18 - Dalton
~ 18 ~
DALTON
Twenty minutes later we were absolutely stuffed — even Trey — and I hadn’t seen Trey stuffed since sophomore year, when he’d eaten three T-bone steaks at the Canyon Park awards dinner buffet. We leaned back in our chairs, folding our hands over our bellies, as Fallon finished her speech in the middle of the breakfast-strewn kitchen.
For a long moment, the three of us sat looking at one another in silence.
“So you’re saying we didn’t fulfill your fantasy,” Emerson said, scratching the side of his neck. “At least not completely.”
Fallon’s beautiful brown eyes went wide with alarm. “No!” she gasped. “That’s not what I’m saying at all.”
“But you still want to…” Trey started. “I mean…”
“I’m saying I have more fantasies,” she explained. “Other things I’d like to try. And I’m just so comfortable with the three of you, I thought maybe we could… I dunno. Keep the ball rolling?”
Right now Fallon was an uncharacteristic shade of pink. She shrugged a delicate shoulder and tilted her head to one side, as some people did when asking for a favor. But this wasn’t just a favor. It was something radically different.
“So you want to keep—”
“Look, you boys made me feel fucking amazing the other night,” she went on, before Emerson could unveil the elephant in the room. “I’d never done anything like that before, obviously. But I loved every second of it.”
“So did we,” Trey grinned.
“I trust the three of you implicitly,” she said wholeheartedly. Her eyes shifted to me. “You make me feel special. And not just the other night, but the whole time I’ve been here.”
“Taking me in, putting me up means the world to me,” Fallon continued. “I love it here. I love being with the three of you every day, in this house. I love sharing time with you. And… well…”
I gave a brief but firm nod, and I saw her relax. Fallon leaned back into the counter. Sifting her blonde hair back over her lovely shoulders, she crossed her arms over her chest and smiled deviously.
“What can I say? I love being outnumbered.”
The statement twisted my stomach in knots. Especially coming from my beautiful, apparently not-so-innocent best friend. Somehow we’d come full circle, Fallon and I. From lovers, to friends, and back again.
“So you’re going to stay,” said Emerson, sizing her up.
“I’d love to, for as long as you’ll have me,” said Fallon. “But only if you promise I won’t get in the way.”
“In the way of what?” I had to ask.
“School. Football. Your personal lives.”
“Football is our personal lives,” I chuckled. “Between games, and two-a-days, and homework, it’s not like we have time for anything else.”
“Speak for yourself,” Emerson grumbled.
“Yes, but you’re the most popular guys on campus,” she reasoned. “You’ll be going out, celebrating wins, throwing parties. Meeting up with cheerleaders and dragging them back here,” Fallon went on. Her expression looked suddenly jealous. “When that happens, I’ll have to fade back.”
“Parties?” I smirked. “ Here?”
“Are you kidding?” she shot back. “Look at this place, it’s built for parties. Some of the most legendary parties ever thrown on this campus took place here. And you haven’t even thrown one.”
“I hate to admit this, but we’re kinda lame,” I smiled. “Remember, this is our senior year. We’ve already partied our asses off. By this point, we’re kinda chill.”
“We work hard, we play hard, we’re finishing up classes…” Trey agreed. “On top of all that, there’s still tons of work to do around here, before we fulfill our contract with the school.”
“He’s right,” I admitted. “Truth is, we’re partied out.”
“Unless you want to be our party,” Emerson winked.
There was a beat of silence, as Fallon digested his last statement.
“Me?”
He shrugged. “Why not? We’re exhausted from lifting, from running, from everything else. So we hang around here and watch movies.”
“You’ve seen that firsthand,” Trey agreed.
“You want to stay here and live out your fantasies?” asked Emerson. “That’s fine, but then you’re also our outlet. Our entertainment. Our own personal party.”
“Our cheerleader,” Trey offered.
Fallon looked back at me. I shrugged.
“You told me you were okay with this,” I said. “That you won’t catch feelings. You won’t get emotional. Pure, fun sex — that’s what you wanted, remember? But you have to be sure of this, Fallon. The last thing any of us want is to see you hurt.”
“No,” she replied, without hesitation. “No feelings. No emotions. Just pure, raw sex. That’s what I want.”
“Yeah, you say that, but—”
“I want to catch up on everything I missed, Dalton,” she interjected angrily, but her anger wasn’t directed at me. “You know how often Blaine and I did anything other than missionary? He was the worst boyfriend, the worst lover, the worst at everything. Most times, we had sex with our clothes on.”
“Clothes on?” Trey frowned. “Wait. How does that even work?”
“It’s like he was ashamed of me, or my body, or what we were doing. Whenever I tried to spice things up, he called me a pervert. Other than the threesome he’d begged me to have, our sex life was robotic and scheduled and stupid as hell. You could set your clock by it. You could set your clock during it, that’s how boring it was.”
The beautiful creature standing in the middle of our unfinished kitchen was more animated than ever, and I took a moment to drink her in. Fallon was blonde, doe-eyed, totally gorgeous. Smart and sexy. Funny as hell. I’d wanted her from the moment I’d first laid eyes on her, and I’d even had her for a hot minute. Back then though, our moment was fleeting. I’d barely even had a taste of her, before she shoved me cruelly into the friend zone.
But now, it seemed, she was throwing me a rope.
“So are we all on the same page here?” she asked, finishing up with her hands on her hips.
Trey nodded immediately. Emerson threw her a smirk, but eventually he did too. That left me, staring back into those fiery, cappuccino eyes. An understanding passed silently between us; after long years of friendship, we needed no words. Fallon smiled.
“Good. Then there’s one more thing we need to talk about…”
We watched as she pulled her waistband down, and turned halfway around. “Look at this.”
Together, we leaned forward. Her shapely hips were dotted with fingertip bruises, on both sides.
“These, I really don’t mind,” she smiled. “In fact, they’re kinda fun. But up here?”
She lifted her hair and pulled it back over her left shoulder. The purplish bruises on her neck were even worse.
“I have hickeys from Dalton,” she pointed me out. “Bruises from Emerson’s fingers. My hips still hurt from fucking Trey.”
“Sorry,” Trey offered.
“Don’t be,” she grinned. “The pain’s definitely worth it, and I love the ferocity. We just need to be a little more discrete with the markings. You know, when it comes to placement.”
“So, no vampire shit,” I chuckled.
“Vampire me up,” Fallon smiled. “Just do it more strategically.” She pointed at her neck again. “I have an anatomy of mammals class today. What the hell am I supposed to do about this?”
“Wear a turtleneck?” suggested Emerson.
“You know we’re in Texas, right?”
“I’ve heard that, yeah,” I laughed. “Saw it on a few signs.”
Fallon sighed and rolled her eyes. I could sense her growing excitement, though.
“But you boys can play ball when it comes to this, right?” she demanded. “I heard you’re footballers.”
“Ballers for sure,” said Trey. “But footballers?” He elbowed Emerson almost out of his chair. “Some of us, anyway.”
Those pretty brown eyes flitted to me. Whatever was going to happen, I knew her decision hinged upon mine.
“Count me in,” I smiled. “After all the fun we had the other night, I’m not riding the bench.”
“Same here,” said Trey with a grin. “I’ll play.”
Everyone’s attention turned toward Emerson. He paused for a moment before unfolding his arms.
“Look, I just got laid in the shower and had fried chicken for breakfast,” he said glibly. He turned to Fallon and smirked. “If that’s how things are going to be around here from now on, there’s no way I’m missing out.”