Chapter 12 sixpacks and fruit snacks
sixpacks and fruit snacks
Dolly Beckett
“I’m bored,” Destiny said, flopping back on the treehouse floor. “Nothing ever happens in this town.”
“We literally just got done with Homecoming,” I pointed out. After the dance, there wasn’t a big party, but groups always broke off to hang out with their friends. We’d changed from our dresses into comfortable clothes and congregated in Grampa Darling’s treehouse to hang out.
“Don’t you ever want… I don’t know… Something bigger?”
“There’s the Darling Christmas party, and their New Year’s party,” said Carmen, glancing at me furtively. “Do you think we’ll be invited?”
Of course I was invited, being Devlin’s girlfriend and all.
Destiny was guaranteed a spot several times over—she was the daughter of a founding family and stepdaughter of another one, close with all the Darling cousins, and best friends with the mayor’s daughter.
Lacey Murdock and Carmen Saravia were more peripheral, so their invite wasn’t guaranteed.
“I’m so bored I could die,” Destiny groaned, throwing an arm over her eyes. “Sometimes I want to drive off the bridge just so something exciting happens. Know what I mean?”
“Oh my god,” Lacey squealed. “That’s messed up.”
“I know, right?” Destiny said, sitting up. “I just feel like… Like we’re wasting our lives in this town. I want to be somewhere important, like New York or DC, where something’s always going on. I want to be somebody.”
“You are somebody,” Carmen pointed out. “You’re a Delacroix.”
“Come on,” Destiny said, giving her a look. “I’m only a Delacroix by marriage, and my stepdad works for Walmart.”
“The Walmart corporate office,” Lacey said.
“Aren’t our lives kind of sad, though?” Destiny asked, leaning back on her hands. “It’s not like he works for Nyso Records in LA. It’s Arkansas.”
“Well, that’s where we live,” Lacey said. “What’s wrong with Arkansas?”
“The fact that you have to ask is what’s wrong with it,” Destiny said. “When do we graduate again?”
“In three and a half years,” I told her, picking a piece of fluffy from my new Yorkshire Terrier puppy off the knee of my yoga pants, which I wore under a short pink skirt topped with a vintage Legally Blonde t-shirt.
“What kind of friend are you?” Destiny grumbled. “You’re supposed to lie.”
“Well, it’s only two and a half for me,” I offered.
“That’s it,” she said. “We’re not friends anymore. Lacey, you’re my best friend now.”
“I’m a sophomore, too,” Lacey pointed out, tugging at the neck of her shirt and sitting a little straighter, pushing out her boobs when we heard the guys coming.
“Who’s that for?” Destiny asked, giving her a sly grin.
“What? No one,” Lacey said, tousling her hair.
“Mmmhmm,” Destiny said with a knowing smile. “Or maybe it’s for Preston Darling?”
“Ugh, gross,” Lacey said, but her face went pink. “Like I’d ever hook up with a freshman.”
“He’s one year younger,” Destiny said, shaking her head. “Plus, he’s hot, if you like that type.”
“What type?” I asked, a funny little knot of annoyance forming in my belly like it did every time someone talked about Preston.
His very existence irked me this year, and I didn’t even know why.
We’d always been friends, even when he was sort of a dick.
Usually, he was nice to me and only rude to other people.
That made it easier to tolerate, even if it shouldn’t.
Plus, every time I started to think we shouldn’t be friends anymore, I remembered that day when he broke the vase, and how mean his dad was.
Joseph Darling may have been the town’s big shot lawyer and a friend of my dad’s, but I’d seen another side of him.
Preston was the same. He got in fights at school and generally was angry at the world, but I’d seen the other side of him.
I still remembered our first kiss. I’d done lots of kissing and other stuff with Devlin since then, but I’d never forget my first kiss.
Preston had made it memorable, being so sweet and gentle, even though he was usually pretty rough around the edges.
“Let’s play a game,” Destiny said impulsively.
“What kind of game?” Colt asked, sticking his head up through the trap door with a grin.
He was just shy of fourteen, and he hadn’t even been at our Homecoming since he wasn’t in high school, but you could already tell he’d have no problem with the ladies when he arrived at Willow Heights next year.
Where Preston was all brittle edges and anger, Colt was honey smiles and charm.
He hopped up into the room and reached down to retrieve a six-pack from Devlin, who was behind him on the ladder.
“Truth or dare,” Destiny said.
Just then, Preston’s head poked up through the doorway.
Our eyes met, and this awkward moment of knowing passed between us, the way it sometimes did.
It was funny, too, because I wasn’t sure exactly what I was supposed to know from that look.
I didn’t know if it was because I was the only one who knew that his family wasn’t as perfect as they appeared from the outside, or if it was because Devlin had never found out about the kiss.
I could have told him. We weren’t serious when it happened.
But I never had. It was a secret I wanted for myself, something sacred between me and Preston that words would have destroyed.
Or maybe it was just that we knew each other in some way that defied words, as if our souls understood each other.
Whatever it was, it was awkward for a fifteen-year-old, especially one in love with his cousin. So I tried not to be alone with him too much, not to have moments when he might put words to the thing I didn’t really understand and was scared to look at too closely.
That funny little flutter that sometimes started in my tummy flared up, and I shook my head and turned back to Destiny. “I don’t like truth or dare.”
Sometimes, the truth was too dangerous, and I wasn’t the kind of person who would lie during a game with friends, even if everyone else did.
“We could play spin the bottle,” Lacey said with a giggle, adjusting her position to look inviting.
“We’re not in middle school,” I said, my gaze returning to Preston. I didn’t want any games where I’d have to confront the awkwardness between us. “Besides, I have a boyfriend. I can’t kiss other guys.”
“Lame,” Destiny sang out in her beautiful voice.
We sang together in choir and took voice lessons together, like we always had, but she was better than me by a long shot.
Still, she was the kind of friend who not only would never point that out, but she’d promise to bring me along if she ever made a girl band and got famous.
We’d been best friends since elementary, but it was a friendship forged by our parents, like all my friendships.
Sometimes I wondered what my life would be like if I wasn’t the mayor’s daughter.
Would the Darlings even give me the time of day?
Would a brave, ambitious girl like Destiny be friends with someone so steadfastly content with her life?
Back then, I was happy with the life my parents had laid out for me—being Devlin’s wife was enough.
One day, he would be Faulkner’s mayor, and I’d be the mayor’s wife and the mother of a little girl just like me.
Destiny was the exact opposite. She liked to push limits, to dream big, even if she didn’t know what the future would hold.
One year she wanted to be a singer, then an actor, then a fashion designer, and now a social media influencer.
There was something about her that was always a little reckless, a little restless, like she was too big for this little town to contain.
It was something that, in the rare moment when I admitted to myself that I had doubts about my relationship too, I knew she shared with Devlin.
They both had this innate inability to be satisfied, a striving for more, some inner frustration that would either drive them to great heights or spectacular ruin.
“It’s not cheating to kiss another guy if your boyfriend gives you permission,” Carmen said, wiggling her brows at me and then Devlin.
The guys had clambered into the treehouse and closed the trap door, and we all settled into a circle, the two boxes of beer bottles in the middle.
“Seven minutes in heaven,” Lacey said, leaning forward just a bit, so the person beside her could sneak a peek down her shirt if he wanted.
The person beside her being Devlin.
I glared at her. “We’re not playing any kissing games.”
“Why not?” Devlin asked, his tone one of genuine curiosity, like he couldn’t think of any reason that would be a bad idea. He opened the box and handed out beers with his usual casual confidence, like he honestly didn’t know anything was wrong with him even asking.
“Well… Because we’re together,” I pointed out, feeling every bit the dumb, clumsy virgin I was. We’d played games like this before, and I’d kissed other boys, but Devlin and I were serious now. We were about to sleep together, for god sakes.
He shrugged and opened a beer. “So what? It’s a game.”
“Yeah,” Lacey said, taking the beer from him. “It’s just for fun. Like Carmen said, you’re both playing. You both know about it, and you’re both okay with it, so it’s not cheating.”
“Exactly,” Devlin said, opening another beer and handing off the opener. “Lighten up, Doll. We’re sixteen. You act like we’re already married.”
He didn’t say it in a mean way, but somehow that made it worse. He was just being rational, matter of fact. Everyone watched me, waiting for my response, except Devlin. He clearly didn’t know he’d even said anything offensive.