Chapter 8
KC
The meat I’d eaten was a rock in my stomach, causing my insides to churn with nausea.
I kept the food down, but there was a close call where it crept back up my throat and I had to swallow again.
With Ren bending down to rest his elbow on the table in front of us, I had something different to focus on.
We’d returned to the picnic table, giving us a solid surface to have serious arm wrestling.
The excitement in Ren’s eyes made me feel all warm and gooey.
He’d been so nervous about coming to Errol’s house, twitching in the front seat of my Jeep the entire way, but now that he was having fun, the tension in his muscles had melted away.
Even with Pa eyeing him with suspicion, he took the night in stride.
Out of my boyfriends, Oli was the one I was most concerned about.
He’d been avoiding the topic of his dad, and I didn’t blame him.
From what Ren had said, it’d been far from a pleasant encounter.
Like Ren, I was used to disappointing parents.
My biological mother left me to fend for myself and I’d resorted to pickpocketing.
If Pa hadn’t caught me and adopted me, I would still be out there fighting to survive—or worse.
But if making Oli happy meant arm wrestling with Ren, then who was I to say no? Plus, there was something extra hot about any kind of wrestling when it came to one of my boyfriends.
“Are you ready to get your ass whooped?” I grinned widely at Ren as I settled on the seat and rested my elbow on the table. I gripped his hand, which was a bit bigger than mine. He had long, thick fingers that I’d seen do very sexy things, such as stretch me or Oli open.
He laughed, bright and happy, and his face lit up in the firelight. With the glow around his head, Ren looked like a damned angel, when in reality he was the devil.
“Boy, the only one having something happen to his ass later is you.”
Pa cleared his throat pointedly behind Ren. “I’d like to remind you that his father is present.”
“And?” Ren threw a sharp smile over his shoulder. “I’m sure you know your son isn’t a virgin.” Then, he pointed at Oli. “Get ready, Kitten. Kansas and I are going to get you all hot and bothered.”
Oli’s cheeks flared so red I was worried he’d catch fire, especially when Barber’s eyebrows hitched in amusement as he glanced Oli’s way.
“Oh my God. Shut up and just wrestle,” Oli said.
“Kansas?” Pa asked. Nothing ever flew past him.
“It’s a pet name between us.” Ren winked before he focused completely on me. His mouth pursed in determination as he leaned all his weight on his arm. His biceps flexed, the grayscale artwork inked into his skin moving with his muscles. “Let’s goooooo, Kansas.”
I rolled my eyes, but the weight on my chest lightened under his fierce, determined expression. If I didn’t have a competitive streak, I would’ve just let him win without a real fight, but I hated losing. I knew for a fact Ren did, too.
My grip on his hand tightened and I bit my bottom lip, preparing myself.
“I’ll count down from three.” Barber slapped his hands on the table near us, his grin transforming into a feral smirk. That was why we loved him, though. He was a chaos demon in all the best ways. “Three. Two. And go!”
Ren and I immediately used our strength, applying pressure on the other’s arm. We fought, and I was getting the upper hand, with Ren’s arm bending toward the table.
Shit! He managed to fight back. I gritted my teeth and struggled against his sudden burst of strength. Was I being played? Finally, after trying my hardest, he slammed the back of my hand against the table.
He cheered, pumping his arm. “Fuck yeah. That’s how it’s done, kids.”
Oli snorted, but his eyes glittered. He was also noticeably flush, his cheeks and forehead blooming a bright red even in the shadows cast by the flickering firelight.
Despite a part of me knowing Ren was strong to begin with, a sense of failure struck me deep in the chest. This is why I need to bulk up. They don’t understand. My stomach roiled, the familiar tendrils of nausea growing until I had to swallow down the food threatening to rise up my throat.
Ren dragged me into a hug when I met him beside the table and laid a kiss on the corner of my lips. “You gave me a run for my money, Kansas. No one gets to say you’re a shitty linebacker, not even that loser of a quarterback.”
“Quarterback?” Pa’s voice sliced through the air.
I winced, cursing under my breath. I took in the rage that simmered across Pa’s face. If I didn’t douse that fire fast, someone was going to lose their head. The last thing I needed was our quarterback getting murdered.
“It’s nothing,” I said, ignoring Ren’s frown. “Hudson’s a dick, but he never said anything to me.”
“That isn’t—”
I fisted Ren’s collar and dragged him down into a deep kiss, cutting him off.
He didn’t know about Pa, the true extent of what Pa could do.
I never wanted Ren to be in the inner circle on that info because it would only put him in danger.
But I also didn’t want Hudson six feet under, either.
As much as the guy was an asshole, he didn’t deserve to meet Pa’s wrath.
Ren melted against me, and I moaned, not quite expecting the kiss to deepen enough to include tongues, but here we were.
His mouth was an otherworldly experience, full of nuances that hit in the right ways.
With a simple swipe of his tongue, everything around us disappeared.
He took away my worries and anxieties. I was a puppet, and he was the master controlling the strings.
Someone sidled up beside us, and it took me a moment to realize it was Oli as his scent permeated my senses. He’d spritzed on Ren’s cologne earlier, and having him smell like vanilla ignited a desire I shouldn’t want to feel with Pa around.
I switched from kissing Ren to attacking Oli’s lips while Ren slid his mouth across my neck. I shuddered through the explosion of pleasure that detonated through me.
“Guys, guys!” Barber laughed loudly, breaking through the layers of desire clouding my senses. “Keep it PG. We have a child here.”
“I am not a child, Luke!” Sophie huffed, and it was enough distraction to make me jump away from my boyfriends. My cheeks and neck heated, and I groaned when my gaze met Pa’s.
“Fuck. Sorry.”
“I’m not.” Ren waggled his eyebrows.
“He’s KC’s dad, asshole.” Oli shoved his shoulder playfully.
“You weren’t saying that when you came to join in the fun, Kitten,” Ren teased.
Oli groaned and shoved one of the detonators at Ren’s chest. “Here. Just blow shit up.” Then, he held another out to me. “Together?”
Either Ren wasn’t listening—or he was too impatient—because he’d already flipped the lid off the detonator and slammed down the button with his thumb. “Bombs away!”
A blast erupted under the Ford Festiva. Fireworks soared toward the clouds and exploded in golden sunbursts that shimmered in the sky as she went flying up into the air so high we needed to tilt our heads back to watch.
The Festiva flipped in an explosion of blue sparks and came down on its roof on the Buick.
“Woo-ee!” Errol clapped and shouted like a madman, but that wasn’t anything new for him.
If there was anything in this world Errol loved almost as much as Sophie, it was blowing shit up.
The first time I’d come here with Pa and Barber, Errol had let me blow up a vehicle.
Pa nearly had an aneurysm, but eventually he came around to realize how fun it was.
“Holy fuckballs.” Ren laughed, true joy flooding his face. “That was fucking amazing, dude.”
“That’s only the start. Hit it, boys.” Errol pointed at me and Oli like he was the coach of our team, and I quirked a grin at Oli.
“You heard the man.”
We flipped open the detonators.
“On the count of three,” Oli said, a tremble of excitement shaking his shoulders. He grinned, a wild expression of exhilaration taking hold. “One. Two. Three!”
We hit our buttons together.
Fireworks whistled and boomed overhead, the big boys.
Where the fuck had Errol gotten them? The third car, an Acura, went flying up in the air the way the Ford did, glowing from the bright bursts of purple and white that sparkled overhead.
The Buick had a harder time with the Ford on top of it, but the bomb still had enough power to flip both cars and all three crashed together, thumping and crumpling onto the ground as they landed. The sound echoed around us.
Sophie slammed her hands over her ears with a shake of her head. “Everything smells like gunpowder.”
“And thar she blows!” Errol jumped on the table and pointed into the air doing his best impersonation of a goddamned pirate. He did some kind of interpretive dance that was a whole lot of random footwork before he howled in laughter.
The rest of us joined in, but it was mostly chuckling at Errol and his eccentricity.
Ren leaned toward Barber. “Are we sure that’s Dad’s brother?”
“You can see why Dad disowned him, huh?” Barber cackled, slapping Ren on the shoulder. “He takes life by the balls and has fun. Dad just strangles the fuck out of the balls when he has them in his hand.”
The corners of Ren’s mouth flicked up, his gaze softening. “Yeah. I like Uncle Errol.”
Barber gave him a knowing look. “Me too, kid.”