Chapter 12 Twelve Inches
twelve inches
Dolly Beckett
The Homecoming party wasn’t like the other football parties. Those were like the ones you see in movies, with kegs and beer pong, people dancing and eating and drinking, puking in bushes, and hooking up. Homecoming Weekend was different.
The game was on Friday, but since the next day was packed with activities, there was no post-game party.
We always played Faulkner High on Homecoming weekend, the schools taking turns hosting the game.
At some point the schools had decided that they didn’t want to have both dances on the same night, since a lot of people wanted to go to both.
So one school had to have their dance the next weekend, but there was only one official Homecoming Weekend in Faulkner.
Saturday, the whole town was decorated. The Downtown Diner wrote the specials out on chalkboards—homecoming style instead of homestyle, homecoming fries instead of home fries—and every salon in town had deals to get big groups of girls to come in to get their hair or nails done before the dance.
Everyone from babies in strollers to Gramparents in walkers came out for the parade, which had floats for each of the high schools as well as the colleges.
The football players always had a float, and the Homecoming Court had another.
That year, the court was predictably made up of all the girls in the Darling vicinity at school—Destiny, Lacey, Becca, Carmen, and me.
We stood on our float in different colored pastel debutante dresses waving our fans and sweltering in the late October heatwave.
Temperatures were in the eighties that weekend, which was unpleasant though not particularly unusual.
Afterwards, we got ready for the dance at my house. Destiny’s house was the biggest, but she had a preteen brother who liked to gawk at us and attempt to flirt, which was always awkward for us and embarrassing for her.
Mama had invited us to get ready at her house, but she would have wanted to take a million pictures, and her stepchildren were all under ten and even more annoying than Destiny’s brother.
So, we got ready at my dad’s, where I lived except for every-other-weekend and half the holidays, as per the custody agreement.
Dad had just married a woman who was embarrassingly young, and even though everyone in town knew about it since he was the mayor, I didn’t want my friends to see her and be reminded.
They’d probably think he was a creeper who would hit on them next.
But he’d already made plans to take her out after the parade, which gave us plenty of time to get ready.
Then we went to the dance, which was held at the school every year instead of the old Hockington Hotel, where prom was hosted.
Willow Heights was an old school, but the café had been redesigned a decade earlier with the intent to have dances there instead of renting out the Hockington ballroom every time.
Unlike the rest of the school, the café was modern, with high, vaulted ceilings with exposed beams, skylights, and giant fans that kept us cool while dancing.
They’d twined fairy lights around all the beams and the fans, which created a beautiful, dreamlike effect.
We danced and drank the spiked punch, and I was crowned homecoming queen to no one’s surprise.
The Darlings were the undisputed kings of the school, the only founding sons at Willow Heights until the next year, when Cotton Montgomery and DeShaun Rose would join the school as freshmen.
This year, the school was solidly held in the Darling family’s grip.
Devlin was the oldest, the king of kings, and I was his queen.
The homecoming queen always wore white, and the couple shared the first dance.
As I walked onto the dancefloor with Devlin, I imagined it was the first dance at our wedding. It was perfect.
We planned to go to a small party at a Darling’s house afterwards, where I’d spend the night with Devlin.
I was looking forward to it, even if it wouldn’t be comparable to a wedding night.
I hadn’t exactly announced to my parents that I’d lost my virginity, and even if they suspected I was sleeping with Devlin, Dad couldn’t afford the kind of scrutiny that would come if the mayor of a small, conservative town let his daughter stay the night at her boyfriend’s.
So, I’d never spent the night in Devlin’s arms.
Tonight, my parents thought I was staying with Destiny, but really I’d be holed up in a guest room spending the night with Devlin for the first time.
After the rocky start to our sex life, we had started working out the kinks and gotten used to each other, and our relationship was more solid than ever.
This felt like the next step, a new layer of intimacy to uncover.
We left the dance in the limo and headed to Preston’s house, chosen because it had the most guest bedrooms. Grampa Darling’s new wife was having all the bathrooms remodeled at the estate, so we’d decided not to meet there.
We could have still used the treehouse, like we had the year before, and stayed the night in the guesthouse.
But we were getting a little old for the treehouse.
It was a place full of nostalgia and memories of more innocent times, times of sexual curiosity, exploration, and awakening.
Now that we were all adults, at least in our eyes, it was time to move on. Everyone in our group was having sex now, and we all wanted the privacy of a guest room with our partner instead of camping out on the floor together with our friends.
This year, there were ten of us—the same four girls that had gone to the treehouse the year before, plus Becca, who was trying her hardest to lock Preston down and had managed to secure a date with him for the night.
Destiny and I had gone with Devlin and Colt, of course, and Lacey and Carmen had their own dates, two senior football players.
“Let’s get this party started,” Destiny sang as we hopped out of the limo at Preston’s house. “I’m ready to get my drink on.”
“Haven’t you been drinking the punch?” I asked.
“Yeah, and I’ve been dancing for three hours, but I’m still ready to dance some more,” she said, twirling in her floor-length lavender gown. “What’s your point?”
“Her point is, we’re all ready to do the horizontal tango,” Colt said, sliding an arm around her waist and pulling her in.
He nuzzled her neck, kissing her under the lights in front of the house.
The rest of us picked our way up the walkway, and I turned back to call to them.
They were still standing there, her arms draped casually around his neck, her clutch dangling from her hand as they kissed, his hands on her slender waist. It reminded me of something you’d see in a picture from Rome or Paris, the way their graceful figures were silhouetted against the aqua light from the shimmering fountain in Preston’s circular drive.
Goosebumps rose on my arms, and I had an odd, sad feeling, as if some part of me knew it would be the last time I’d see them like that.
“Let them be,” Preston said, his hand brushing my lower back.
I jumped, startled to find him there. I hadn’t heard him approach—the Darlings were all deceptively light on their feet for such tall men.
He took my hand, his touch gentle, and another shiver ran through me, this one warm and electric.
I should have pulled away, knowing it was inappropriate to feel such a melting, helpless sensation for a man who wasn’t my boyfriend.
But it felt so good, I couldn’t quite convince myself to let go.
I told myself I needed the extra support and balance of his strong hand holding mine as I lifted the hem of my dress to climb the steps.
I tripped on the top step and stumbled, and his hand tightened around mine, steadying me. I caught my balance, but he drew me in anyway, his other hand sliding around to cradle the small of my back and pull me flush against him.
“I’m okay,” I said, a breathy little laugh escaping me at his nearness.
I couldn’t remember the last time we’d touched, even though we hung out all the time.
Probably that night in the treehouse, when he gave me my first orgasm, an entire year before.
I wasn’t prepared for the way his touch affected me when it happened.
I felt his ribs expand as he took a breath, felt his solid body against my soft one, and my whole body fluttered like a pulse. Then he stepped back and let me go like nothing had happened, like he hadn’t just smelled my hair and held me like…
I didn’t know what.
It wasn’t anything sexual. He hadn’t pushed his hips against mine or even squeezed me tight so he could feel my boobs. I’d felt something in his touch, but it was more than lust. It was a deeper, more primal craving, a hunger laced with tenderness and restraint that made my bones ache.
He opened the door and gestured for me to go in, but his gaze dropped when I tried to meet his eye, as if he couldn’t bear to look directly at me, as if he were afraid I’d see that just touching me hurt him somehow.
A pang of disappointment followed quickly by guilt went through me when I stepped inside and saw Devlin waiting.
I brushed away the weird reaction I’d had to his cousin, and we hit the liquor cabinet. Destiny and Colt joined us, and we took shots and laughed and talked about the dance and the parade and the game.
“Let’s get in the hot tub,” Carmen said, snuggling her ass into her date’s crotch as they stood at the counter.
“Are you crazy?” Destiny asked. “I’ve been baked all day. It’s so hot.”
“Want to get a little more baked?” Colt asked, taking a little box from his pocket.
“You can’t smoke that in my house,” Preston said. “My parents are upstairs. And since when do you smoke pot? You know Coach can piss test us any time.”