Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Oliver
“You suck at this!” I look up from the cup I’m trying to sink a ping-pong ball into. Casey smirks victoriously when the ball misses.
At every house party, our group takes over the pong table. I think it’s the competitiveness of the group, but no one challenges us. Hell, most of the guys here spend the night trying to convince the girls to play strip pong instead of drinking.
The room is filled with the core group and Jade, who’s been eyeing me up and down all night.
She’s dressed to the nines in a short navy dress, her ash-blonde hair cascading past her shoulders with perfect curls.
A stark contrast to Sally’s straight blonde-and-pink hair.
She’s annoyed because I haven’t paid much attention to her.
“Heating up,” Piper cheers as she sinks another ball into the red Solo cup.
I tip my cup toward her before taking a drink. Jaxon grumbles a curse under his breath before Casey lands her shot as well.
“Balls back, bitch.”
Jaxon grabs both of the balls and throws them back. “I need you to stop sucking, Ollie.”
“I don’t see you making any of these cups,” I shoot back.
“The pong queens will never be beaten!” Piper says while Tyler walks behind her and wraps his arms around her. She smiles, looking up at him, and leans back into his chest.
They look like they were made for each other.
I’ve only really known Piper in a relationship, but I think she would be fundamentally different if they broke up.
Not because she needs a man to be complete, but because I know the loss would change something in her.
I hope it never happens. I want to see them walk down the aisle together.
Here’s to hoping college doesn’t change that.
“Ollie,” Jade’s voice cuts in as she slides over to me, rubbing her hand up my arm and to my bicep. “Can I take a celeb shot?”
“I don’t know.”
“You can shoot me for me, babe.” Jaxon holds out the ball, but Jade shoots him a glare.
“Didn’t ask you.”
“Gonna break my heart, just like how you break your daddy’s heart by hanging out with us every summer,” Jaxon muses.
Jade’s attention shifts fully to Jaxon, which I mentally thank him for. The girl is seriously hot, and we’ve hooked up basically every summer she’s visited, but this summer is different. This summer, my mind is on one girl.
I’m gonna have to buy my best friend a six-pack after this because not only is he pissing off Jade by cock-blocking her, but he’s pissing off Casey by flirting with the blonde.
Casey might be mad about Jaxon, but she won’t make a scene about it, and I know she won’t hold it against the women he flirts with. She’s all about women’s empowerment.
That’s when a flash of blonde and pink comes into view. Anything happening around me ceases to exist as I watch Sally enter the kitchen. I smile, just watching her look around the room, her doe-eyed expression surveying the room since she’s never been here before.
My smile falters when a blond, frat-looking jerk walks up to her and starts making conversation.
My skin starts to prickle as Sally politely smiles at him.
Not the same smile she gives me, but the kind that says she doesn’t want to be here anymore, but she also doesn’t want to be rude.
I clench my jaw as the frat douche starts to hand her a drink, but she inches away, and the asshole isn’t backing off.
Before I know it, I’m walking into the kitchen.
“Come on, baby, the drink tastes good. There’s barely any alcohol in it,” the frat douche lies, and now my blood is actually boiling. I know what they put in their jungle juice, which is why girls never come to parties like this alone.
Where are Sally’s brother and sisters?
“I’m good,” she says softly, still backing out of his reach.
I swipe in right beside her and wrap an arm around her shoulders to pull her into my side.
I hear Sally’s breath hitch, but my eyes stay trained on the man in front of me. Now that I’ve gotten a good look at his face, I see it’s Thomas, the guy who left his car with Jaxon.
“Can I help you?” He glares, bulking out his chest.
I remain still before smirking at him. “Nope.”
Before, the asshole couldn’t stop looking at Sally, but now it doesn’t even look like he actually cares about her. This is more about his pride now. I’m stepping on his hunting ground, and Sally is the bunny he wanted to catch, but little does he know he’s the one trespassing.
I look past Thomas, seeing Jaxon in the distance, still standing by the pong table, throwing his shot and then turning his face slightly to keep us in view.
He looks like he’s ready to walk over here but won’t unless more of Thomas’s friends show up to make something out of this exchange.
I don’t want to ruin his little bit of business. He needs all the money he can get.
“Fuck it, a bitch isn’t worth my time.”
My nostrils flare as he turns away. I’m gonna rip his head off.
Before I can beat the fuck out of him, a hand touches my chest lightly. My gaze finally meets Sally’s for the first time since I stepped in.
She shakes her head before locking eyes with me again. So many emotions are dancing through them, but the one that makes irritation crawl through my skin is the fact that she looks almost unfazed by the encounter like she’s used to men doing this to her.
My hot skin starts to cool. She must be able to read my body language because she smiles and pulls away. My hand is now empty and almost cold.
“Thank you.”
“No problem.”
She shifts back and forth on her heels. She’s only about an inch shorter than me now, but tall girls have never bothered me. If a man is intimidated by his girl’s height, then he’s not a man.
It almost takes a minute for me to realize how different Sally looks tonight.
She’s wearing black, close-toed heels and knee-height socks that leave a small amount of thigh visible as it ascends into her checkered skirt.
Her legs look almost endless when compared to the rest of her body.
A sliver of her stomach is exposed, but it’s met with a skin-tight lace crop top.
The area where her tits would be visible is covered with thicker material, but I can see a light-pink bra peeking out.
Sally lets out a breath, her eyes darting around the room. She’s looking everywhere but at me, and her cheeks are burning. Heat hits the nape of my neck, and my eyes meet her face. That doesn’t stop me from noticing the black belt choker around her neck.
A gravelly laugh comes out. She always has something around her throat. Wouldn’t mind my hands being there someday. I bury my hands in my pockets, hoping she doesn’t start wanting me to hold onto her because now I need to make sure I don’t poke through my pants.
She shifts more, twirling a strand of her pink hair around her finger and thumb. Her hair, that’s usually down, is now pulled into a high ponytail with two strands framing her face perfectly.
“Where are your siblings?” I ask.
She deflates, which gives me the info I need. “They’re around.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Her voice is soft, and now she’s smiling a closed-lip smile. No teeth or personality behind it. Her dark pink lips hide her true feelings.
A familiar feeling hits me like a baseball bat. A sense of nostalgia resting at the pit of my stomach, causing me to lurch silently.
She has the same fake smile as him.
“Still fighting with Ella?”
“I wouldn’t call it fighting,” she says. “Just dancing around the subject.”
“You’re alone,” I say with a bit more bite than I intended because her being alone at a party like this could be dangerous, even if her sister is mad at her.
She looks around before smiling at me with a bit more teeth this time. “Really? I didn’t notice.”
I let out a laugh. “I’m pretty observant.”
“Mimi stayed home. She wasn’t very excited about a high school party. Leon went to get a drink, and Ella went off somewhere, I don’t know. Now I’m here.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” I say honestly, but something flickers through her eyes like she doesn’t quite believe me.
“Ollie, are you coming back to be my partner?” a cry comes from across the room.
Sally turns her head as we both look at Jade, who is no longer being entertained by Jaxon. Where the fudge did he go? Jade has her arms folded across her chest clearly irritated with the situation.
What Jaxon told me this afternoon rings in my head. She plans on hooking up with me tonight, and here I am, chatting up another girl. The same girl I left to talk to at the bonfire.
“Beer bong!” a frat guy yells before five men run into the kitchen, all of them hollering at the top of their lungs as they cheer their friend on.
Sally flinches, and I instinctually wrap my arms around her shoulders and pull her into my chest. She looks up at me in a slight panic. I hope it’s not because of me holding her but the fact that she was practically pushed into my hold.
“Do you want to talk someplace quieter?”
She nods, and with a swift movement, I take her hand and lead her through the house, not missing the huff that comes from Jade as we walk by.
The party rages on through the house, and every room seems to be occupied. I sure hope the owner’s parents don’t mind all the sex that’s happening here. Though, I doubt they’ll even notice. Looking around, the family has more money than they know what to do with.
We don’t stop wandering through the house until Sally points to a balcony. Our eyes meet, and excitement flickers through hers, which could cause anyone to drop whatever they are doing just to make it happen.
Sally and I end up on the roof of the house with the music of the party still resonating and making the asphalt roof vibrate beneath us.
The street is empty at this time of night, a few streetlights illuminating the dark road ahead.
There’s a clear view of the water from here, which most rich houses strive to get.
You’d think people might tattle-tale on house parties, but when push comes to shove a trashed house is better than a trashed beach.
I didn’t miss the fact that Sally continued to hold my hand the whole way here. Now I’m sitting while Sally is dancing around the edge. There’s a subtle amount of glee that puts a hop in her step.
I have to fight the urge to reach for her, but that might scare her. I don’t want to risk making her slip off the roof. She really does like danger.
“You like living on the edge, don’t you?” my voice cuts through the air.
“My parents used to call me the flight risk,” she responds, looking out over the empty street below.
I don’t even know if my parents would notice if I were gone.
“I understood why they thought that. I’ve always been a bit more reckless than Ella or Mimi,” she says. “None of the Reed siblings have run from our house.”
“Never thought about it?”
She lets out a soft laugh. “Why would I? Them taking me in was the best thing to happen to me.” She turns to me, giving the most genuine smile of the night, and turns back to the empty street.
“Do you hike up roofs often?” Wow, that sounds like a shitty pickup line. “I had a friend that loved being on roofs. The height made us feel like everything else was smaller, insignificant. As long as we were taller, we were safe.”
That’s one way to kill the mood. We’d do anything to escape the arguments and the crying. Even made mock plans to run away. We were dumb kids back then, and I might still be dumb. He got away, and I didn’t. The world below didn’t matter as long as we were taller than it.
“Oh,” her voice comes out, but it almost sounds accidental.
I look up, and Sally is facing me now with her face hardened and unreadable. It almost looks like someone smacked the life out of her features.
I jump to my feet. “Sal, are you okay?”
“Do you want to dance?”