Chapter 12 Twelve Inches #2
“Relax, dude,” Colt said. “It’s just a little greenery. I’ve seen you snort coke at the New Year’s party.”
“That’s not during the season,” Preston said, glaring.
“Fine, we’ll go out back,” Colt said. “Come on, Destiny.”
He took her hand and led her out. The rest of us stood there in uncomfortable silence. Preston didn’t run the group. Devlin did. Preston was quiet, kind of withdrawn, so we weren’t used to him speaking up. When he did, we all listened. It was his house, after all.
“So… I’m going to go get in on that,” Carmen said, glancing at him. “If that’s okay.”
“Yeah, go,” Preston said. “Do whatever. Just not inside the house.”
The rest of us started filing out, and I glanced over my shoulder at him, catching his troubled expression.
I wondered if he was still scared of his dad, what Joseph Darling did to punish Preston now that he was almost as big as him.
He’d probably just take away the car Preston was illegally driving before his sixteenth birthday.
We went out back and settled onto the chaise lounges around the pool.
It hadn’t been closed for the year, since the temperatures hadn’t dipped yet, and Destiny went to dip her toes in, pulling up her satin dress so it wouldn’t get wet.
Colt started passing around a glass pipe, and Preston stalked off into his mom’s little flower garden.
“What crawled up his ass tonight?” Lacey asked, taking the pipe from her date and posing on the edge of the chaise, arching her back to look sexier.
She always seemed to be preening, seeking male attention.
As long as she left Devlin alone, I didn’t care, though I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t irritated me to an unwarranted degree when she hooked up with Preston.
But then, I was sort of protective of the younger Darling cousins, just like Devlin was.
When we got married, they’d be like brothers to me.
I didn’t trust Lacey’s intentions, that was all. I knew Preston was damaged, more sensitive than he let on. Not just any girl was good enough for him. He deserved someone special, not someone who was only after the money and status his family name carried in this town.
I glanced at Devlin to see if he’d do anything, but he just shrugged and tightened his arm around my shoulders. “You know how he is about football,” he said to the group. “He’s afraid one whiff of smoke might make him fail a piss test.”
“I’ll go talk to him,” Becca said, climbing off her chair and heading for the garden.
I forced down the flicker of jealousy that rose inside me.
She was his date. She wanted to date him.
Of course she’d go make sure he was okay.
I couldn’t even criticize her the way I did Lacey.
Becca was sweet and had been low-key infatuated with Preston since he took her virginity in what was apparently a fantasy come true, unlike my nightmare deflowering.
Mine had been so horrid that Devlin and I never even talked about it, aside from his completely inadequate “I’m sorry for the other night,” comment he made before going on like nothing happened.
Now I understood why Destiny had advised not losing your virginity to another virgin.
While Devlin had completely snapped that night, Preston’s manwhore skills had made Becca not just have the perfect first time, but also made her fall in love.
She hadn’t been with anyone else and was determined to tie him down even though he apparently told every girl before they hooked up that he wasn’t going to date her.
I watched her walk to the garden, irrational irritation grinding my gears.
What was wrong with me tonight? First I’d been overly sentimental at the dance, then had that weird doomed sense on the front porch, a strange reaction to Preston, and now this.
Which was downright silly. It wasn’t like I could go after him without looking totally weird.
I tried to join the rest of my friends and not think about what Becca and Preston were doing.
The rest of them smoked, though Devlin and I passed the pipe without joining.
I was already drinking, and though I’d tried pot once with Destiny, I didn’t like the dopey feeling I got from it.
After a few minutes, I couldn’t resist looking over at the garden.
Becca and Preston stood close together, her hand down the front of his pants.
I quickly looked away, grabbing one of the slushy margaritas we’d nabbed from the freezer.
“I want to swim,” Destiny said, jumping up from her chair.
“Did you bring a suit?” I asked.
“Who needs a suit?” she asked, wiggling her brows.
Everyone started looking around at each other, all of us probably weighing our own insecurities against the need to look cool.
I had the added layer of not particularly wanting my boyfriend to see four other girls naked, especially since they were all smaller than me, some of them significantly so.
None of the others were actually dating their dates, so they didn’t have to worry about that.
The garden gropers came back and sat down in a chaise set a bit back from the others, in the shadow of the corner of the house.
Becca sat on Preston’s lap. I remembered how his hand felt on my lower back, the way his body felt under my hand when I steadied myself against him, the warmth of his skin through his shirt, the hard muscles in his abdomen that rose under my hand when he took that breath with his nose just skimming my hair.
I wondered if that’s what everyone felt when they touched him.
Was it him? Or me?
“Come on, this is boring,” Destiny groaned. “I might as well have gone to bed.”
I got this feeling of déjà vous along with the weird feeling that had clung to me all night, as if we were all just waiting for something.
Maybe this was it. In a way, it was just like the year before, with the game of seven minutes in heaven.
This was how that had gone, too. Destiny was bored, and she brought up something bold.
We all wondered who would get behind her idea and who would be the one to tell her if it was more thrilling or dangerous.
I could feel it in the air, the charge of combining the two—the thrill and the danger each amping up the other.
What would it be this time? A breakup?
No.
There was only one couple here, and I wasn’t going to lose Devlin.
If that meant being the stick in the mud again this year, I’d just have to do it.
Better than him seeing my four skinny, gorgeous friends naked.
I imagined taking off my own clothes, how all five of the guys would ogle my boobs, bigger than all the other girls’ by several cup sizes.
Somehow, that didn’t make me feel better at all.
I just pictured standing uncomfortably in the water, trying to hide them and hoping the senior guys wouldn’t come talk to me, pretending to care about anything I said while they tried to get a look under the water.
I knew Preston and Colt wouldn’t do that, even if they’d stare when I first took off my top. They respected Devlin too much to make a move or be creepy to me.
Then I heard Preston’s voice murmuring to Becca behind us, his southern drawl like warm, worn leather, soft as velvet and deep as the inky black sky before a storm, before the lightning lit up the night.
How had I never noticed the way his voice sounded, how it made my nipples harden inside my dress?
Oh, right, because I hadn’t usually taken shots. Obviously the tequila was making me horny, not my boyfriend’s cousin. Just one more reason not to get naked in front of everyone.
“Come on,” Preston said to Becca, so quiet I wouldn’t have been able to hear except the whole group had gone silent as they waited for someone to weigh in on the skinny-dipping issue. “Let me pull up your dress. I want to feel you stretch out that snug little cunt with my cock.”
A spasm went through my thighs, and I hoped Devlin hadn’t noticed—or hadn’t heard his cousin trying to put his dick in a girl while sitting six feet from us.
“People can see us,” Becca whispered.
“They won’t know as long as you stay quiet,” Preston said. “Trust me, doll. I’ve done it in the middle of a conversation.”
I heard the fabric of her dress rustling, and I cleared my throat, my cheeks hot.
“I’ll go in my underwear,” I offered, emboldened by tequila and fury.
A couple people cheered and started chatting excitedly about the new idea, a compromise between skinny-dipping and not swimming at all. Wet underwear didn’t leave a lot to the imagination, but it was better than nothing, and none of us had swimsuits.
I wasn’t going to get naked out of annoyance just because Preston was being an asshole, but I didn’t want to sit there and listen to him stick his dick in some other girl.
Especially not while using the pet name he used for all his Darling Dolls—which just happened to be my nickname since childhood.
Had he literally impaled someone while he was talking to one of us? I tried to think of all the times he’d talked to me with one of his fangirls on his lap. Had he talked to me while he was inside someone else?
The thought filled me with rage and humiliation.
I got up and reached for the straps of my dress, but Devlin caught my hand. “Are you sure about this?” he asked.
I wasn’t sure, but now that I was standing, my gaze landed on the chair set back from ours.
Preston was leaning back with one hand behind his head, the other resting casually on the chair beside him.
You’d never know he was doing a thing if not for the fact that Becca was sitting ramrod straight on his lap, her lips pinched together and her eyes so round I had to wonder if he’d put it in her ass without warning her.