the salt flats. It’s midafternoon and if I wasn’t full of snacks I’d be craving lunch, but the high sun warms me through the glass and I’m happy I’ll be able to see everything in the daylight. “Is this ‘cause of what happened back at the apartment?”
“No.” She snaps all too quickly.
“Well,” I shrug my shoulder and dig my hand in the black bag for another handful of delicious popcorn. “I think it kinda is. You’ve been acting different and so has he.” My thumb hikes backward to indicate our gay sleeping beauty.
“He has?” her voice softens and her eyes move to the review mirror like his had done so often to check on her.
“Jesus, Lilly.” My eyes roll so hard I think could beat a fourteen-year-old in an eyeroll competition. “Yes. He keeps acting like he wants to say something, like he needs to talk but he can’t. So instead he sings and jokes with me all while watching you for signs of God knows what. Maybe he likes you a little extra, too?” My feet slip down from the dash and I roll up my bag of popcorn. “You two seriously need to talk this shit through. You know I always end up running away to hole up in Darius’ suite for most of the vacation, I don’t mean to, but hell, it works out just fine for me.” My smile flashes and it’s her turn to scoff and roll her eyes. “You’ll be sharing a room with him for God’s sake. I need to make sure I can leave the two of you alone together or if I need to ask Darius for another room to separate you.”
“I know.” She concedes. “I just don’t know what to say to him.” Her voice is a soft whisper and I look back again to make sure Jimmy hasn’t woken up. “Like do I tell him ‘no one has ever made me feel as good as you did when you were going to fuck me just to prove a point?’ I can’t say that! I’ll sound so dumb and he’ll laugh and it will really hurt to have him reject me like that.”
“Okay,” I scoot up and point at her. “First off, that man has never rejected you in any way, shape or form, and you’ve given him plenty of opportunities so there’s that. Secondly, you’ve been friends for so long Lil, what’s so scary about talking to your bestie?”
“What’s so scary?” She laughs loudly and Jimmy’s foot stretched out to kick against the back of my chair. Lilly and I both look back but he is just readjusting his position and hasn’t woken up. Or at least it doesn’t look like he has. “I don’t know, maybe that the man I turn to for everything will want nothing to do with me any more once I admit to him that I’m feeling him in a new, weird way?”
My head nods. “Yeah, okay. You win. I get it.” She sags in the driver’s seat and I look out my own window. We’ve entered the salt flats now and it’s more than I could have imagined. The ground is so flat that it disappears into the sky. Water covers the large expanse of either side of the highway and the blue water blends into the blue sky, making them one giant mirror imagine. The clouds float in the waters and the purple mountains strain to be noticed in the background. “But you still need to talk to him. Otherwise this weird joke, almost sex thing will sit between the two of you and the more time that passes the farther apart it will shove you.”
Lilly takes a deep breath and holds it for a long time before exhaling. “I know.” I reach over and pat her bicep. She gives me a weak smile, then sighs again. “I know.”
“Good. Now that that’s settled, can we have some fun?” Her forced smile ticks with natural happiness.
“What did you have in mind?”
“You swerve and we scream?” I can’t get the smile on my face to relax.
“Oh, my God.” She laughs. “He’ll kill us.” She looks into the rearview mirror and nods quickly. “Let’s do it!” She loudly whispers.
I turn around in my seat, stretching out my seatbelt so I can get on my knees. I hold tightly to the head rest with one hand and the other lifts up. I hold three fingers up and chuckle with Lilly. One finger folds in and two are left. She’s laughing hard now and I hit her in the shoulder with my two fingers. “Shh.”
Lilly’s hand covers her mouth. Her eyes are squinting, trying to see the road through her laughter. I look back over my shoulder, the road is empty for what looks like a thousand miles ahead of us. I lower my second finger leaving just one up. “Wait!” Lilly squeaks. She reaches for her cell phone and hands it to me. I open up the camera inside, knowing exactly what she wants me to do and click record.
I take another deep breath to steady my giggles and drop the last finger. Lilly swerves the Jeep much harder than I thought she would. The sudden jerk of the wheel throws me into the door and I smack my head on the window. I let out a death scream. It rattles my own ears as I watch Jimmy get thrown around the backseat as Lilly rights the vehicle. She screams with me and seriously, we should have been the cast in a horror movie.
Jimmy’s eyes jump open and his body bolts upright. The best part is his scream. He screams like an Oscar winning female even though he has no idea why we are screaming. I try to hold the camera straight while I’m laughing my ass off but I don’t think I’m doing a very good job. I’m laughing so hard that I suddenly have to pee so bad. I clench my thighs together and try to stop laughing but Jimmy has his arms braced out until reality sets into his sleepy brain and he realizes he isn’t in any danger.
Lilly blurts a laugh that makes me giggle harder. “You fucking bitches.” Jimmy cusses.
“I- I-I,” I can’t speak, I’m coughing with laughter. “Fuck, I have to pee.” I finally spit out the words.
“I hope you piss yourself.” Jimmy snaps and I slide down the back of my seat to curl myself in a ball of unstoppable giggles. Lilly’s laughing so hard I can see tears running down her cheeks. Her chin is almost on the steering wheel from her doubling over so hard. “Pull over!”
“O-o-oaky.” Lilly nods, her hands still smashed against her mouth. “I’m gonna crash if I don’t anyhow.”
“I can’t believe you assholes.” Jimmy mutters behind me as Lilly pulls over to the side of the road. I push my door open and almost fall out if it wasn’t for my seat belt that’s still latched across my body. I unclip it and roll out of the Jeep. Jimmy opens his door too but I’ve fallen to my knees in laughter and keep crying out as my bladder threatens to wet my pants.
“Stop.” I beg him. “Please, please stop.” I push my hand between my knees. “Please, I can-can’t laugh anymore.” I drop my forehead to the hard pavement and pull in a few deep breaths, calming my body and my brain. Slowly I sit up as I hear Lilly’s door slam closed and she comes around the hood of the Jeep, I catch a brief glimpse of her face, wrinkled with laughter and I lose it all over again.
“I should strip you both right here and spank your ass’s red fo
r all the highway travelers to see.” Jimmy barks like a Chihuahua. Well, I guess only some of us hear it as an empty threat like the ones that come from tiny dogs. Lilly has stopped laughing and is looking at Jimmy like he just threatened her with releasing everything inside of the gates of hell upon her.
“Sorry.” Lilly peeps. My laughter has died now and is replaced with confusion. Jimmy has his arms crossed over his hard chest and he’s staring Lilly down.
“Is that what you want?” He snaps at her and I can physically see her shrinking under his disapproval.
“We were only trying to lighten the mood.” She whispers. I push up off the ground and rush to her side but with one look he stops me. Jimmy’s eyes burn into mine and I can see his are filled with unforgiving lust. The boy is wound so tight he was bound to snap, I just hadn’t seen it before.
“Evie, get in the car. This is between Lilly and I.” He jerks a finger out to point at the car and I nod without speaking and put myself back in the passenger seat. I can’t just let them hash it out in privacy though, I carefully press the window button and let it crack open a half an inch so I can listen. “Did you think scaring me half to the death would make for a good time?”
“Kind of.” Lilly is speaking so softly I have to rest my head against the glass and turn down the radio to hear her clearly.
“I don’t know what’s changed in the last two days between us but I can feel it Lilly. It’s weighing me down in ways I hadn’t known were possible. Things are shifting,” I peek at them from the corner of my eye and see Jimmy stepping up to Lilly and grabbing her chin, lifting her face to his. “Between us, tell me you feel it, too.”
“I do,” she practically purrs at him.
“Good,” He nods once. “Then turn around and accept your punishment.” My mouth drops open and I forget to pretend like I’m not eavesdropping. My forehead is flat against the glass as I watch Lilly turn and bend over slightly. “Count for me, bad girl.” He commands and my lower belly feels all wobbly.
What the fuck is going on? Is Jimmy, my gay best friend, actually spanking my best, best friend, on the side of the highway? This road trip must be making me delirious. I blink quickly a few times, then rub my eyes with the heels of my hands and refocus on my friends.
Jimmy has a hold on Lilly’s left shoulder as she stands bent before him and his right-hand crashes down on her ass. My body flinches in reaction. “One.” Lilly wheezes. He strikes her again and she calls out. “Two.” My mouth is going dry from being open so long but I’m seriously in shock. He spanks her twice more and she counts off the swats of his hand.
“You know what the problem with bad girls is, Lilly?” He asks just barely loud enough for me to hear. I see her shake her head and I feel like an idiot when I realize I’m shaking my head too. “The problem with bad girls is that they always like getting spanked, making punishing them that much more difficult.” He ends his statement with a loud slap to the ass cheek he had already been abusing.
“Five.” Lilly chokes.
Six.
Evie.
Jimmy pulls on Lilly’s shoulder to make her stand up straight and spins her around to face him again. Without saying another word, he crashes his mouth to hers. Lilly’s body seems to bow as he deepens the kiss and her hands fly up to cling to his shoulders.
I’m breathing so hard over the scene before me that I’ve fogged up the damn window with my own breath. I sit back and wipe my hand across the condensation. Jimmy releases Lilly’s mouth and grabs her hand, dragging her up to the side of the car Jimmy had exited. He opens the door and she climbs in. After shutting her door, Jimmy opens mine and grabs my hand.
“Out.” He demands.
“What? Why?” I ask as he pulls me out of my seat and presses his hand on my lower back. “Did you just kiss her?” I can’t help but to ask and he smiles wickedly.
“I’m kicking you both out of the front of my vehicle since you want to act like children instead of the adults you are supposed to be and yes, I did. Get in the back, I’m driving the rest of the way.”
“You didn’t sleep all that much.” I protest.
“I’m fine, we have four hours left till we get to the Resort and then I can sleep, peacefully, when we get there.” I pout at him. I don’t think I like this new, bossy version of Jimmy.
“It was just a joke.” He ushers me around the Jeep and opens the back door for me.
“So, I’ve been told.” He snarks as I climb in the back seat next to Lilly who is smiling. “Why are you smiling?” I shake my head as Jimmy gets behind the wheel and pulls back onto the highway.
Lilly leans close to me and whispers. “I think we just talked it out.”
“No, you didn’t.” I utter softly. “He fucking spanked you like a toddler!”
“I know.” Lilly giggles and I can’t wrap my head around how she is laughing about this. “But it helped me see how this could work between us. It’ll be different but I think everything will be just fine.”
“Different?” I feel my brain working triple overtime trying to figure out and process what’s happening around me.
“I don’t expect your little vanilla brain to understand, Evie. Jimmy and I are different than you but the same as each other. I think we’ll be just fine sharing a room this weekend.”
“There’s a rest stop up ahead, should I stop or have you both peed yourselves already?” Jimmy questions.
“I still need to go!” Lilly bounces in her seat, back to her normal, bubbly self. I feel like I’m going cross-eyed and shake my head again.
“Whatever, as long as it works for you.” I drop my head back onto the seat and wait for Jimmy to park at the rest area. We get out and use the bathroom, thank everything that’s holy that we were close to a bathroom. A clean one, at that.
When I return to the Jeep, Jimmy and Lilly aren’t in it or around it and I spin around looking for them. Just on the other side of the parking lot I see them jumping over a fence. What the fuck?” I jog over, my muscles screaming at the sudden use after being seated for so long.
“Hey!” I yell to them as I get closer. “Are you guys ditching me? ‘Cause that would suck.”
“Come on.” Jimmy calls to me and I carefully and awkwardly climb the fence they hoped over easily. I tumble to the ground and groan as I pick myself up out of the soft dirt.
“What are you guys doing?” I ask while brushing off my knees.
“I saw a ton of these along the roadside as we drove by and asked Jimmy if we could do it too.” Lilly answers. She’s using palm size rocks to spell out “Jimmy <3’s Lilly <3’s Evie 2016” in the salty sand. A smile brightens my face and I drop down to help her line up the hearts made of rocks.
“This is so cool.” I squeak excitedly. “The three of us, forever left in the salt flats, I love it.” I grin at the two of them.
“I love it, too.” Lilly’s smile matches mine but turns to something hotter when she glances at Jimmy.
“Yeah, me too.” He agrees and holds out his hand for Lilly. She accepts and he pulls her to her feet easily while I push myself up off the ground. I dust my hands off and start to walk back toward the fence, feeling them join me, I let Jimmy help me over the fence like he did with Lilly and together we all walk back to the Jeep. Jimmy’s arms lay over mine and Lilly’s shoulders while each of us have an arm curled around his back.
“Let’s finish this road trip peacefully, we’re almost there.” Jimmy looks from Lilly to me and I giggle feeling like he’s negotiating.
“And if we don’t agree to your terms?” Lilly asks in a sassy tone.
“Then I’ll find a better way of convincing you.” His voice drops as he speaks and I watch as his hand leaves her shoulder to cup her breast. Again, my mouth drops open at the public display. His fingers pinch over what I assume is her nipple and instead of yelling at him like I would have, Lilly sinks her teeth into her lower lip and her eyelids flutter.
“Geez,” I push away from Jimmy’s side and
he laughs.
“Sorry, Evie. Don’t worry though, in less than two hours you’ll be able to let Darius grope on you, too.”
“While that does make me feel a little better,” I hold my thumb and index finger an inch apart to show that it’s only a very little amount. “I’d still rather not watch the two of you fondle each other.”
“You better get used to it, sweet cheeks.” Jimmy coos at me as I jump in his car and slam the door with a smile. I don’t know how they talked out their kinks with a spanking but I guess that’s how kinksters do it.
Jimmy spoke to me once about kinks and how the spectrum of things different people like is a scale bigger than I could have imagined. I knew since then that he was into some wilder stuff but I honestly just thought Lilly was a hobag, and I mean that in the best way possible. I have no idea that what’s happening in front of me was a possibility but I do just want happiness for the both of them. Jimmy pushes Lilly against her door this time instead of opening it for her. The passenger window in the front is still cracked so I can hear them even if they think I can’t.
“Did you do as I requested?” He asks. I can see his face but not hers. Her blonde head nods and I realize she is pulling something from her pocket. It’s her panties! Jimmy accepts them and brings the frilly scrape of fabric to his nose. He is sniffing my best friend’s panties at a rest stop. Gah, I can’t watch anymore. I turn to the other side and slip my ear buds in my ear.
A few minutes later the door opens and Lilly gets in beside me. She drops a Sprite into the cup holder between us. I nod at her in thanks but stay slouched in my seat with my own personal music playing in my ears, blocking out whatever my friends will converse about on the rest of the way to the Resort.
