by R. A. Smyth
Setting me back on the ground, Beck keeps an arm around my waist as he turns to Mason, holding out his hand. “Good fight, man,” he praises in an act of sportsmanship.
With a defeated chuckle, Mason shakes his head, slapping his hand into Beck’s. “Yeah, you too, old man. Didn’t know you had it in you.”
Cam comes bouncing over. “Well, well, I never thought I’d see the day Mason got his ass kicked,” he exclaims. “Man, you’ll be getting beat by baby Davenport next if you aren’t careful.”
He laughs, and Mason clocks him around the head. “Shut up, asshole.”
“You are not calling me that!” I argue.
“Why not?” Cam pouts. “Hawk did.”
“He’s not calling me that either. I’m several seconds younger than that dickhead; and I’m not a baby anything. I’m a strong, fierce warrior.”
“Yeah, you are, baby.” Mason swoops in, draping his arm over my shoulder and tugging me in against him, planting a kiss on my temple. Of course, Beck refuses to move his arm, so I end up wedged between their sweaty chests. Their sweaty, naked chests that look so hot and lickable.
“I think this calls for a celebration,” Cam hollers. “Drinks at ours!”
“Sounds good,” Hawk shouts back before saying something to West that's too quiet for us to hear. West doesn’t look pleased, but he doesn’t argue either, so I guess that’s progress.
“Dude, I lost,” Mason says, looking at Cam in bafflement.
“Exactly.” Cam gives him a shit-eating grin. “We’re celebrating your first ever loss. It’s the end of an era, man.”
I laugh at their antics as Hawk and West start collecting the flashlights and meet us in the middle of the ring. Handing a flashlight each to Cam and Mason, the six of us make our way back through the dark, silent forest toward the dorms so we can start the celebrations.
Chapter 8
All six of us pile into the apartment, spreading out on the couches and chairs. I get comfortable on the sofa, leaning back and resting my arm on the armrest while Mason unglues himself from Hadley’s side to grab beers from the fridge and hand them out to everyone.
Grabbing Beck’s hand, Hadley walks my way, giving me a soft smile before sitting down next to me. Her thigh presses against mine and I have to resist the urge to wrap my arms around her and drag her into my lap. That urge only increases when Beck sits on her other side, and I have to push it down, taking a gulp of beer to distract me from her tantalizing scent. The usual subtle vanilla and honey tones of her shampoo are wrapped up in the muskiness from her fight, and the heady aroma has gone straight to my dick, making it press uncomfortably against the zipper of my jeans as I shift awkwardly in my seat, trying not to draw attention to myself.
After our parents insinuated that Beck was working for them, and his outburst the other night about how he’d lost the closest thing he’d ever had to a sister, I did some digging. Not that I found much beyond the usual college and school records.
No evidence of an actual sister, or any other siblings, but I wasn’t expecting there to be, and when I looked into possible deaths in the Black Creek area to see if I could find this ‘sister’ he was talking about, it was like searching for a needle in a haystack. The number of people every year that are run down, outright shot or killed assassination style, is shocking. Even when I searched for teenage girls—guessing that that’s probably the age Beck and his friends were when whatever happened, happened—I still came up with too many potential cases.
Honestly, it sickened me to see so many kids killed pointlessly, all in the name of gang wars. Kids hit by stray bullets while they were out playing, or gunned down on their way home from school. Even if they were lucky enough to make it past their childhood, from what I could tell, they wound up dying for whatever gang they’d pledged their allegiance to. All of it seems like such a senseless waste of life. Yet it looks like the police have all but given up on the town, pulling their men and resources from it, and leaving its citizens to fend for themselves.
Is that how Beck grew up? With death and danger on every corner? There was no faking the raw emotion pouring off of him the other night when I accused him of not knowing the significance of family. I’ve never experienced true loss, but I only had to look in his eyes to see that he had. Whoever his self-made family was, they were everything to him. Is that why he kept seeking me out when he first showed up? Did he see me as some sort of emotional Band-aid that could curtail whatever grief he was feeling? I just don’t understand why he would come here, if not for money. He claims it was to get to know me, but I don’t understand how that could be the case. I’m nobody special or important. So why would he sucker himself into becoming a pawn for our father just to be near me? It makes no sense.
Yet, watching him now as he tilts his head back and laughs at something Mason says before glancing down at Hadley with what looks a lot like love in his eyes, he seems relaxed. More himself than I’ve ever seen him. Out of his stuffy suits and away from the fake persona he wears on campus, he seems so much more like one of us.
He must sense me staring at him as he looks over. Our gazes catch for a second before I break away, taking another swig of my beer, but in that split second, I could have sworn I saw something. A rare moment of vulnerability or openness. I’m not quite sure, but, whether or not he meant to show me so much, it was the most open with me he’s ever been. Usually, he keeps himself guarded and closed off, rarely letting anyone see behind the mask he carefully maintains. Hadley seems to be the only one who has seen the real him.
“West.” Cam calling my name snaps me out of my thoughts, pulling my focus back to the room and whatever they’re talking about. “Tell them how much you love to go swimming in the lake at the cabin.”
I groan, giving a fake shiver of horror as everyone else laughs. “You couldn’t pay me to get back in that lake.”
I always hated the lake. I hated the fact you had no idea what was swimming around in the murky water beneath you. There could be dead bodies or anything just sitting decaying down there. Why would anyone be okay with swimming in that?
Cam sneaking up on me and pulling me under the surface was the last straw. I swear to god I thought an eel or something had gotten ahold of me and I was going to drown and be forever lost to the dirty lakebed. I’ve never been more terrified in my life. Strangely, I never set foot in the lake again after that day, and now I get ribbed mercilessly for it.
“What about the time in freshman year where you thought you had herpes.” I smirk, making Cam’s face redden with embarrassment as he glowers at me.
“I thought we agreed to never talk about that again,” he hisses.
I shrug all the while laughing. It was fucking hilarious. He was convinced his dick was going to drop off at any second. Considering the fact it was freshmen year and girls had only just started showing an interest in all of us—well, mostly them—he was freaking the fuck out.
Hadley gasps, her face scrunching in disgust. “You got an STD? Eww, Cam, that’s gross!”
“No, he didn’t,” I admit, coming to his rescue. “Turns out he had poison ivy all over his junk from fucking some girl in the bushes by the admin building.”
Everyone bursts out laughing. It doesn’t matter how many times we bring this story up, it’s still fucking hilarious.
“Oh dude, that must have been painful.” Beck laughs. “You sure everything still works alright?”
“Don’t you worry, old man, it’s all good as new,” Cam volleys, adopting Mason’s nickname for him. He gets to his feet and strides toward us. Lifting his hands, he pops the top button on his jeans. “Wanna see for yourself?”
Beck throws his hands out to try and stop him from coming any closer. “God, no, I’ll take your word for it.”
Cam’s gaze falls on Hadley, the cocky swagger falling out of his shoulders as heat blooms in his eyes. I can feel Hadley’s entire body tense beside me, reacting to whatever moment the two of them are sharing. It doesn�
�t last longer than a few seconds before Cam coughs and drops his gaze, breaking whatever connection that was between them. There’s no way we all didn’t feel the sexual tension heating up the room though. It’s only a matter of time until they fuck and make up. And, surprisingly, I’m okay with that.
“You got any funny childhood memories, Beck?” Hawk asks as Cam saunters back to his chair and collapses into it, suddenly appearing more withdrawn than he did a minute ago.
“Umm.” Beck picks at the label on his beer as he ponders over Hawk’s question. After a few seconds, a fond smile grows on his face, and he chuckles.
“There was this one night my friends and I managed to get our hands on one of our parents' liquor stash. We were only eleven or twelve so we were fucked on like, half a can of beer.”
The guys all laugh—we’ve all been there.
“Cain, he was always doing reckless shit. I’m pretty sure he thought he’d be dead before he was twenty-five.” There’s a sadness in his tone, but he quickly shakes it off. “Anyway, we were just walking around the neighborhood, thinking we were cool shit when Cain spotted an old merc parked at the curb. His dad had just taught him that week how to disable the alarm on one and hot wire the engine so he could steal it, and he wanted to try it out for himself. Of course, none of us had a fucking clue how to drive. A problem we didn’t consider until we’d already broken in and messed with the wires.
“All four of us were sitting in the car, arguing over what to do when a light switched on inside the house beside us. Well, I’m pretty sure I shit my pants.” Everyone laughs again, and I have to admit, I’m pretty caught up in the story. It’s a million miles away from the life we had growing up. Sure, the guys and I all had each other and got into some shit, but never anything illegal. It was the one thing that was drilled into us from a young age—no getting the police involved in our lives. We thought our parents just didn’t want the bad publicity, but obviously it was more than just their social standing they were concerned about.
“So I dove into the front seat, practically sitting on Cain’s damn lap, as I tried to work out which pedals did what and quickly tore off down the street. Thank fuck it was an automatic or I wouldn’t have had a clue. Not that it was much help when I could hardly see over the dash. I hadn’t had much of a growth spurt yet and once Cain wriggled out from underneath me, I was doing well to see over the wheel. We were veering all over the place, all of us freaking out that whoever was in the house was coming after us.
“We made it a couple of streets before I accidentally side swiped a bike. Then we were really fucked. Less than five minutes later, there was this deafening roar behind us as a dozen bikes chased us down the road, shooting at us. Fuck, we were shitting our pants by now. I didn’t know what the fuck to do. Stop? Keep driving? I’m pretty sure I was crying like a baby.” He chuckles. “They eventually hit one of our tires and the car spun out, losing control. We were still dazed when they tore the car door off and shoved their guns in our faces, but, fuck, the look of surprise when they realized it was a bunch of kids in the car. I think they thought it was a rival gang trying to piss them off.”
Hadley gasps as the rest of us laugh. “What happened?”
Beck shrugs. “They made us promise if we were ever looking to get into the life that we’d go with them. I think they were impressed with our recklessness.”
“Holy shit, that’s insane.” Cam laughs, looking at Beck with what looks like respect, or at the very least a small amount of admiration. It doesn’t sit well with me how easily the guys seem to be letting him into our circle. What happened to not trusting him? Are we seriously done with that because he claims whatever he’s doing is to protect me?
The six of us chat on for a while longer, before tiredness starts to kick in. Leaning in, my shoulder brushes against Hadley’s as I whisper in her ear, “Stay with me tonight?”
I’ve never asked a girl to spend the night with me, but things have been chaotic lately and now that she’s so close, sitting right beside me, I can't stand the thought of her leaving to go sleep alone in her own bed.
Her eyes roam over my face and a small, shy smile crosses her features as she nods. “Course I will.”
Damn, well, now that I’ve gone and asked her, I’m done with the rest of this night. I don’t think I’ve ever been more ready to call it a day and go to bed, but the thought of having her soft curves pressed against me all night has my thoughts heading down a dirty track. Thankfully, it’s not much later when Beck gets up to leave.
“I’m gonna stay here tonight,” Hadley explains when he looks at her.
I expect to see some jealousy or anger at that. Most people wouldn’t be okay with their girlfriend sleeping at another guy's house, especially when he knows damn well she will be sleeping in either mine or Mason’s bed, but instead, he almost looks relieved to hear that.
“Okay. I’ll see you on Thursday.”
He leans down to give her a quick kiss before waving goodnight to the rest of us and heading out.
The other guys begin to tidy up, placing the empty bottles over by the sink.
“Right, well, I’m going to bed,” Hawk says. “I don’t wear headphones or listen to music while I sleep, and I’m not about to start.” He gives each of us the stink eye before sauntering down the hallway toward the bedrooms. Cam lingers in the space between the living room, where Hadley and I are still sitting, and the hallway, glancing back and forth, looking unsure about what to do as Mason joins us on the sofa, sitting in Beck’s vacated spot. After a tense moment of awkward silence as Cam debates what to do, he makes up his mind, mumbling out a hasty goodnight and sauntering down the hall after Hawk.
Hadley worries her bottom lip as she watches him disappear into his room. “Is he doing okay?” she asks softly after we’ve heard the click of his bedroom door shutting behind him.
“He’s actually been doing a lot better,” I reassure her. “He’s stopped drinking, and he’s been going to class more.”
Some of the tension drops out of her shoulders. “He doesn’t know how to act around me anymore.”
“He seemed to be doing pretty well tonight,” Mason supplies.
“When we’re all together, he isn’t so bad, but when it’s just the two of us, it’s…awkward.” She sighs heavily. “Talking to Cam used to be so easy. I miss it.”
I lace my fingers through hers as Mason drapes his arm over her shoulder, tugging her in against him.
“You’ll get back to that,” I promise her.
The way she looks into my eyes, I can tell she wants to believe me.
“You will,” Mason agrees. “It’s in the way he looks at you. He’s fighting with himself because he doesn't know how to handle the way he’s feeling, but it’s a losing battle. Just give him some time.”
Hadley leans her head on his shoulder and the three of us sit in comfortable silence for a bit, each of us lost in our own thoughts until Mason yawns, starting all of us off as Hadley and I yawn in reflex.
“Well, I’m heading to bed,” Mason announces, looking at Hadley. “Which one of us do you want to sleep with?”
“I was going to sleep with West, if that’s okay?” She suddenly looks nervous and I don’t like seeing that expression on her. She’s got no reason to be nervous. Not that Mason or I have really talked about it, but our dynamic with Hadley just feels right. Like this is how it was always meant to be.
Mason tucks his finger under her chin, lifting it so she’s looking into his eyes. “Of course that’s alright, Little Warrior. You never have to be embarrassed about spending time with one of us, or with Beck.” He presses a kiss to her lips and her hands come up to slide through his hair, holding him to her as she deepens it.
It’s probably creepy as hell that I’m just sitting here watching my best friend and my girlfriend suck each other’s faces, but it’s too fucking hot to look away from. Watching them get lost in one another is captivating.
They’re both breathless whe
n they break apart, their lips swollen.
“Night, Little Warrior,” Mason murmurs before getting to his feet and smirking at me before leaving the room.
“Ready for bed?” I ask, unable to tear my eyes away as Hadley’s tongue sweeps out to lick her lower lip, likely tasting the last remnants of Mason on her skin.
Fucking hell, that should not be hot. I’m curious to know what he tastes like, mixed with her, and before I can second guess myself, I lean forward and capture her lower lip with my teeth, sucking it into my mouth. “Mmm.” I release her lip with a pop, watching as her pupils dilate and her eyes widen, her cheeks and chest flushed with need.
“Come on, Firefly, bed time.” Taking her hand in mine, I lead her to the bedroom. I hesitate outside the door, the thought of bringing her into my personal space weighing on me more than I thought it would. It’s stupid. I know she’s been in here before when she snuck into our apartment, but somehow, this feels different. I’ve never brought another girl back to my room. Never invited anyone other than the guys in here. Not that it’s anything special or particularly personal, but it’s my space, where I come to get away from the world. Once upon a time, my bedroom was the one place I could come and be comfortable in my own skin. Where my father wasn’t judging me for not being strong enough, man enough, buff enough. Despite knowing I can be whoever I want to be at this school and no one would dare say anything, my room is still that safe space for me, and letting someone new into that is unnerving.
