When I released him, I couldn’t help it. I pulled a face that made him laugh. “It’s so salty,” I said. That made him laugh harder, although it was silent laughter because we were in his bedroom doing something we shouldn’t be doing.
“Happy birthday to me.” He stripped down to his boxer briefs, turned off the desk light and climbed into bed then turned his back to me. “Close the door on your way out.”
My stomach dropped but I gritted my teeth and balled my fists, forcing back the tears that stung my eyes.
If it weren’t for the fact that his parents were down the hall, I would have slammed the door on my way out. But I didn’t even get that satisfaction.
I brushed my teeth three times. Rinsed and spit. Rinsed and spit. Trying to rid my mouth of the taste of Jude. But it didn’t work.
I could still taste him on my tongue. This night had been an epic fail. And even worse than what I’d just done? I’d left the wrapped gift in his room.
I had to get it back before he opened it.
Chapter Fourteen
Jude
“Did you see the way Kelly’s been eye-fucking me?” Reese asked when we stopped for a water break. A few of the girls from the cheering squad were hanging out by the bleachers watching our practice. Hated to break it to Reese but Kelly wasn’t interested in him.
“Kelly’s looking at Austin Armacost who’s standing right behind you,” I said, replenishing my electrolytes with the sports drink that my mom bought by the case, ensuring that our pantry was always fully stocked.
Reese looked over his shoulder for confirmation. “Goddamn. I thought she was looking at me.”
“Dude. They’re never looking at you,” Tyler said, dousing his head with water from the plastic bottle in his hand. “Face it. You’re gonna die a virgin.”
“That’s harsh. Brianna’s still holding out on you, huh?”
“I’ve moved on. Your mother was up for it.”
“You son of a bitch. Leave my mother out of it.” A few of the other guys on the team joined Tyler in ribbing Reese about his mom. By now he should be used to hearing shit like that. His mom was hot and all the guys teased him about her.
I tuned them out and checked my phone, chuckling under my breath when I read Brody’s text.
L’s searching your room. Turned it upside down. Did you steal something of hers?
Only her virtue. And her pride. I couldn’t believe she’d gone along with it. But damn if it wasn’t the sexiest thing any girl had ever done for me. Technique aside, it was the best blow job I’d ever had. Because it was Rebel, down on her knees for me. Which was something I never thought I’d see.
As an added bonus, she was now my foster sister. My dad had told me and Brody, in no uncertain terms, that she was off-limits to us. We were supposed to treat her with respect. Like she deserved my respect. She deserved nothing from me.
But let’s face it, the forbidden aspect only made it that much hotter. What other boundaries could we push?
“Was she the one who gave you those crabs?” Austin asked Tyler, jolting me back to reality as I stashed my phone in my sports bag. Obviously, I’d missed something. “That shit was nasty. Did your pubes grow back yet?”
“Suck my dick and find out for yourself.”
Austin gave him the finger.
“Come on, ladies,” Coach said, clapping his hands together. “Enough gossip. Let’s see how much talking you do after the next drill. Line up for sprint ladders. You know what to do.”
“Goddamn, I hate suicides,” Tyler grumbled as we lined up on the goal line. The whistle blew, loud and shrill, and we sprinted to the ten-yard line. Without stopping, we turned around and ran full speed back to the goal line. Then sprinted to the twenty-yard line. And so on and so on until my thighs were burning and buckets of sweat poured off me.
With soaring temperatures and the afternoon sun beating down on us, suicides weren’t a lot of fun. But this was Texas. Football wasn’t just a sport, it was a religion. So we worked our asses off for our coaches, for our town, for our team.
I didn’t mind the conditioning drills. It was good training for boot camp. I was so ready for it.
Reese fell into step with me as I headed to my truck after practice. His face was an alarming shade of red and I couldn’t tell if it was sunburn or heat stroke. “Can I bum a ride?” he asked, running a hand over his shower-damp hair that was more reddish-brown now than the orange shade it used to be.
“Yeah sure. No problem.” Reese was always having to bum rides. His car was a piece of shit so it was out of commission more often than it was on the road.
“So I’ve been thinking,” he said as I pulled out of the school parking lot and onto the two-lane highway, air con cranked up and music blasting. “I wanna enlist with you.”
What the fuck? That had just come out of the blue. I’d known Reese since kindergarten and this was the first I’d heard of it.
“You want to be a Marine?” I asked skeptically.
“Yeah, I do. We can enlist together. They’ve got a buddy program so we’ll be in boot together.”
“Not sure that’s how it works.”
“We can talk to the recruiter. See what they say.”
“When I enlist, I’m holding out for third MOS. That’s Infantry,” I clarified, trying to dissuade him. I had my future mapped out. I was planning to enlist within the next few weeks, on the Delayed Entry Program. I wanted to get into Infantry and then Recon. I liked Reese. He was a good guy, but no offense, I couldn’t see him being a Marine.
“Yeah, I know. That’s what I want too. Girls go batshit over
