Chapter Fifteen
The Cock Blocker
Ingrid
Cash is leaning against my car when Wilder and I walk up to it, duffel bags slung over Wilder’s shoulder.
Cash looks at a pretend watch on his wrist. “We said nine, didn’t we?”
I yawn. “What time is it now?”
Wilder kept me up all night. I think we got three hours of sleep. Tops. But it’s been so long since we’d been completely alone.
No shared room. No shared wall. No parents lurking down the hall.
We definitely took full advantage of our truce.
Honestly, Cash is lucky we made it out before noon.
“Nine-thirty,” Cash finally says, tsking us. “We have a schedule and you two are messing with it.”
Wilder winks at me as he unlocks the trunk and tosses our bags into it.
“Maybe if you hadn’t given Mrs. Winthrop our hotel room number, we might have been on time,” Wilder retorts with an eyeroll. “Instead, I had to talk Grandpa Harvey down from a proverbial ledge last night.”
“She said it was an emergency,” Cash defends himself. “I thought it was better than knocking on your hotel room door and—”
“Cock blocking me?” Wilder returns.
Cash exhales through his nose. “I thought we all decided no O’s while traveling. Remember?”
Wilder smirks. “You can’t say it, can you?”
“Say what?”
“Orgasm.”
“I’m not saying it.”
“I dare you to say orgasm, Cash.”
“No,” Cash answers, his face turning red.
“Or-gas-m,” Wilder enunciates each syllable. “See how easy it is to say it?”
“I’m not saying it in front of Ingrid,” Cash makes clear.
I laugh. “You can’t say it in front of me, but you used to do it with me? You’re so odd.”
Wilder’s body visibly stiffens.
“I don’t want to talk about our past sex life,” Cash returns.
“How about we stop talking about sex and find some coffee?” Wilder proposes, his jaw locked.
“Sounds good to me,” I say as Wilder tosses me the keys. It’s my turn to drive. “I think I saw a gas station down the road when we drove in.”
“Shotgun!” Cash hollers.
Wilder’s mouth falls open. “Excuse me?”
Cash opens the front passenger door. “I called shotgun. I get front seat.”
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Wilder looks like he wants to strangle Cash right now.
“It’s Ingrid’s car,” Wilder says.
“And?” Cash raises a challenging eyebrow.
“Since I’m the one having orgasms with her now,” Wilder says, his eyes narrowing, “I get front seat when she drives.”
I run a hand down my face. This is going to take all day.
“Cash can have front seat until we find coffee,” I decide. “Wilder gets the front seat until the next stop.”
“That’s not fair!” Cash groans. “I get the front seat for a mile, and he gets it until you need to stretch your legs.”
“I have sat in the back seat for the majority of this trip so far,” I argue. “You and Wilder have had the front seat. I haven’t complained once.” I place my hands on my hips as I blow out a tired breath. “You can have the front seat when Wilder is driving again, okay?”
Cash slams the door. “No, it’s totally fine. I’ll just get in the back now instead of a mile down the road.”
Wilder sidles up beside me as we both watch Cash dramatically fling the back seat door open and stuff himself inside.
He slams the door shut and crosses his arms over his chest, pouting.
“Do you think this is what it will be like when we have kids?” Wilder whispers.
Kids?
Did he just say when we have kids?
“I… uh…” My brain refuses to compute. I can’t get anything coherent out.
Wilder notices. Of course, he does.
His hands find my hips and he pulls me against him. “Yeah. Sometimes I think about it.”
My eyes widen. “Really?”
He shrugs. “Maybe someday in the future. Until then, I’ve been having lots of fun practicing with you.”
I blush. Seriously. So annoying.
He kisses me, his arms wrapping around me, like he’s trying to get as close as possible to me.
My mind wanders to his reaction to my orgasm comment. Maybe I need to stop saying things about my past with Cash in front of him.
Wilder acts like nothing gets to him.
I know better.
I need to do a better job of making sure he knows I only want him.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur against his lips.
He pulls his head back. “For what?”
“I’m sorry that I made that comment about Cash and—”
“It’s okay, Blondie,” he reassures me as his fingers run through my hair. “It’s fine.”
But I can tell it’s not.
“I want you to know,” I say, lowering my voice, “there’s only one person for me. And that’s you.”
Wilder smiles. A real one. “Yeah?’
I nod. “Only you. Forever.”
Then, I hold up my finger. The one with the promise ring on it.
He grins. “I did put that there, didn’t I?”
“In case you’ve forgotten, I don’t plan on taking it off. Ever.”
“Good,” he says.
“Now, let’s get some coffee.”
“My second favorite phrase after a night of uninterrupted sex.”
“What’s your first favorite phrase?” I wonder aloud.
Wilder bites his lower lip. “I believe this morning you said, and I quote, ‘I don’t think I’m going to be able to walk straight today’.”
I shake my head, hiding a smile behind my hand.
Our moment is interrupted by Cash throwing open the car door and yelling, “Are we going or not!”
Wilder shakes his head. “You can tell he’s an only child.”
“He’s not an only child anymore,” I remind him.
Wilder scoffs. “His sister is twenty years younger than he is. He’s basically an only child.”
I laugh as we get into my car.
The one-mile drive down the road is unusually quiet. The only sound is Smashing Trout playing on the car radio.
When I turn off the car in front of the gas station, Cash is already out and racing to the door.
“Maybe you should drive and Cash should sit in the front with you,” I suggest.
Wilder nods. “If that’s what you want to do.”
What I want to do? I want Wilder all to myself.
It’s been a year, and we’re still tiptoeing around Cash.
“I’ll sit in the back,” I grumble as I get out of the car.
Wilder follows suit, shoving his hands into his pockets as we walk through the gas station doors.
“Coffee,” I say, pointing to the back of the convenience store.
We’re both tired, but we make our way to the coffee station, and each grab a cup.
“Remember when we stayed at the lake with Cash’s parents that one summer?” I say to Wilder. “We camped in that fancy RV?”
“RV?” Wilder scoffs. “That was a house on wheels, Blondie.”
“I know,” I say, trying to suppress a yawn. “But we played a game of Truth or Dare and we laughed all night. We should try playing that with Cash again.”
Wilder blinks. “You want to play Truth or Dare with a guy who can’t say orgasm and is still in love with you? I don’t think so.”
“We can avoid all dangerous topics and just focus on fun ones.”
“Cash and the word fun don’t exactly go together.”
“Do you have any ideas, then? We should be bonding instead of trying to kill each other.”
Wilder groans. “Fine, but if the shit hits the fan, I warned you.”
“Fair.”
We grab snacks, pay, and somehow beat Cash back to the car. I get into the backseat and stretch out.
The moment Cash exits the gas station and sees Wilder driving—and the front passenger seat open—his entire body groans.
“Why are you in the back seat?” Cash grunts as he gets in the car.
“I haven’t been sleeping well on the road,” I lie. “Until I get this entire cup of coffee in me—” I hold up the to-go cup to show him—”it’s better if Wilder drives.”
“Whatever,” Cash says.
I clear my throat as Wilder puts the car in drive.
He glares at me in the rearview mirror, but says nothing.
Fine, I’ll suggest Truth or Dare.
“We should play a game,” I say.
“Aren’t you tired?” Cash snaps.
“We could play Truth or Dare,” I chirp. “Just like we did—”
“That time your parents took us camping,” Wilder finishes. “Could be fun.”
“Yeah, sounds like a total blast, you psychos,” Cash groans.
“I’ll go first,” I say. “Cash, Truth or Dare?”
His face scrunches with disgust. “Truth.”
I figured he’d take the easy way out.
“Did you start the rumor after Prom that Wilder, you, and I were a throuple?”
Cash scratches the back of his neck. “No.”
Wilder glances over at him. “You sure about that?”
“I’m telling the truth,” Cash responds with a heavy sigh. “But I know who did start it.”
“Who?” Wilder and I say at the same time.
“Kerrigan Lewis,” he answers.
“Wilder’s date?” I whip my head back.
I did not see that coming.
“Why would Kerrigan start that rumor?” Wilder asks.
Cash hitches a shoulder. “She was pissed you danced with Ingrid.”
“I didn’t dance with just Ingrid,” Wilder argues. “We all danced together. I basically danced with you, Cash.”
“We did not dance together, Wild,” Cash mumbles.
I roll my eyes. That dance was so awkward. Cash and Wilder each took turns—one dancing behind me with their hands on my waist and the other dancing in front of me with their hands on my hips.
Come to think of it, it’s kind of funny now.
Honestly, I probably would’ve thought the same thing.
“We had fun,” I interrupt their back and forth. “Who cares how it looked or what rumors were started.”
Cash shakes his head. “We’re forever memorialized in the yearbook.”
I let out a loud laugh. I had forgotten someone snapped a picture of it and we were dead center on the prom page.
“My turn,” Cash says, voice rough. “Wild, Truth or Dare?”
“Dare,” Wilder predictably answers.
Cash smirks. “I dare you to tell Ingrid your deepest, darkest secret.”
In the rearview mirror, I see Wilder swallow hard.
Deepest, darkest secret? I already know that. Olivia-Sophia (yes, the girl with two first names) was horrible to Wilder. She did all kinds of fucked-up things to him when they were dating.
Things that are too hard to talk about.
“Are you sure you want to hear this, Cash?”
Cash shrugs. “Go right ahead. It’s about time Ingrid learns about your secrets.” There’s a pause before he adds. “All of your secrets.”
I ignore the pang of jealousy that flashes through my chest.
Cash knows things about Wilder that I don’t know. And he’s using this stupid game to hurt us both.
Wilder exhales. “The first time I masturbated, I thought of you, Blondie.”
Cash whips his head in Wilder’s direction. “What?”
“I propped my yearbook up on a pillow and had at it,” Wilder continues as Cash’s face falls.
“You what?”
Wilder nods. “Wow, it felt really good to get that off my chest.”
“How old were you?” Cash asks.
“I don’t know,” Wilder says with a shrug.
Cash crosses his arms and looks out the window, miffed.
This is not how this game was supposed to go. Wilder said to keep it strictly to topics that didn’t cause issues.
And here he is, causing issues.
“Truth or Dare, Blondie?” Wilder says.
I shake my head. “Truth.”
In the rearview mirror, I watch Wilder lick his lips.
“What’s your favorite memory of the three of us?” Wilder asks.
A sigh of relief escapes. It doesn’t go unnoticed by Cash.
It’s hard to pick one time that was even remotely enjoyable with both of them. Cash was always focused on his parents. Wilder was always focused on insulting me.
Like when Cash stepped on a glass bottle at the lake and slit his foot open. Wilder and I carried him to the car and drove him to the ER across town. We were worried, but we laughed when Cash threw up the second he saw the tetanus needle.
And there was another time when we had an especially snowy winter.
Cash and Wilder built a massive snowman that started a town war.
Everyone was determined to have the tallest snowman.
Wilder and Cash won. By an inch. They let me decorate the snowman with some of Fanny’s scarves and hats.
She had no idea they were from her closet.
But my favorite time? That would have been the homecoming football game our senior year. Wilder and Cash painted themselves in our school colors—blue and white. They single-handedly won that game for the team. They were louder than the cheerleaders.
And me? I got a front row seat to the two of them having the time of their lives.
“Homecoming game senior year,” I finally say.
Wilder smiles at me in the mirror and Cash leans forward.
“That was a good time.” Cash chuckles. “Remember when we got the entire stadium to do the wave?”
Wilder slaps Cash on the shoulder. “That was awesome. I’ll never forget it.”
They keep talking as I grab a pillow and lay it against the door.
My head finds it as I listen to them go on and on about the game, me yawning every few minutes.
Then, my eyelids get heavy and I feel like I’m falling.
Sleep.
I need sleep.
But as I slowly drift off, I think I hear Cash say, “You have to tell her, Wild. Don’t keep something this big from her.”
I fall asleep wondering what the hell that means.