Chapter 8 #2
As the maid of honor waits for an answer to her angry question, Puck glances longingly at the door, wishing they could just get up and leave.
Right now would be a great time to visit the cold plunge.
But Robyn is standing squarely in front of the exit, immovable and pissed the fuck off.
Her bare feet might as well be combat boots.
“That’s not what I said,” Puck claims, not even sure if they’re lying or not.
“So why did Mia tell me just now at the nail spa that she’s been in her head about the wedding ever since you said it?”
She just had to mention that she was getting a mani-pedi with Mia, didn’t she?
The start of the spa day had made it clear where Puck fell in the pecking order: There were six in the group but only three chairs in the nail salon, so after a few seconds of looking awkwardly at each other, Lena, Anya, and Puck realized they should shuffle off to the sauna while Mia, Robyn, and Willa chose their colors.
“I was just trying to understand her choices,” Puck says, but if they want to keep off the back foot, they’ve got to go on offense, fast. “If you had known Mia for longer than a few months, you’d know this is a big shock for us.”
“For you?!” Robyn takes a step closer, and as Puck turns their head downward to avoid the fury in her eyes, they notice her pale-pink pedicure. She picked a good color, at least. “This is Mia’s wedding, not yours. Who gives a fuck about you?”
Puck makes a living off straight culture, but this is the kind of heteronormative hogwash they can’t stand.
A wedding doesn’t give a woman carte blanche to ignore the rest of her social circle.
No one else should have to subscribe to that shared psychosis.
“We’re still people, Robyn with a ‘y,’” they say, standing but still only coming up to her chin.
“Our feelings matter, even at this little party that you planned ever so perfectly.”
Puck knows they shouldn’t lose their cool.
And they know they’re sinking their chances of ever getting Robyn in bed.
But there’s just something about this girl that makes Puck feel instantly on edge.
She’s like a toothpaste stain on a mirror that won’t go away no matter how hard you try to rub it out.
“Mia was a wreck before she moved here, you know,” Robyn says, lowering her volume but not her intensity. The fact that she’s deliberately ignoring all of Puck’s personal digs only makes her more maddening. “That curly-haired boy you all love so much messed her up bad. But she’s finally happy.”
“And I’m not allowed to check in with my best friend?” Puck asks, taking a step forward to show Robyn they’re not going to tuck their tail between their legs and run away. “Are you her maid of honor, Robyn, or her fucking babysitter?”
Even when she’s sneering, Robyn still somehow looks like she belongs on a billboard.
The woman is incapable of making an ugly face.
Her eyes are narrowed in anger, but even as Puck bears the brunt of her outrage, they wonder how wide Robyn would open them as she came.
Not that Puck would ever touch this absolute brat.
They want to spank her a lot more than they want to fuck her. Damn it, maybe they want to do both.
“She needed some caretaking after the way she was treated!” Robyn yells, the wooden walls of the sauna absorbing the echoes.
Finally Puck’s attack lines seem to be getting on her nerves.
“Do you know how sick I am of hearing about the Emory crew? Zander broke that girl, you all apparently fucked off, and I had to pick up the pieces.”
“Wait,” Puck fires back, dialing up the sarcasm to a dangerous degree. “I thought this wedding was about Mia, remember? Not your martyr complex.”
“Just shut the fuck up from here on out,” Robyn commands. Puck’s disappointed that she’s given up on creative insults, but they can at least admire her directness.
“Trust me, not speaking to you will be easy,” they quip.
“No, shut the fuck up around Mia,” Robyn says, her voice now eerily calm, each syllable carved out of ice.
“Read my lips: She’s getting married. To Damon.
She’s trying to enjoy herself. And the last thing she needs is for some lonely little”—Robyn pauses while searching for the word, looking Puck up and down—“loser to ruin that for her.”
Puck smiles. What they already suspected has been confirmed. Robyn looks like a bully, and now she’s taken her mask off.
“Oh, I get it,” Puck says with a snicker, taking another step closer, almost exhilarated that they don’t have to pretend they didn’t sense this familiar brand of hostility anymore. “You’re just homophobic, aren’t you? You think I’m a freak?”
Without hesitation, Robyn brushes the accusation away. “I didn’t say that.”
“Oh yeah? You didn’t have to!” Puck yells, unable to maintain any sort of boundary anymore between the anger they feel and the alarming level of arousal that seems to have switched their brain off altogether.
Something inside of them must be wired wrong, because for some reason they want Robyn now more than ever.
They want to slap this girl right on her stupid, plump, perfect cheeks.
They want to hear a whimper escape from her lips.
They want Robyn to hit them back. They want to get out of this sauna before they start dripping more than just sweat onto the floor.
“You’re a loser because you came to a wedding and asked the bride if she wants to go through with it!” Robyn shouts back, some spit landing on Puck’s face. “Who does that?”
They stare back at her, pointedly refusing to brush the saliva away.
“Are you sure this isn’t all because I’ve got less hair on my head than you have under that towel?” Puck asks, feeling the words slip out before they can second-guess the boundary they’re crossing. “How often do you and the rest of the Pumpkin Spice Brigade go for waxes back home? Weekly?”
Robyn smirks. “I truly don’t give a shit if you’re gay or whatever.”
Puck laughs. “Real convincing.”
“I mean it,” Robyn says. “You’d be hot if you weren’t so selfish.”
Puck loses any scrap of self-control they had left. “And I’d take you right here if you weren’t such a bitch,” they say.
Robyn thrusts a hand out toward Puck and they flinch, then quickly realize she isn’t trying to hit them. She’s grabbing the knot on the front of their towel. She pulls them closer to her, their faces now centimeters away. “Fucking try me,” she says.
And then Puck closes the distance. They’re kissing Robyn, swallowing her spit instead of just letting it sit on their face.
They’re feeling Robyn’s hungry grip on the nape of their neck.
They’re pushing her up against the sauna door, reaching a hand down to feel for the bottom edge of her towel.
For a moment, they consider fucking her where they stand.
Puck can hold the door shut; they will only need one hand to make Robyn come anyway.
But they have just enough self-control left to stop, pressing their fingers against her upper thigh instead.
“At least when I’m kissing you,” Puck pants out, “you can’t talk.”
Robyn’s towel has been jarred loose. Her once-tight ponytail is getting mussed up from all the motion. She still looks mad, but also amused, and most importantly, like she wants more than anything for Puck to keep going. She gives Puck a sly look.
“Why do you think I kissed you back?”