CHAPTER NINE
ALIENS & ANGELS
AGE EIGHTEEN
I wished I could say I had listened to Meg.
I wished I could say I had heeded her warning and stayed far, far, far away from kids like Ash Montague.
But what had happened was, Ash had been more turned on by my defense of Meg than she had been pissed off. And not long after the party, she got ahold of my number from Jay. She called me, asked if I wanted to go out sometime, and the rest was history.
That girl took every last bit of my innocence after only hanging out with me a few times.
We got drunk, we got high, and we had a whole lot of sex every single chance we got without a single care of where we were or who we were with.
And every night, after I got home and stumbled my way up the stairs, praying Mom and Dad wouldn't hear me, I lay in bed and felt like the biggest piece of garbage to ever live on this planet.
Because everything I did with Ashley Montague felt good in the moment, amazing even … but that feeling never lasted long.
Still, I kept on going back to her because what I felt when we were together … well, I was convinced it was worth the sickening shame I succumbed to when I was alone. Even though the dread lurked deep beneath the pleasure.
Something hit the side of my head, and I looked up to frown at Jay.
“What was that?” I asked, looking to the ground at my feet to find a chicken nugget beside my shoe. “You threw a fuckin' nugget at me, bro?”
“Yeah, I did,” he declared without hesitation. “What the hell are you thinking about over there? You’re spacin’ out on me.”
Sitting on the grass between my open thighs was Ash, cross-legged with a box of her own nuggets in her lap, and beside her was Giselle, the two of them chatting about this and that the way they did when they were together.
Jay had been thrilled when Ash and I decided to make this thing official—whatever the hell that meant.
We weren't dating, per se—or at least, I didn't think so.
We weren't together. She didn't call me her boyfriend, and in turn, I didn't think I really had permission to call her my girlfriend. Still, after a few months of fucking and getting wasted in private, we’d shifted to taking our thing into the wild in a way that felt somewhat natural.
Now, we hung out with Jay and Giselle, and it sort of seemed like double dating. Maybe the two of us were just too stubborn to call it out for what it clearly was. But I thought, deep down, I liked the casual connotation because it meant it could end at any point and for any reason … or anyone.
We were both having fun, but still free. And that felt important. Especially when I always had one eye on her and the other was … well, wandering. Looking for someone else and dreaming of the day she looked back.
Another nugget hit the side of my head.
“Knock it off, Jay! Fuck …” I wiped the grease from my cheek and rubbed it into my jeans.
“Well, I keep talking to you, and you keep staring off into space like a freakin' moron.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, sweeping my gaze around the general vicinity of the park. “What were you saying?”
“We were talking about catching a movie or something later. You down?”
“I dunno,” I muttered. “I told my dad I'd help him in the yard.”
Ash snorted from between my feet and leaned against my leg to bring her mouth closer to Giselle's ear. “The prison yard,” she whispered, her giggles shaking her shoulders.
“Hey,” I snapped, and she turned to glance at me, batting her long, inky lashes innocently. “Don't talk shit about my dad.”
“Or what?” She bit her bottom lip, giving me that doe-eyed look. “You gonna spank me?”
Everything with Ash was, in one way or another, a prelude to sex.
Every moment. Every comment. Every drink, every hit of a blunt.
She was obsessed, and she was easy. After a year of my seeing her, it'd become so expected that it was almost boring.
Routine. But that didn't stop me from loving every second of it.
At least until I got home and spent the night lying awake in bed.
“Maybe,” I grumbled, holding her gaze.
“Mmm, don't threaten me with a good time.”
She fluttered her lashes again before turning back to Giselle to continue the conversation they were having.
Jay fell silent, and when I glanced his way, I found him smirking and shaking his head.
“What?”
“Nothing, dude. It's just …” He chuckled as he dunked a nugget into some barbecue sauce and popped it into his mouth.
“Just what?”
“You know,” he said, shrugging, “just … the way you guys are. Like, you have no shame. You're just like, Yeah, we have wild animal sex. Like, whatever.”
Giselle looked up at him, her face contorted with hurt and betrayal. “What? Are you saying we don't have good sex?”
“I didn't say that,” he replied.
“But you wish we had the kinda sex they have? Right? That's what you're saying.”
His mouth fell open as he turned to me, his hands lifted in a frozen shrug. “Did I fucking say that? I didn't say that!”
Giselle looked at Ash and thrust her hand toward Jay. “Did he not just talk about you and Noah like-like-like he was jealous or something?”
Ash shrugged one shoulder, so cool in every movement she made. “I mean, I think he definitely insinuated.”
“Oh my God!” Jay cried, pushing to his feet. “I'm out of here if you guys are gonna gang up on me. I didn't say shit, okay? Holy crap.”
He grabbed his empty box of nuggets and left the three of us sitting at the base of statue of William Fuller—local Revolutionary War hero—in the middle of River Canyon Park.
“Is he for real right now?” Giselle exclaimed, hurrying to stand and run over to catch up with Jay, who was now walking toward his parked car.
“They are definitely fucking in his car tonight,” Ash muttered, resting her chin on my knee as she watched her friend grab Jay by the hand.
“Probably.”
Though I couldn't see Jay being that adventurous. When I had told him Ash had gone down on me behind the library my mom worked at in broad daylight, he’d damn near had a coronary.
She stood up to perch herself on my thigh, looping her arms around my neck. “And what about us?”
“What about us?” I asked, wrapping my arm around her waist.
“Where are we fucking tonight?”
I exhaled, leaning back against William Fuller's stony legs. “I dunno. I mean, we're running out of places.”
“Well, I can think of one place,” she said, moving in to press her lips to my neck, kissing her way up to just behind my ear. “You've never shown me your room.”
I shook my head and pulled back out of her reach. “No. No fucking way.”
She sat up and huffed an annoyed sigh. “Why the hell not?”
“Because my parents and little brother are home.”
“So?”
“So?” An incredulous laugh barked from my lips. “Ash, they have no fucking clue what I'm doing with you. The last thing I need is for them to find out by listening to us …” I threw a hand toward the sky in lieu of finishing the sentence.
“You think your parents don't know you're fucking me?”
She snorted and gave me that look, like she thought I was the cutest, dumbest thing to ever breathe. It was the same look she gave me whenever she introduced me to something new. Alcohol. Sex. Drugs. Pick your poison, and there was Ash, looking at me like I was a dumb, lost puppy.
“God, Noah. Don't be stupid.”
I sucked in a deep breath through my nose and let it out, taking my time and picking my words carefully. “Even if … even if they know we do that, they don't know we're—”
“What? Getting high? Having fun?” Her fingers toyed with my collar. “They were young once. You think they weren't doing what we're doing right now when they were our age?”
“No,” I answered point-blank, no hesitation to be found. “They weren't.”
“And how do you know?”
“Because when they were our age, my dad was selling drugs to keep a roof over his head, and my mom was raising me. They didn't have time for this shit.”
In fact, I knew neither one of them had actually ever been high. Dad had been too smart because he'd watched his mom fall under the spell of addiction, and Mom had been too scared, too busy to even think about it.
“Ah, that's right. Drug-dealing Daddy,” she purred, shifting and settling back against my chest. “Did I ever tell you I looked him up? What a bad boy he was.”
God, like I said, everything that came out of her mouth held some sexual meaning. Most times, I either let it turn me on or roll off like she'd said nothing at all. But I drew the line when those comments were made about my parents.
“Okay, that's enough,” I grumbled, pinching my brow.
“He's big too, right? God, I wonder what he's packing—”
“Ash,” I warned.
“Do you ever hear them? Like, on a scale from one to ten, how satisfied does your mom sound?”
I couldn't help but laugh. “You can shut up now. Oh my God …”
But she kept going until she was pushing too far. “I mean, you heard her with your bio dad too, right? Would you say Daddy Drug Dealer satisfies her more or less than him? He was bad too. Like, real bad.”
I slowly looked toward her to find one black brow raised suggestively, excitement alight in her eyes.
“Mommy knows how to pick ‘em, huh? I wonder if she regrets not getting them both at once—”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” I finally said, reaching out and gripping her chin in my hand. “If you say one more word about any of them, this is done.”
Her lips quirked. God, this was turning her on, and she was loving it while I struggled to keep the image of my mom's shaking, naked body out of my head.
“Tell me, Noah, who did she scream louder for?” she whispered, waggling her brows.
And as if on cue, the sound of my mother's bloodcurdling scream drowned out the world.