by Lexi Hunter
There was a noise from down the hall. Aaron. I recognized the tone of his voice even if I couldn't make out what he was saying. Thank God. I ran my fingers through my long hair, glad for the recent blonde highlights even though they probably wouldn't be visible in the dark. There was another sound. This one was different. Richer. More... illicit.
I listened closer. It sounded like Aaron was working out. I knew jocks liked to take advantage of downtime, exercising in spaces without any equipment whenever the opportunity presented itself, but this was ridiculous. I guess he was still secretly hoping to get drafted, but his college football days hadn't exactly garnered much interest from the pro-ball guys. I felt bad for him. Hell, right now, I felt bad for me. Three days after graduating college and Aaron was still more concerned with his exercise routine than with me.
I knew it wasn't my body. He was always trying to get in my pants. I didn't blame him. My curvy hips and full breasts were the fantasies of most men. I was glad I wasn't a size zero, like Brie. Men liked something to hold onto, and with me, they had a handful. Tonight, Aaron was going to be the first man I had ever permitted to taste that handful.
I peeled off my panties, glad that I'd thought to wear a skirt, and followed the sounds down the hall. The door stood open—most of the rooms didn't even have doors—and I walked right in. Aaron only turned his head when I gasped. He jumped off Brie, who had her legs wrapped around him like he was some new form of exercise equipment.
"Shit!" he shouted.
Brie jumped up, searching frantically for her jeans.
"What the hell?" I cried.
Aaron reached for my arm. "It's not what you think."
I blinked, unable to believe Aaron would say something so ridiculous. "You had your..." I stumbled over my words, "dick in her! What do you mean it's not what I think?"
"It was an accident," Brie said, finally finding her clothes and pulling them back on.
"As in you accidentally fell into each other," I screamed. Their image was permanently burned into my brain. I only hoped it wouldn't do any damage. I turned to leave. There was a hunk of something on the floor that looked like a melted frying pan and my foot caught it in the dark. I tripped and skinned my knees, my skirt riding up and giving Brie and Aaron a great view of my ass.
Aaron paused a second, uncertain what to make of my bare bottom. I wasn't one of those girls who walked around without panties on. Brie knew what I'd been planning for tonight, though, and even in the dark, I could see her face go red.
Good. At least she feels some shame.
Though whatever she felt would never be enough.
"No!" I shouted, waving off Aaron's hands as he tried to help me up. "Leave me alone." I pulled my skirt down and tried to stand without falling again.
There was a commotion from downstairs and I thought Derek and Mikey were running up to see what was happening.
"Who's there?" a voice asked from the darkness. It wasn't Derek or Mikey, and for one crazy second, I thought a ghost or two had decided to make themselves known to us.
Suddenly, there was movement everywhere. "Don't move. Police." Oh fuck.
There was a rush of flashlights and an army of footsteps invaded the empty room. We were surrounded.
CHAPTER 2
Criminal
I DIDN'T KNOW what was more embarrassing, having my parents get a phone call from their twenty-one-year-old daughter in the middle of the night informing them she'd been arrested, or explaining to the female officer why I wasn't wearing any underwear.
"I'm only asking because we have to check and make sure nothing happened that you didn't want to happen," she said.
Thank God the officer was a woman. When I told her about finding Brie and Aaron together, she took pity on me. I hadn't been caught smoking any weed with Mikey and Derek, so my charges weren't as bad. Trespassing.
I blushed. "You don't have to tell my parents about the, er, underwear thing, right?"
She looked at me and smiled. There were slight creases around her eyes, but otherwise, they were soft and sympathetic. "You're twenty-one. Technically, we don't have to tell your parents about any of this if you don't want us to."
I considered that a second, wondering if there was some way I could live through this night without having to tell my parents. But who else was I gonna call? I still lived at home, for crying out loud. They came to get me and let me have it when I got home. They were so disappointed. They couldn't believe I'd do something so stupid. Yada yada yada. All the typical parent stuff designed to guilt trip you and make you think about your actions.
Later that night, after my parents had finally decided I could go to sleep, I thought about how stupid I'd been to ever trust Aaron. All men were dogs. It was a theme that came up over and over again in songs and movies.
You can't trust men. Love hurts.
I told myself that I would never again trust anyone like I'd trusted Aaron. Love was now a thing of the past, something to be deleted and sent to the trash bin. It made my stomach queasy to think how ready I'd been to give my body to him. Aaron and Brie didn't even have enough respect for me to wait till they were alone. What a fool I'd been.
I started having doubts that I'd never had before. Brie was a twig. Maybe I'd been wrong all this time about what, exactly, Aaron was into. I'd always assumed he liked a voluptuous woman with a fleshy round ass and shapely hips. But maybe I'd been wrong. Maybe he liked a size zero.
My parents hired a lawyer for me, some guy they saw on TV in a bad infomercial who said it was "easy peasy, nothin' but breezy" to get me off with nothing but a little community service time. Turns out he was right. One hundred hours of community service and a month of probation. I could live with that.
My parents, however, didn't think that was enough. They insisted I needed a good influence in my life. A positive role model. Apparently, my grandfather was the perfect person for the job. He was a war veteran, and it would do me good, they said, to be around someone with life experience. Someone who could help me set goals for the future.
They expected me to go to his house every day during the summer when I wasn't doing my community service and clean, run errands, or whatever he needed. Basically, I was assigned to be his maid.
I argued with this. After all, at twenty-one, I was no longer a child. I didn't see how they could ground me. I had just graduated college. Guess what my dad said. "My house, my rules." I was given the choice to either move out on my own or do my parents' bidding. I had a part-time job working at a bookstore, so I didn't think I was gonna be moving out any time soon. I sighed and consented to help my grandfather.
My dad's best friend was also gonna be coming around to help out the old man. Liam had been traveling in Europe for the last eight years, but now he was back. He was a contractor or something and was going to help my grandfather with some much needed repairs to his home.
I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen Liam. I think I was twelve. I remembered him as being overweight with ugly skin. Maybe he had some good stories about Europe he could tell me. I wondered what he'd been doing over there for eight years, anyway.
At least I wouldn't be alone with Grandfather. And I figured it was better than my parents kicking me out of the house. I didn't have a boyfriend or best friend anymore after what had happened, so it wasn't like I had anything better to do this summer. Me, Grandpa, and Liam. It was going to be interesting.
