“Ah, well, I knew a person who knew a person who knew a person,” you say. “You know how it is. Pay enough money and you can get anything.”
“You must’ve really hated waiting,” she says. “Oh my god, Jonathan. I seriously can’t believe this. Is it good? Have you read it?”
“No, I didn’t read it. I got it for you. Figured you might let me borrow it later, if I'm good to you.”
“This is for me?” she asks, holding it against her chest. “Like, for real, it’s mine?”
“Yes,” you say. “It’s yours.”
As soon as you confirm that, she flings herself at you, a full-blown flying leap right off of the picnic table, into your arms. You don’t expect it, and she nearly tackles you to the ground. You manage to stay on your feet as she wraps herself around you, legs around your waist, arms around your neck.
She kisses you.
You kiss her back as you take a few steps over to set her down on the edge of the picnic table, but she doesn’t let go of you. If anything, she’s more encouraged. She drops the comic onto the table and runs her fingers through your hair as she grinds against you.
You groan, pressing into her. You’re so hard she can feel it. “Guess I hit third, after all.”
“That? You knocked that one right out of the park.”
You laugh against her lips, still kissing her. “Yeah? You already giving me a home run?”
“It’s worth it,” she whispers. “You can slide home anytime you want. It’s all yours.”
The baseball metaphors, yeah, they’re stupid, but the meaning behind them gets you worked up. She’s giving you the green light to go all the way, and well, what hormone-driven teenage boy is going to say no to that invitation?
Your hand slips down the front of her pants, and she gasps, throwing her head back. Your mouth goes to her neck as you drive her wild with your fingertips, asking, “How do you like it?”
She stammers. “I, uh… I don’t know…”
“You want it just like this?” you ask, whispering in her ear as she grinds against you, making her own friction, nearly getting herself off. You help her, rubbing harder where she needs it. “I could bend you over the table, hit it from behind. Or we could go to my car, if you want, maybe have you ride me in the passenger seat. Tell me how to make you feel good.”
You’re a dirty talker. It makes her blush.
“I don’t know,” she says again. “I, uh… I haven’t ever…”
“You mean you’ve never…?”
She shakes her head.
“Seriously? This is your first time?”
That catches you off guard. You pause what you’re doing. You didn’t realize she was a virgin.
She groans, shifting her hips. “Oh god, don’t stop… please…”
You start rubbing again. She’s close, so close it would be cruel to stop. Just a few more seconds before she gasps, an orgasm sweeping through her. You don’t stop until she relaxes again, but once you try to pull away, she won’t let you.
“I want to,” she says. “I know you’ve done this before, and I haven’t, but I want to… with you.”
“Your first time can’t be out here,” you say. “It can’t be bent over a damn picnic table.”
“The car, then.”
“It’s not going to be that, either,” you say. “Not with me. It needs to be in a bed. Nobody’s first time should be a ten minute quickie in a park.”
“What was your first time?”
“It was a fucking quickie in a park,” you say, and she laughs. “So I know what I’m talking about. It lasted like two minutes in my case, but still.”
“Sounds rough,” she says, still laughing, but her amusement fades when she presses her palms to your cheeks. She looks at your face in the moonlight. The faint beginning of a bruise paints your jawline with discolored hues. She runs her fingers lightly along it. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” you say, pulling her hands away. “Nothing to worry about.”
“Does that happen a lot?”
“What?”
“You know what,” she says. “Your father hits you.”
You laugh, but it’s not a happy sound. “I can take care of myself. I’m not a little kid.”
“But you’re still his kid,” she says. “And you’re only seventeen. Besides, I’m guessing this isn’t something that just started.”
You don’t say anything right away. You don’t want to talk about it. She’s not going to drop it, though. So you sit down beside her on the picnic table and say, “I turn eighteen tomorrow.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, and you’re right,” you say. “It isn’t new.”
So you tell her. You tell her how he’s always been hard on you, because you were a mama’s boy. Your mother had been an aspiring actress, and that’s how you got involved at such a young age, but your father never liked it. You were supposed to follow in his footsteps. It was a source of contention between your parents, and as your father rose in political ranks, your mother stepped away from her dream.
The first time he hit you, you were twelve, but it didn’t become a regular thing until a year later when your mother swallowed a bottle of pills and never woke up from a nap. Your father blamed her career for killing her, but you blamed him.
That’s why you can answer any question thrown at you in class. He drills it into you every chance he gets. He seems to think he can beat your mother out of you and fill the hollowness left behind with more of him.
She sits beside you as you talk, her head on your shoulder. Afterward, you’re both quiet, before she says she needs to get home.
Her parents don’t know she’s gone.
“Tomorrow night,” she says as she picks up the comic book. “If you’ve got nothing better to do, come hang out with me.”
“What time?”
“Eight o’clock,” she says. “My house.”
“Your house, huh? I’m starting to think you might like trouble.”
She grins as she kisses you, just a soft peck, before saying, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Jonathan.”
“I’ll be there,” you say as she walks away.
You don’t know this, but that girl? She’s always been a bit of a plotter, and at the moment, she’s devising a plan. You see, her parents are going out of town tomorrow night. She’s supposed to go along, but she’s starting to feel like she might be coming down with something. *cough* *cough*
Chapter 9
KENNEDY
Before I can take even one more step, I’m yanked to a stop, a hand grasping hold of my wrist.
Turning, caught off guard, I look at him. Jonathan. We’re still in the park, not far from where we started. There’s a look on his battered face. I’m not sure how to read it, not sure what he’s thinking or how he’s feeling.
That’s the thing with him, though.
He’s an actor. His talent comes natural. He’s never had to work very hard at it. He can switch moods in a moment, change scenes in an instant, flip the script without anybody even realizing it’s happening. It’s hard to tell if he’s just playing a character or if you can trust that he means things.
“Don’t,” he says, his voice low but pointed. “Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t act like you weren’t enough for me.”
“I wasn’t.”