CHAPTER SEVEN
BENNET
Ten Years Ago
"Are you sure nobody saw us come in here?"
I ask it with barely contained eagerness while Blaire writhes on my lap, and even as the words leave my mouth, I don't actually care about the answer.
Last week she invited me to this party as her boyfriend, and we made it official by kissing in the middle of the hallway against my locker.
Blaire Alexander is my girlfriend. I've said it to myself approximately four hundred times since she said yes, and it still doesn't feel entirely real.
I keep waiting to wake up, or for someone to tell me there's been a mistake, or for the universe to correct whatever glitch in its programming led to this specific outcome.
The universe has not corrected anything.
Blaire's here. On my lap. In the poolhouse. My girlfriend.
Holy shit.
"I'm sure, Mikey."
Fuck, I love that nickname. She started calling me that a couple of months ago, and I've never loved anything more than hearing it come from her lips specifically. It sounds different when she says it. Like it belongs to her.
She kisses my neck, just below my jaw, and her hips roll against mine in a slow, deliberate grind. She has to feel how hard I am. There's no hiding it. My whole body is a live wire, and she is the current running through it.
I swallow hard.
My hands are on her waist — have been since she pulled me in here, since she closed the door behind us and the noise of the party dropped to a muffled thrum.
My thumbs press against the strip of bare skin between her skirt and her top, and I am trying very hard not to think about the fact that this is the most I have ever touched another person in my life.
That every single point of contact between us right now is uncharted territory, and my nervous system is fully aware of that.
"Good," I manage. My voice comes out lower than I expected.
She pulls back just far enough to look at me.
Even in the dark I can make out the line of her smile, the glint in her eyes.
Her hair is braided down the middle, both plaits falling over her shoulders.
I reach up and slowly unravel them, one by one, while she watches me do it.
I run my hand through her hair and it's silky and warm and falls through my fingers like sand.
"You're so beautiful, Blaire."
Her brows crease. When she kisses me again, I stop thinking entirely.
She tastes like whatever fruity drink she was holding when she found me near the back fence five minutes ago and said, there you are like she'd been looking.
Her mouth moves against mine with a confidence I try to match and mostly do, and when her tongue brushes mine, my hands tighten on her waist without permission.
She makes a small sound against my lips.
Something about that sound dismantles me from the inside completely.
"Mikey." She breathes my name between kisses, her fingers sliding into my hair. She rolls her hips again, slower this time, and the friction is devastating. I am eighteen years old and I have wanted this girl since the ninth grade. I am absolutely not going to last.
"Blaire—" Her name comes out fractured.
"You feel so good." She kisses get more feverish. Deeper. She starts moving against me with a rhythm that makes my head fall back against the couch. Her breath catches as her body goes taut. I crash my mouth against hers, bucking up against her harder, losing myself completely.
“Oh, my god.” She moans against my lips, her hands gripping my hair so hard it’s nearly painful.
But that’s all it takes to push me right over the edge.
I bury my face in her neck and I come in my pants with her name in my mouth and my whole body shaking.
She is still moving, slower now, and she makes a sound I feel more than hear, and for about ten seconds the world is perfect and warm and I am not nobody.
I am the guy that Blaire Alexander wanted.
Ten seconds.
Then the lights come on.
The fluorescent overheads flood the pool house with white light, and I blink against it, disoriented.
The first thing I register is the faces.
A wall of them. Several cheerleaders and damn near half of the football team.
And there is Colt Monroe, front and center, with his arms crossed and a smug smile.
Someone is laughing, someone else has a phone up with the flash on recording, and I hear the word bet before I understand what's happening.
I look at Blaire. She's still on my lap, her eyes fresh with unshed tears.
Colt is already talking. "Told you she could do it. Pay up."
The laughter is getting louder, and I feel the wet fabric against my skin, and I understand, all at once, every single thing.
It was all a joke. The past three months.
Her acting like she liked me. Being her boyfriend.
Every study session, every coffee, every text, every movie on her bedroom floor.
An elaborate senior prank at my expense, and I walked into it with my whole chest, like the na?ve, lovesick idiot I apparently am.
I take a deep breath and stand up. She slides off me and immediately makes her way over to Colt. Because of course, they are still together. How stupid was I.
The guys start pointing at the wet spot on my tan cargo pants as the laughter doubles. I stand there in the middle of it and let it wash over me because there's nothing else to do.
Colt pulls Blaire into a deep kiss, grabbing a handful of her ass under her skirt. His eyes never leave mine.
I don't tell them all to fuck off. I don't say a single word.
I just walk out the door into the thunderstorm pouring overhead and start the long walk home.