Chapter 2
CHAPTER
TWO
LoneStar
For the last several weeks, my ass has been frozen like I was visiting an arctic Tundra.
Which in a way, compared to Texas’ scorching weather, I had been.
If I don’t have to take my ass back to Montana and their avalanche of snow any time soon, my thawing limbs will forever be grateful.
I’ve only been back twenty-four hours and swear to fuck, I’m just now able to wiggle my toes without those pin and needle sensations flowing through them.
More than Riptide and I were originally supposed to go, but with strangers on and off the property while breaking ground for the new ‘schoolhouse’—which more or less is nothing more than a few rooms, Rip and Slayer decided we needed more men here than up there.
Made sense, and since things came together for Gemini and the guys rather swiftly, we didn’t have to stay as long as we’d estimated we would, which made me as happy as a clam in chowder.
I’m sitting at the bar, minding my own business with a bottle of Bud in my hand, when a sensual voice speaks from behind me.
“You were gone for a long ass time, LoneStar.” A smirk quirks upward on my lips as she sits down beside me with a Corona in hand.
“Y’all don’t have any lime behind the bar,” she complains.
“I couldn’t even find any in the kitchen. Y’all suck.”
“Did you put it on the grocery list?” I ask. “Couldn’t have missed it, it’s a notepad tacked onto the fridge that has big, bold letters saying ‘Grocery’ on it.”
“Didn’t know that I could,” she conveys. “Not really a member and I thought it was for those who live in the clubhouse, not for those who randomly stop by.”
“So now you’ve delegated yourself as a rando, huh? You here for a hook-up, darlin’?” I ask, leaning over and lowering my voice. My grin widens with satisfaction when I see her shiver and goosebumps pebble on her skin. “If you are, I’m your man.”
“Hmm,” she hums, a devilish look coating her face. “Hadn’t thought about it, let me get a few drinks in me and we’ll see.”
I lean back and give her a skeptical look. “You saying you need to be drunk to fuck me, Britton?”
“As a skunk,” she taunts, but the tilt of her lips and the fire blazing in her eyes lets me know she’s fooling around, trying to yank my chain. The she-devil doesn’t want me to know she’s as drawn to me as I am to her.
Cool. Two can play that game. “Is it me, or is it hot in here?”
Compared to Alaska-like weather it is, but I didn’t think I’d want to strip anytime soon unless it was to hop in a steamy shower.
Even then, it’s been questionable. I’m a southern boy down to my cowboy boots and hat, I prefer the warmer climates and it seems it takes my body a bit to readjust to the dry heat of Texas after being in such a frigid atmosphere.
Give me tumbleweeds and dust storms over snow-capped mountains any day of the week and watch me shine like the rays that beat down on me when I’m home.
I slide my arms out of my cut and fold it in half, respectfully laying it over the top of the bar as I yank my shirt off by the collar and set it across the empty barstool to my right.
No member is to roam any part of the clubhouse without our cut, so I slip it back on and watch as she licks her lips as my muscles flex.
“You’re an asshole,” she breathes out. Her voice is choppy, barely above a whisper.
“Why’s that?” I ask, leaning toward her. Noticing that her bottle is nearly empty now, I continue my line of questioning. “Want another? I’d like to see you put your money where your mouth is.”
“What are we betting on?” she inquires, slanting her head to the side, keeping her eyes trained on me.
“What bed you’ll be waking up in come morning,” I answer, giving her a challenging look.
“Mine,” she promises. “I’ll never get drunk enough to wake up in yours.”
I give her a blinding smile, stating, “We’ll see.”
“I’ll take that bet but you’re going to regret it because I can hold my liquor. In the end, you’ll have to pour some salt on those wounds, LoneStar.”
“What wounds would those be, Britton?”
“The ones that you’ll feel when your ego takes a hit and you realize your southern charms don’t work on me,” she vehemently states.
“Pick your poison, Britton,” I dare her. “Or are you too chickenshit to follow through?”
“Tequila, with salt, but apparently, no lemons,” she pouts.
“We have lemons,” I tell her. “They’re tucked in the back of the fridge, left drawer. You go cut some up while I gather the shot glasses, the Patron, and salt.”
“Patron? You’re pulling out the good stuff, huh?” she asks, looking somewhat nervous. I internally smile knowing that I’ve found her weakness. The expensive liquor takes her to her knees, it’s the cheap shit she can throw back and handle. Fuck yes!
“You pull out the expensive shit when someone challenges you to a drinking game, Britton.”
“I didn’t challenge you,” she denies.
I counter that with, “Didn’t you though? Are you backing out?” I begin bawking, turning my arms into chicken wings and flopping them through the air.
“Never,” she hisses like a pissed off kitty cat. Then she defeatedly mumbles, “I’m going to get the lemon, be right back. You’re such a dick.”
At her retreating back, I holler, “I got one! A big one!”
We’re three sheets to the wind, neither one of us capable of sitting upright. We’ve taken our challenge, the bottle, shot glasses, and ourselves to the floor where we continue to drown our kidneys in alcohol.
“You didn’t!” she squeals, laughing her ass off when I tell her the story of how my mother caught me in bed with the school’s documented ‘good girl’.
Vanessa was not only the valedictorian of our class, but she was also the preacher’s daughter.
She was vocal in her anti-partying and was head of the ‘virginal’ club, always voicing her opinion about staying pure until one’s wedding night.
“I did. I wouldn’t have made it a mission to fuck her if she had left my mother’s name out of her mouth,” I admit.
During one of Vanessa’s sermons to our peers, where she was shoving her religious beliefs down their throats, she used my mother as a prime example of how a person’s soul could be damned by having a child out of wedlock.
Before that, I’d left her alone. I let bygones be bygones because her thoughts and beliefs were hers and I was never one to pass judgment on another—until that day.
“There I was, my condom covered dick splotched with her virginal blood, ready to lay into her for what she said when my mom pushed open my bedroom door.”
“What did your mom do? What did you do?” she asks, her eyes alight with an alcohol induced fever as she digs for the deets in one of the most humiliating moments of my life.
“I did what any red-blooded American boy would do if his mom walked in on him after fucking a girl, I dove for the bed and tossed the sheet over me, exposing her. Vanessa and I struggled for the sheet for a bit, neither one of us wanting my mom to see us undressed until Mom released one of her ear-splitting whistles, ending the struggle.”
“Then what?” she asks, mesmerized. She’s got tears of hilarity falling down her cheeks as she grips her stomach from all of the hard laughter.
“Mom walked out of the room for a short beat, came back in with a roll of condoms, tossed them at me and told me to be safe then walked away,” I tell her.
“Your mom sounds awesome,” she states, a dreamy look crossing her face.
I briefly wonder what that’s about until she starts telling me about her most humiliating moment.
“So there I was, in fifth grade, and I started my period in the middle of class. I’d had cramps all morning, but I thought it was either growing pains or hunger pains so I ignored it.
When we all lined up to head to art class, some of the girls were pointing at me and laughing.
I couldn’t figure out why until my teacher pulled me to the side once everyone else went into the room and escorted me to the nurse. ”
“The most embarrassing thing that happened to me in school was popping a boner,” I say, thinking guys are lucky we don’t have to deal with shit like that.
“The worst part was, they called my mom to either come pick me up or bring me a change of clothes and some pads, but as per usual, she ignored their call. I had to use one of the nurse’s Depends and clothes from the lost and found box to make it through the day.
When I made it back the girls’ taunting got ten times worse.
From there, my school years went downhill.
Overnight, I grew tits and became the boys’ obsession.
I was fondled and propositioned by the older boys on the school bus. That’s when I grew some tough skin.”
“Kids are assholes,” I mutter.
“Kids suck,” she agrees, bobbing her head.
As we continue to refill the shot glasses, we learn a lot about one another. Her parents are dipshits, her classmates were idiots, and the only person she’s allowed herself to get close to is Jersey, who’s just as much a victim of bullying and a kid of parents who are useless.
They’re like two peas in a pod.
I understand now that she uses humor and banter to cover up her loneliness. A gnawing need to show her that not everybody is bad strangles my gut.
She needs to be able to depend on people, she needs more people in her corner than just Jersey.
She needs a family.
One that we can give her if she lets that hard exterior of hers crack long enough to see it and let us in.