Buried Dreams Sneak Peak
C hapter One
Everleigh
The soft music plays in the background as I twist open the mascara and look in the mirror, leaning forward to apply it. My long black hair is freshly blow-dried and pushed to one side, and my white robe is open down the front and loosely tied. “Baby.” Brock walks into the bathroom, wearing his weekend mechanic’s uniform for when he goes to help his father. “I was calling you.” He places his hands on the counter beside my hips. Fitting himself behind me, he pushes his chest up against my back. I feel the hardness of him all over, and I can’t help but try not to smile at him.
“Brock, you are filthy.” His face is streaked with a little bit of grease as he watches me move the makeup wand up and through my lashes. I look into his dark brown almost black eyes through the mirror. His hand goes around my waist, pulling me closer to him. “Your hands are covered in oil.” I laugh at him as he leans down to kiss my neck, ignoring what I just said.
“Why did you take a shower without me?” he mumbles as I turn my head to the side. He doesn’t wait for me to answer him. Instead, his lips come down to mine, kissing me softly before his tongue invades my mouth. I turn in his arms, not caring he’s still dirty from work. My arms wrap around his neck as his hands grip my hips. “If you continue like this, we aren’t going out tonight.” His voice comes out hard and sexy as his hand moves from my hip and his finger trails down the edge of the opening of the robe. He pushes it to the side as my nipple, pebbled by his touch, stops the silk material from opening fully. His finger trails the little love bite he has been leaving me since we started sleeping together some six years ago. Right near my nipple, I wear his teeth marks or a little love bite. Either way, it’s always there. He loves it. I’m not going to lie—I feel naked now without it on me.
His eyes always fixate on that mark as he licks his lips. “If you continue this…” I push him back, stepping away from him. He puts his hip against the counter, taking one more look at me as I make my way to the door.
He pushes off, removing his shirt and tossing it to the side, my eyes roaming him up and down. “And if you keep looking at me like that?—”
“I’m leaving.” I turn and walk out of the bathroom with a backward glance at him as he’s unbuttoning his jeans, leading to one of my favorite parts of him. I close the door to make sure I don’t turn around and join him, leading to us having sex in the shower. Instead, I run around picking up things to put in the dishwasher. Between the two of us working full-time, him helping his father on the weekends, and me helping my mom, the house could use a good cleaning. I load the dishwasher before heading to the bedroom and grabbing a pair of jean shorts and a tank top. The bathroom door opens, and the steam from the shower follows him as he walks out with a towel around his waist instead of naked like he always is.
His hand holds the towel closed at the side of his hip. “They will be downstairs in five minutes,” he mumbles as he grabs a pair of boxers from his drawer by the bed, then drops the towel, showing me all of him. He’s been my only boyfriend, and I thought once we moved in with each other, I would get used to seeing him naked all the time, but I haven’t. Our sex life also hasn’t died down. If anything, we’re having more sex than ever. Before, we were having sex all the time, and we’ve also had sex all over the place: in his truck, by the creek, and in the bathroom at the bar. I smile at the memory, then shake my head. If we have an itch, we scratch it.
“I’m ready,” I say. I walk back into the bathroom and apply lip gloss before watching him saunter back in wearing jeans and a T-shirt. He runs his hands through his jet-black wet hair a couple of times before turning to me and kissing my neck.
He’s tying his sneakers at the same time the buzzer rings, and I look at him. “Don’t make any plans for tomorrow,” I inform him. “We are going to spend the day deep cleaning this place.”
“Can’t,” he says, opening the door and pushing me out of it, “I plan on spending it naked and having you on every single surface I can have you on.” He slaps my ass, pushing open the glass door to the apartment building. “I’m planning on wearing myself out.” He grabs the white cooler I prepared before he got home. We usually take turns bringing a couple of bottles of beer. I can’t help but laugh at him as we spot Waylon’s pickup at the curb. The music blasts at full volume.
“Hey,” I greet, holding up my hand and seeing Autumn smile at me as Brock opens the back door of Waylon’s truck. “How is everyone doing?” I ask, getting into the truck and scooting to the middle of the seat.
“Good,” Autumn answers with a smile over her shoulder. I can see she’s been crying, but I don’t ask her about it. We make eye contact, but she just shakes her head and looks over at Waylon. I can see this is another fight the two of them have had. The two of them spend ninety-five percent of their relationship fighting. The other five percent is Autumn tolerating what a dick Waylon is. If it wasn’t for Autumn, I don’t know if any of us would be friends with him.
“Hey,” Brock says, slapping Waylon on the shoulder, “how are you doing?”
“Could be better,” he replies, pulling away from the curb and almost peeling out of the parking lot. I put my hand on Brock’s knee and squeeze it. I look over at him and raise my eyebrows, sharing with him that we should have just stayed home and had pizza.
The windows are down, so my hair flies all around my face as I turn to look out the window. The green trees line both sides of the road as we make our way over to pick up Charlie and Jennifer.
No one even tries to make any conversation as we pull up to their house. The two of them recently moved in together. “I am going to go in and pee,” Autumn announces from the front seat of the truck.
“Jesus, again?” Waylon glares over at her, and the look isn’t a friendly one. Instead, he’s looking at her like he hates her. “You pee every ten seconds,” he says, honking the horn to let Jennifer and Charlie know we are here.
I lean over, putting my hand on Brock’s leg. His arm’s across the back seat, around my shoulders. “If you ever looked at me like that,” I whisper into his ear, “I would stab your big toe with a fork.”
He chuckles and kisses the side of my head. “Why a fork?”
“It has more entry wounds.” I look up at him as the passenger door closes. “So it means you’ll be in more pain, which would make me the happiest.”
The front door opens, and Autumn runs into the house. “She gets on my last nerve sometimes,” Waylon mumbles, and I bite my tongue to tell him she’s not the one who gets on our last nerve. I think Brock knows I’m about to say something because he picks up the hand that is on his knee and brings it to his lips and squeezes it.
The front door opens, and a second later, Jennifer is coming out, wearing white jeans and a turquoise top, her hair flying with the light wind. “Hey,” she says, opening the door closest to me, and I squish over to Brock. She gets in the truck and leans over to kiss my cheek. “How are you?” she asks with a smile on her face before looking over at Brock and saying hello. She then turns and says hello to Waylon, who just mumbles while he texts something on his phone before tossing it to the side. He puts his hand in a fist and pushes the steering wheel so the horn honks again.
This time, the front door opens, and Autumn walks out in front of Charlie, who follows her to the truck. “Took you long enough,” Waylon snaps when Autumn opens the passenger door and then looks over at Charlie.
“You sit up front.” Autumn tries to hide she’s pissed off at him and his words, but she fails miserably as she walks to the back door and opens it, sliding in and slamming the door, not giving Charlie an option. The four of us squish into the back seat. Jennifer moves closer to me, and I move closer to Brock, my ass practically in his lap. His arms wrap around my waist to make sure I don’t fly anywhere.
“Hey.” Charlie gets in the front seat, greeting us and trying to avoid the awkwardness of how quiet the truck is. He looks over at Brock, sharing a look. “How’s everyone doing?” Charlie barely has his seat belt on before Waylon drives off, making Brock shake his head. “Good times,” he says, looking at Jennifer, the two of them sharing an inside look. My eyes go to Autumn. She’s looking out the window and not talking to them. Her finger pulls the side of her eye to stop the tear from coming out. I shake my head and look at Brock, who just shakes his head, telling me not to.
We head over to Waylon’s family’s hunting cabin some fifteen minutes on the outskirts of town. The log cabin is painted red, with a wraparound porch and four rocking chairs. We’ve been hanging around at the cabin since we were all sixteen, going up there with a couple of cases of beer that Waylon would get using his older brother, Winston, to buy it for us. We all went to high school together, all except Charlie, who just moved to town a couple of years ago.
Even after high school, we all stayed local while going to school. I attended to get my marketing degree, while Brock just got his bachelor’s degree in architecture and will now be doing a complete internship for Waylon’s family’s construction company.
Waylon’s family has been around this town dating back to the nineteen twenties, when his great-grandfather started a construction company and went into lumber trading or something like that. Now they just do construction. If a building goes up in town, it’s always with the Cartwright family building it.
Brock will be helping them with the new development they plan on building. It’s going to be one of their biggest projects ever, and he’s helping develop the look of it.
As soon as Waylon turns the truck off, the doors open, and everyone jumps down. Brock goes to the back of the truck bed and grabs the cooler. He comes back to me and slides his hand in mine, as always, and we walk to the side of the house where eight big logs lie in an octagon shape around a firepit. We are here almost every single weekend just to sit and shoot the shit, or even during the week, we can go and eat and then just come here and chill.
The sun slowly goes down as Waylon returns with some wood and starts the fire while I sit on a log. Brock lets my hand go, kissing me quickly before walking over to stand with Charlie. They both watch Waylon as they chitchat.
“I am exhausted,” Autumn states, sitting down on the log next to me. “I want to sleep for twenty-four hours straight.” I sit next to Autumn, and then Jennifer sits next to me. “Like a whole twenty-four hours. Is that possible?” I laugh at her question and so does Jennifer.
“I don’t know. The last time I slept really long, I was hungover after Brock’s graduation. I swear to God, I think I slept half on the bed and half on the floor. I have a vague memory of that. I even fell asleep standing in the kitchen, waiting for the coffee to come out, but instead, I sat down on the kitchen floor and totally fell asleep.” Jennifer leans in to me, laughing as I tell the story. The three of us have been friends since kindergarten and have literally gone through everything together. I’m an only child, but with the two of them, I feel like I have two sisters. Even when we were in high school, we spent every single weekend at one of our houses.
The sound of crackling from the fire fills the night air as we all talk about little things here and there, with us laughing and giggling at something one of us would say. When Waylon gets up and goes to his truck, all eyes go to watch him, wondering what the hell he’s doing. When he opens the driver’s side door, he turns the truck on and blasts the radio. The sound of a country song now replaces the sound of the snapping firewood. He holds one hand up in the air as he sways his hips. “Autumn, get your ass over here and dance with me.” He grabs a bottle of water from the truck. Autumn groans from beside me but gets up as Jennifer also gets up. Autumn walks over to Waylon, who lunges for her, grabbing her arm and pulling her to him. She holds up her hands, pushing his chest as she tries to get away from him. “Baby,” Brock says, and I look up at him, “will you dance with me?” He holds out his hand for me.
“Oh, yeah.” I just smile at him, getting up and wrapping my arms around him, rising on my tippy-toes and waiting for him to kiss my lips. “Anything to be in your arms,” I say as he rubs his nose with mine. I hear Autumn and Waylon arguing from beside me, but my eyes are locked on my man.
His hands move from my waist to my ass as he cups it. “You know what’s better than this?” I ask him as we sway to the music. “Being naked in your arms.”
He hums as he bends his head to kiss me at the same time Waylon shouts, “We should get the fuck out of here!” His voice is almost a scream as he tries to be louder than the music. “Hit up the bar in town, and see what’s going on there.” Brock’s hands drop from my ass as I turn in his arms, wrapping my arms around his waist as he drapes one around my shoulders.
“We shouldn’t do that,” Autumn quickly says. He looks at her, and it’s a look between a glare and a sneer. Either way, it’s horrible, and I hate him even more for treating her like this.
“No one asked you, Autumn,” he retorts, shaking his head and turning toward the four of us. “Who is with me?” He looks at the four of us. “Should we take off or what?”
“We can’t leave until the fire is out.” Charlie motions with his head toward the fire that is still going strong. No doubt trying to calm the situation.
“No problem.” Waylon storms to the side of the porch where they keep the hose. Dragging it to the firepit, he puts out the fire in no time. “There, now let’s get the fuck out of here.”
“I think we’re going to go home,” I state, not wanting to be around him when he’s in this kind of mood. “I have an early morning,” I lie, and I know the girls know I’m lying since I told them I had nothing planned.
“Fuck that,” Waylon spits out, going back over to the truck, “get your ass in the truck.” My back goes up, and I’m about to say something, but I don’t have a chance to because Brock does.
“Watch the tone, man,” Brock warns him, and he just laughs it off, as he does with everything.
“It’s all good, man,” Waylon assures him. “Let’s just get out of here and get to the bar. Then if you guys want to leave, I’ll drive you home.” He looks back at me. “There, happy?”
Brock and I share a look, and then we glance over at Jennifer and Charlie. I'm not sure what to do, but I know I don’t want to go anywhere with him when he’s in this mood. “Let’s go, people.” Waylon swings his arm around and around to get us moving toward the truck.
The four of us start walking to the truck. “I’ll drive,” Autumn offers. “I can drive.” She walks over to Waylon, who just glares at her. She ignores his glare and smiles at him. “I can drive you around for once.” Her voice goes soft as she holds on to his hips, but he shakes off her hands.
“No way.” He shakes his head. “My truck, I drive.”
“Waylon,” she murmurs in a plea.
“Get in the truck,” he orders her, his tone tight like he’s losing his patience with her, his teeth clenched together, “or fucking walk home.”
“Relax,” Charlie finally jumps in, trying to break up the drama with the two of them, “we’re supposed to be having fun.”
“I’d be having more fun if we could get the fuck out of here,” Waylon almost snarls, stomping over to the truck. “Now get the fuck in the truck, or else I’ll leave you all here.”
“I don’t know if that would be a bad thing,” I finally mumble as Brock chuckles beside me, pulling me to him and kissing my temple.
“I’m not sitting in the front. That’s for sure,” Autumn says, and I look at Brock, who just shakes his head.
“I’ll sit in the front,” Jennifer offers. “That way, the two of them will be happy at least.”
“No way.” Charlie shakes his head. “You sit in the back. I’ll sit with him up front.”
“Fine,” Jennifer relents, watching Autumn get into the back seat, leaving the back door open for Jennifer to get in after her. I follow her and get on my side as much as possible so Brock can get in and shut the door.
The driver’s window is open, and I see Waylon finish his water bottle and tossing it out the window. “Let’s go, bro.” He smirks at me and then at Charlie, who shakes his head but gets into the truck.
Waylon turns his truck around and speeds up at the same time. He puts the music on a bit louder. “Love this song!” he shouts, turning down the long stretch of road lined with trees on each side.
“He’s being more reckless than normal,” I whisper to Brock, who tightens his hold on me even more.
“Can you focus on the road, please?” Autumn asks what everyone is thinking.
“Can you focus on the road?” Waylon mimics her as he picks up his speed and goes even faster. “Pain in my ass,” he grumbles and then turns his head around to talk to Autumn, taking his eyes completely off the road. “You’re a pain in my ass. You focus on the fucking road.” My eyes go from watching Waylon shout at Autumn to the flash of light that looks like it is coming straight for us.
“Watch out!” I shout to Waylon, who stops looking at Autumn and looks ahead. “Oh my God, we’re going to hit him.” My eyes are on the road in front of me as the headlights look like they are getting closer and closer to us. It feels as if the car is heading straight toward us. The sound of honking now fills the outside noise.
He jerks the truck right, going off onto the gravel and then quickly turns the wheel to the other side. The sound of metal scraping now fills the truck. I don’t know who yells first, me or Jennifer beside me. I’m now completely on Brock’s lap, holding on to his arms around me as Jennifer slides to the middle of the bench. It takes a second, or maybe even less, for us to feel like we are flying through the air. I look at Brock, the fear in his face. “I love you,” I whisper before my eyes shut, and I hear the crunching of metal. The blackness hits me as I feel like I’m being shoved forward.