by Ella Fields
My eyes flashed open as the front door did. I glanced over at the bedroom door, seeing it was locked, and released a relieved sigh.
Peony’s footsteps clipped over the shitty wood floors, the creaking causing Peggy to stir.
I dragged my fingers over the curve of her spine, obsessed with touching it, with being able to touch her, and she settled again.
Her hair was damp, tickling my face as the scent of melon and some kind of flower wafted into my nose. I’d guessed her scent must have been related to her shampoo, given she wasn’t usually one for perfume. Now it was confirmed. I fought the idea to take it home to sniff. Too far up the creep scale. But still, I pondered it.
Yeah, I did whip my dick out while she was showering, but I had to. It was that or go and beat one out in my car, and I’d much rather get busted by her than the neighbors.
Perhaps I’d taken my time. Perhaps it all happened exactly as it should’ve. She’d never know, and even if she did, I wasn’t fucking sorry.
“Peggy?” Peony called.
Shit.
The door rattled. “Peg? You up?” Another rattle. “Why is your door locked? We’ve spoken about this. It’s dangerous.”
Well, all in like a dolphin. My hands tightened around Peggy when I felt her harsh inhale. “She’s asleep,” I said, my voice rougher than I wanted it to be.
The door stopped rattling. “Dash?”
“The one and only.”
There was a long pause, then, “Did you sleep over?”
I’d done it time and time before, but judging by the careful tone of her voice, I knew Peggy had told her how our friendship had changed.
Peggy sat up, her eyes blinking repeatedly and her tits right in front of my face. “Yeah,” I finally said.
Another stretch of silence, and I didn’t give a shit who was on the other side of her door, I had two perfect globes bouncing within reach of my hands and mouth. I chose the mouth, being that my hands had already had their turn.
“Tell her I’d like a word when she wakes up.”
“No prob.” I sat up, and Peggy’s startled expression morphed into a cut off shriek as I slapped a hand over her mouth and used the other to hold her down on me as my mouth got acquainted with her dusky nipple.
“Dash.” She pushed at my shoulders but gave up as my tongue laved at the hardened peak. Her thighs tightened around me, and her hands relaxed over my shoulders. “Stop,” she panted.
I did, but only after dragging my teeth over my handiwork, earning me a knee quiver and a quiet moan. I laid back down, watching her chest heave as I tucked my hands behind my head. Her creamy skin glistened where my mouth had been, and she grabbed my chin, moving my gaze to hers. “My face is here.”
“To be fair, I’ve spent all my life staring at your face and zero time staring at your tits. Let me try to even the score a little.” I licked my lips, then grabbed her hand from my chin, biting her fingers.
She hissed, then giggled, then she was rolling off the bed.
“Wait, what?” I tried to grab her, but she was already standing and throwing a clean army green T-shirt on that hit her mid-thigh.
“You need to go,” she said, grabbing a brush and dragging it through her hair.
“Says the woman with my cum on her stomach.”
She dropped the brush, then lifted her shirt, giving me a nice view of her gray, stained panties. “Ugh.” Reaching for the wipes on her desk, she tugged one out, wiping her stomach before tossing it in the trash.
“Yeah, don’t worry about me.”
“I’m not.” But then she tossed the packet at me. I read the label. Vanilla scented makeup remover wipes. I shrugged. They’d do. “So are we going to have breakfast with your mom and tell her all is good?” I tested as I smeared a wipe over my pubes and lower stomach.
Peggy stilled, a hair elastic dangling from her fingers.
Her face was clean, bare of any makeup, and my chest clenched. With her curls framing her freckle dusted face, she looked like my Peggy once again. “You’re fucking stunning, Freckles.”
Her shoulders drooped, her determined gray eyes softening. “You still need to go.”
“I’m not going until we’ve talked this shit out.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” she said, tying her hair atop her head. “Maybe, eventually, we can go back to being friends. But today’s not that day, okay?”
My heart was about to collapse. “Pegs.”
“No.” She sighed, then bit her lip as her gaze shuttered. “It’s … I don’t want to. I’m sorry.”
“What about this morning?” I sat up, confused and growing angry.
“What about it? You hook up with girls all the time and walk away. This should be no different.”
My heart caved in, and a weightless laugh flew past my dry lips. “Okay, sure.”
Getting up, I snatched my shirt and boots, pulling them on as she watched me.
“I didn’t mean—”
“You did mean it, and it’s true, but you’re forgetting something important here,” I said into her face as I crowded her against the desk.
Her hands flung out, searching for stability among the mess that cluttered the white surface. Her eyes begged, pleaded for me to keep my mouth shut. But I’d kept my mouth shut for far too fucking long when it came to her.
“You’re forgetting that I could never walk away from you. So yeah,” I said, pressing my forehead to hers as I let my fingers find the curves of her hips. “I’ll go. But I love you, and I know you love me too, which means there’s no walking away from this.”
I kissed her nose, felt her trembling exhale on my mouth and inhaled it, then took it with me as I grabbed my jacket, unlocked the door, and left her room.
Peony was in the shower, for which I was grateful, because each step I took drained every reserve I had. There was no way I could manage facing her too.
I’d just walked in the door when my phone beeped. Dad rounded the corner, clad in sweatpants and a gray wifebeater, coffee and phone in hand. “Where’ve you been? You’re grounded.”
“Peggy got wasted and needed rescuing.”
Dad’s brows met, creases furrowing his forehead. “What happened?”
I looked at a text from Jackson.
Emergency skate park meet.
Locking the screen, I slipped my phone away. “Like I said, she got drunk.”
“That’s not like her.” He slurped his coffee, and I tried not to cringe.
“Tell me about it.” I went to move by him. “Hopefully, there won’t be another repeat unless I’m with her.”
I made it halfway down the hall before he spoke again. “You’re still grounded.”
“There’s another emergency.”
“With whom?”
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. “I don’t know. All I know is it’s an emergency.”
“If you come home stinking of weed, I’ll confiscate your Xbox and phone.”
Church came prancing down the hall, his folded ears twitching as he met my leg and started curling himself around it. “Not to sound like I don’t like having you here and all—”
Dad snorted. “Let’s not waste time with lies.”
“Fine. Why are you home so much all of a sudden?”
At that moment, Mom’s heels clapped down the stairs, heading this way.
Dad actually smiled at her as she used our hallway like her own personal runway. I looked back at her and found a mirrored smile. A real one. Teeth and all.
Ew.
“Okay, so this is fun, but I have places to be.”
“You’re grounded,” Mom said, breezing by me to latch her arm around Dad’s waist.
“What is this? Gang warfare?”
Mom rolled her eyes, then inspected her nails. “So dramatic.”
Dad hummed, taking another sip of coffee. “Wonder where he gets that from?”
Mom and I both glared at him.
He chuckled, then jerked his he
ad. “Go on then. Be home by four. We’re going to dinner.”
“Okay.” I stopped. “Say what?”
Mom’s red lips pursed as she fiddled with the waist of Dad’s sweatpants. “You heard him. Dinner. Where we eat food. Together.”
I blinked, then started backing away before they suggested a trip to Disneyland.
I’d been before, but it was Peggy’s mom and dad who’d taken us, not long before they’d split.
“Four, Dash,” Dad reiterated.
I waved over my head. “What-the fuck-ever.”
Raven and Lars were already there, Raven’s remote-control car doing three sixties in the bowl.
“Didn’t know it was an official car date,” Raven said.
I grunted, sliding under the railing with my own. “Couldn’t be fucked to ride.”
“What’s with the dazed look?”
“My parents.”
Lars raised a brow.
I set my car down, turning on the remote. “Call me crazy, but I think they might actually dig each other.”
Lars scoffed. “They are married.”
“Yeah, but Dad’s been home more, and I haven’t seen Emanuel since the start of school.”
Raven lit a cigarette. “Guess maybe they’re tired of messing around.”
I made my little Mazda RX-7 leap over the smaller jump, cringing as it hit the ground too hard and the bumper scraped over the concrete. Hitting the brake, I shook my head, baffled. “The world is changing. I don’t do well with too much change.” I’d do better if I had a certain curly haired blonde still at my beck and call, but I’d make it happen. No other alternative existed for us. We would be us again but even better. Dash and Peggy 2.0.
If she thought I could be friend zoned again, I’d kiss the stupid right out of her.
“Tell me about it,” Jackson said, jumping over the rail with a bottle of Jack.
“You fuck.” I leaned forward, pulling a squashed as hell pack of cigarettes from my back pocket. Sliding one between my teeth, I talked around it. “Bringing something to drink when I can’t fucking have any.”
He cracked the top as I lit my smoke with Raven’s lighter. “I’m not sharing anyway.”
Jackson sat over the lip, legs hanging. I frowned at his tense posture and the way his shoulders were curving inward as though he’d been battling something for too long and was now defeated.
“Why can’t you drink?” Rave asked, taking his lighter back.
“Daddy Dearest said not to, and I rather like my Xbox and phone.” I blew out a long stream of smoke, my eyes closing as the nicotine worked its magic. “Need them to stalk Peggy, or I wouldn’t care so much about their sudden attempts at parenting.”
“Enough about your shit.” Jackson downed a long chug of whiskey, then swiped a hand over his mouth. “Got actual problems here.”
We all looked at him, waiting. “Well?” I asked when he did nothing but stare down into the bowl.
He took another sip, not even wincing as he swallowed. “Our parents found out.”
“Fuck,” Lars spewed.
Raven’s mouth hung open.
I pursed my lips. “And?”
Jackson shook his head, glaring at me, then sighed. “And Willa’s moving to her dad’s.”
“They caught you?” Lars asked.
I laughed through a haze of smoke. “No shit, Sherlock.”
“No,” Jackson said, and my cigarette almost fell from my mouth. “Someone tipped them off.”
Peggy
I can feel you. So hot and wet …
Growing flustered, I removed myself from bed. From the memories tied to it and the temptation to touch myself as I let them blaze through my head.
After dressing, I scarfed down a banana while Mom made coffee. She’d been quiet yesterday after our talk on Saturday, which pretty much consisted of one question.
Did Dash and I have sex?
Mortified couldn’t even begin to cover how I’d felt as I’d stood before her with my hair still mussed from his rough hands. I’d said no and told her that he’d just stayed over. Her brows had lifted, and the twist to her lips stayed as she surveyed my face. Whatever she saw there must’ve been enough for her to leave it alone because she didn’t push. She’d merely said not to lock the door again.
“I’m missing a sock,” I said around a mouthful, sick of the silence.
“Oh? Why don’t you try looking for it?”
I snapped my eyes at her, swallowing the mush in my mouth. “What have I done now?”
Blowing on her coffee, she leaned back against the green counter. “Something’s not adding up.”
I waited for her to elaborate, tossing the banana peel into the trash.
“You and Dash. How did he end up coming over when you supposedly hate him?”
I forced my eyes to roll. “Because it’s Dash. He does whatever he wants.”
“Not always with you. He’s pushed, but he’s also respected your boundaries.” She paused, bobbing her head. “Well, sometimes.”
I then regretted telling her so much about what’d happened between us. Sighing, I walked over to the table, checking I had my chem book in my bag, and then zipped it shut after slipping my lunch inside. “I caved a little.” There, that was definitely true.
Mom hummed over the rim of her mug.
I took the opportunity to bail while I could and smacked a kiss on her cheek. “I’ll see you later.”
“Straight home,” she hollered as I shoved my feet into my boots at the door.
“Aye, aye, captain.” The screen door slapped shut behind me.
I parked beside Daphne, ignoring the black on black Range Rover that was stalking into the lot behind me and the fizzing exploding inside my stomach.
Blowing out a stuttering exhale, I checked my hastily applied mascara, fluffed my curls, and grabbed my bag.
“You look different.” Daphne sipped from a takeout cup against her car.
Slamming the door, I locked my car as a nervous laugh escaped. “What?”
Her eyes roamed my wrinkled blouse and skirt, and the socks peeking above the tops of my scuffed Docs. She shrugged, taking another sip. “You heard me.”
I was saved from answering her random assessment by the one person I was hoping to avoid. “Beautiful morning, ladies.”
Daphne’s brow lifted. “If you say so, Thane.”
Dash swaggered closer. And closer. And he wouldn’t … he did. His arm wrapped around my shoulders, and he pressed a loud kiss to my head. “Missed you, Frecks.”
I pushed him off, my cheeks aflame as I grabbed Daphne’s hand and dragged her over the lawn. “Ew, it’s damp. Use the sidewalk, my heels will sink.”
We moved to the walkway, and she groaned at the dirt caking her black heels. “Ugh, Peggy.”
“Move it,” I hissed, glancing over my shoulder at Dash who was walking lazily toward us, devilish grin in place.
“What is going on?” Daphne picked up the pace.
“He interrupted my make-out session with some guy at Wade’s on Friday, threw me over his shoulder like some gorilla asshole, and then carried me to his car is what’s going on.”
Daphne cackled, and some of the guys on the lacrosse team stopped and stared as she threw her head back. “Oh, God. Shut up. Did he really?”
“Really.” I sighed.
We climbed the steps. “And then? Come on, it didn’t end there.”
“I was drunk as hell, so he took me home.” She said nothing, and when I glanced at her, almost running into someone’s backpack, she spun her hand in a keep going gesture. “And we did nothing.”
“Bullshit.” She laughed. “I know you did. You have that look that says you got laid or close to it.”
I almost tripped as we neared our lockers. “I do not.”
“Do too,” she chirped, unlocking hers.
“Fine.” I shoved my bag in and plucked out my English book. “We did something the next morning.” She slammed her locke
r, leaning close with expectant eyes. “I can’t say; it’s kind of embarrassing.”
“We humped each other like pre-teens,” Dash said from behind me.
I squeaked, spinning around to slap him in the chest. “Fuck off, Dash.”
He mock gasped. “Language, Peggy Sue. That’s no way to speak to the man who rubs you just right.”
Daphne snorted out a burst of laughter behind me. “Later, lovebirds.”
“We’re not—”
Dash slid a hand over my mouth. “She sees through your lies.”
I bit it, growling at him. “Would you stop? What is wrong with you?”
He crowded me back into the locker. “You’re wrong for me. In all the right ways.” He squeezed my cheeks between his fingers, pursing my lips and quickly smacking his against them. “I’ll see you at lunch, lady love.”
My face was on fire as he swaggered down the hall to his friends and left me there for everyone to gawk and snicker at.
Who the hell did he think he was?
I should’ve known. I was the one person who knew him best. Yet I’d forgotten the words I’d uttered just this morning.
Dash Thane did whatever he wanted.
I met up with Daphne at my locker before lunch, needing to grab mine from my bag.
“He’s seriously not backing down.” She examined her coral-colored nails.
“Tell me about it.” I huffed, plucking out my lunch. Something fluttered to the ground, and I groaned, wanting to leave it there.
My heart wouldn’t let me and neither would Daphne, who picked it up and held it out to me between two fingers. “What are you going to do?”
I opened the letter, my eyes skimming his messy words.
I’m such a prick.
And a dick.
And a fuckwit.
But I love you.
And I know you love me too.
That’s why I wrote this shitty-ass poem for you.
Daphne fell into fits of laughter, and I slowly folded the paper closed, biting my lips as I tucked it inside my bag.
