34. No-Nut November
CHAPTER
NO-NUT NOVEMBER
ADAM
“Pink’s my favorite color.”
“It’s one of mine too.” It wasn’t up until four months ago, but now when I think of pink, I think of everything bright, fresh, and captivating. I think of Rosie.
But instead of telling this preteen girl that, of all the options I was presented with earlier today, I chose to dress as the pink crayon because the color reminds me of the fistful of hair I had in my hands this morning while Rosie took my cock as far down her throat as she could, I settle on: “It makes me happy.”
The girl in front of me grins as I take my picture from her hands and uncap my marker. “My name is Skylar.”
“Skylar,” I repeat, scrawling her name across the picture before signing mine, finishing it with my jersey number. “Here you go, Skylar.” I dump a whack of candy in her plastic pumpkin bucket. “Happy Halloween.”
“Thanks!” She looks at Jaxon, her eyes moving over him with disgust. “I don’t
like green. It reminds me of puke.”
Jaxon crosses his arms over his green chest, and his green crayon-tip hat dips down over one of his eyebrows. “Yeah, well, I don’t
like butterfly queens. They also
remind me of puke.”
Skylar gasps, the tip of her tall butterfly wings smacking Jaxon in the chin when she twists and storms off.
“You fucking suck with kids,” I say under my breath as she tosses him one last glare over her shoulder, one he gives right back.
“I’m good with Ireland. She only cries, like, thirty percent of the time I hold her, and she laughs when I blow raspberries on her cheeks. And Connor’s, like, my best bud.”
This is true, but it might have something to do with the fluffy cat Jaxon brings over to my house every time he comes to visit.
Jaxon loves showing off all the tricks he’s taught Mittens, and Connor loves to roll around on the floor with Mittens and Bear.
He even calls his stuffed kitty Mittens now.
“Why the fuck am I dressed as a crayon?” Jaxon grumbles, tearing open a mini–Kit Kat. “And why the fuck am I the only one who wasn’t allowed to wear pants with my costume?”
I don’t know, but he looks hilarious in his green crayon dress, with his green crayon-tip hat, and his hairy legs on display. “It’s Carter’s world; we’re all just living in it.”
“Did he tell you what costumes he’s making us wear tonight for trick-or-treating?”
“He says it’s a surprise.”
“He said the same to me, but then he did this high-pitched giggle, promised it would be ‘spicy,’ and then ran away.”
I’m as scared as everyone else. We haven’t been home and game-less on Halloween in five years.
That Halloween, Carter made us all dress up as Britney Spears.
I still have nightmares of seeing him in his schoolgirl outfit.
I was stuck in red latex, Garrett was dressed as a sexy stewardess, and Emmett was nearly naked with a stuffed snake around his neck.
We did win Best Group Costume that night, though, so…
“I heard about the Britney Spears debacle,” Jaxon whispers. Frightened eyes bounce between mine. “This year will be better, though, right? Because he has a kid now? So he won’t be so…Carter-y?”
Before I can answer, a microphone screeches. Jaxon and I look up, watching as Carter—dressed as a purple crayon and with his purple-crayon daughter strapped to his chest—steps onto the stage set up out front of the arena doors.
“No,” Jaxon murmurs as a screen is lowered behind Carter.
“He’s really doing it,” I whisper.
“I thought he was joking,” Garrett mutters, appearing on my left.
“Someone call Olivia,” Emmett mumbles, on Jaxon’s right. “He needs to be stopped.”
“ Is everyone ready for Vipers Karaoke
?” Carter calls out at the gathering crowd. To our horror, they explode with cheer. “Twenty dollars gets you the song of your choice here on stage with a Viper of your choosing—”
“What?” Jaxon gasps.
“I did not
agree to this,” Garrett growls.
“No,” Emmett groans.
“Holy fuck,” I sigh.
“—and all the proceeds go back into the community to help fund sport programs for underprivileged youth. So multiple songs are not only welcome but encouraged
.”
Jaxon pins his arms across his chest. “Nobody better pick me, ’cause I ain’t singing.”
A small girl wearing a sparkly pink dress with a fluffy skirt and a tiara approaches Jaxon, tugging on his crayon gown with her gloved hands, batting her blue eyes. “Excuse me, Mr. Riley. My name is Mia and I’m a princess. I wanna sing a princess song with you.”
His eyes melt as he stares down at her, and when she clasps her hands and hangs her head in defeat, Jaxon groans. He takes her hand in his, pulling her toward the stage where Carter waits with a shit-eating grin.
“C’mon, Princess Mia. Let’s go pick a princess song.”
* * *
Thirteen. That’s the number of songs Jaxon’s sung this afternoon.
“He acts like he’s not one of us,” Carter muses, watching as Jaxon wraps up his performance of Moana
’s “How Far I’ll Go” with a girl dressed exactly like her. “But I knew he was a Puck Slut from the moment he stepped off that plane from Nashville a year ago.”
Garrett pulls off his blue crayon hat and messes up his hair. “When can we go home? I wanna take Jennie to Pound Town once quick in Carter’s bathroom before we go trick-or-treating.”
Carter shoves his elbow into Garrett’s rib cage.
“ Ow
! I’m telling!”
“I’ll chop off your dick if you touch my sister in my bathroom.”
“You can’t.” Garrett gets this slow, smug smirk on his face, and his chest shakes, already laughing at his own joke. “It’s her favorite ride, right along with my face.”
Jaxon thumbs at Garrett as he rejoins us. “Where did the balls on this one come from in the last year?”
“Jennie,” Emmett and I answer simultaneously.
“I just know she’s gonna look sexy in her costume. I won’t be able to resist her.”
I arch a brow, peeking down at the photo on my phone, the one Rosie sent me a half hour ago, after they left here and went back to Carter and Olivia’s. It’s a group shot of the girls and Connor, and they’re all dressed as different animals and bugs.
I flash my phone at Garrett. “She’s a butterfly.”
“A sexy
butterfly.”
“You’d fuck Jennie in a garbage bag.”
“As if you wouldn’t fuck Rosie in one.”
Touché.
“Jennie’s not gonna wanna touch you in your crayon dress.”
He gestures aggressively at himself, runs his hands over his crayon-covered hips. “Jennie’s gonna be all over
this.”
“Uh-huh.”
He jabs his finger into my chest. “Just you wait. She’s gonna be begging for me. I’ll have to tell her no.”
Jaxon snorts a laugh. “As if you’d ever be able to tell her no.”
Carter’s chest puffs. “Yeah, I gotta tell Ollie no all the time.”
Everyone laughs, except for Carter.
“What? I do!” He frowns, hands on his hips. “Well, I could if I wanted to. I just never want to.”
“You absolutely could not
,” Emmett argues. “Not even if someone paid you.”
“Wanna bet?” Carter pulls a wad of cash from his wallet. “Five hundred bucks says I can.”
“Oh, I’m so
in.” Garrett holds up his own money.
Emmett crosses his arms. “What are the terms?”
Carter thinks for a minute. “No-Nut November.”
“No-Nut—” I bury my face in my hand. “What?”
“The terms are simple. Five hundred bucks each, and we’re all betting on ourselves. No sex, no jerking off, no nutting—period. We start tomorrow, November first. Whoever lasts the longest gets the pot. Twenty-five hundred dollars.”
My face is still in my hands, so I drag them down it in slow motion. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation dressed as crayons.”
“I can’t believe I’m not wearing any pants,” Jaxon says, and then, “I’m in.”
“ You
?”
“What? I’m not in a relationship.”
“You still fuck nearly as much as the rest of us,” Garrett argues.
Jaxon runs a palm down his proud chest. “Yeah, I’m hard to resist.”
“I’m absolutely not in,” I tell them.
“Aw, come on,” Carter whines.
“I just started having regular sex a month ago. I’m not about to give it up.
” Also, I’m kinda scared of Rosie. She likes to be fucked to sleep the night before a big surgery, or an important test. It helps her unwind and take her mind off it, otherwise she’s up all night hyperfocusing.
She also likes morning sex, and shower sex, and the other afternoon I fucked her on my kitchen counter while Connor was napping upstairs.
I’m not gonna be the one to take that from her.
“Then bet on me,” Carter says so simply, like it’s…
logical. It fucking isn’t. That’s why I snort the loudest, most incredulous laugh.
“I won’t let you down, Adam, I promise. Plus, we’re on the road fourteen days in November.
Which means I only have to resist Olivia for sixteen days. I can do it. I can.”
He sounds so confident, it’s both comical and sad. After all these years, Carter thinks I don’t know him. After all these years, Carter doesn’t know himself.
“No.”
“Don’t bet on me,” Emmett says. “I know exactly how this is gonna go when I drop this on Cara. Hint: not fucking well.” He shakes his head. “And goddammit, I love my wife, but I am terrified
of her.”
“You can bet on me,” Garrett assures me. “Don’t worry. Jennie’s not the boss of me.”
I blink at him. “My money’s on Jaxon.”
“ Fuck yeah
!”
Carter stretches his arms overhead. “Yeah, just wait ’til the girls see us in the costumes I picked out for us tonight. They’re gonna be on their knees, begging for a piece.”
* * *
“Are you—”
“Yes.”
“Adam.” Rosie folds her lips into her mouth, but it doesn’t stop her laughter.
It shakes her entire body instead as her eyes roam down my body, then back up.
Down again, then up. Down once more, and finally that laughter breaks free.
“I can’t handle this,” she cries, hands on her face, and I’ll tell you this: she’s definitely not on her knees, begging for a piece.
She’s so fucking adorable in her ladybug costume, and I’m…I’m fucking…God, I can’t even say the words.
Somehow, Carter’s found a way to top the Britney debacle.