A Mess of Reason (2 page)

She’s all smiles, showing me her capped
tooth, touching it with the tip of her tongue—as if I’d ever forget
it.

“I wish you hadn’t been dating Roxanne back
then because I swear to you, I was crushin’ so hard on you. I never
told you this, but I would have lost my virginity to you if you
hadn’t been screwing her…my other best friend!” A slap comes flying
at me, along with a pooling of what feels like wet clay in the
bottom of my belly from her admission. She really said that.

“Of course I remember. How could I forget? I
think I blew twenty bucks in quarters until a ring came out. I’m
still going to marry you someday. Wait, no I’m not…you’re engaged
to that bag of dicks, Creed.”

“Very funny, jerk-off.” It’s the dance we
do. The conversation of flirtation. It’s the tiny drop of water on
the pond’s surface that first hits with small, bleeding circles
that keep expanding exponentially.

“Sorry. You had that coming. Hey, can we sit
and have a beer if we’re going to start talking about the fact that
you would have let me have my way with you back then? I think I
need a little buzz to wrap my cock around that one. I wish you
hadn’t just told me that… Jesus Lord, Tess, I’m a guy. You don’t
say that shit to a guy. Even if he’s your best friend. I still have
a full package down there, okay? I might need that ammo working for
me someday.”

“Oh Scout, come on, don’t play that hand
with me! You were having your way with anything that had female DNA
in high school. I was your only non-target.”

“Harsh, Sass. Boy, you like to ride me hard,
woman!”

“Oh, brother, you’ve never had a ride like
me.” She giggles and waggles her eyebrows at me as we walk over to
the bar. I go directly behind it—mission: hide my hard-on, which is
titanium right now. You see what I mean? She messes with my
head…just the wrong one, I’m afraid.

“Shooter with your beer?” I ask as I pour us
each a few shots, then slide them across to her side.

“Yeah, hello…why would you even ask? Oh
Lord, never mind. I have to remind myself you’ve been tamed by the
shrew. Miss Ever-Lasting-Cum-Stopper probably drinks wine coolers
or Long Island iced teas. Bartender…get me my regular!”

With a raucous, booming laugh, she slams the
palms of her hands on the bar top.

“Well, if Liberty dies of rat poisoning, at
least I know you’ll look hot in that orange jumpsuit you’ll be
wearing ’till you’re ninety.”

“Oh, such a tender pookie bear.”

A solid Joe Louis jab, with a Sinatra wink
wrapped in a Marilyn Monroe kiss blown straight at me. This is my
woman, all right.

“Hey, cheers, baby.” I raise my glass to
her. “I’m glad you’re back. In all seriousness…thanks for believing
in me and dropping everything to get this ramped up. You realize
this is a game changer, right? And it’s all you.”

“Cheers, my darling. It’s all us…and, just
for the record, I will always believe in you. I’ve got your back.
You’ve had mine more times than I can count…this is the least I can
do for you. Let’s face it. Creed and your little plastic-wrapped
candy apple are on the road all the time anyway. This’ll be like
old times! My two best friends, raunch-filled conversation, and now
we’re legal and loaded! What’s the downside? Bottoms up,
lover!”

She sinks back her tequila, chasing it with
half a beer.

The downside, my beauty, is that you’re in a
fogged glass bubble that’s as far out of my reach as I can imagine.
I wish you would use your gaudy engagement ring to cut a hole
through the glass to be able see me.

CHAPTER TWO

TESS

It might only be a holograph video, but it’s
him: my hell-raiser-hot Scout. The one guy who sends me into
joyness overload, who has owned my heart since the very first kiss
he placed on my lips in the eighth grade. He’s the guy who makes me
crazy enough to want to run around in squares. He loves me, adores
me…in the “friend” way.

A girl just knows these things, because if
he wanted me, then when we kiss, he’d make love to my mouth. I end
up pulling away because it never happens.
Never
. Never, as
in “You will never see a prostitute that looks like Julia Roberts”
never. He never opens his lips and gets carried away with me like
I’ve seen him do with more girls than I care to count. Being near
him makes my belly flip-flop in roller-coaster loops that I can’t
wrap my brain around. Still, to this day, all these years later, he
does this to me. It’s science fair chemistry.

Scout Steele.
Billboard
magazine
calls him the top crossover multi-genre artist of our time. A
country-rock star who has a penchant for mixing in a little rap and
hip-hop here and there. Too handsome for his own good.
Six-foot-three. Full head of short, jet-black hair. Ice-blue eyes.
All-state quarterback in high school, full ride to Alabama. Ripped,
bombed, chiseled, with guns that make Michelangelo’s David look
like a twelve-year-old girl. God help us all.

Hell, I’m engaged to a foxy guy whom girls
literally throw themselves at—though Creed and I don’t share the
kind of chemistry that Scout and I do. Why, then, am I getting
married, you ask? Simple: Creed fits my current plan. He’s a little
rough around the edges but not a bad guy. Here’s the thing. I’m
twenty-eight going on “aging ovaries” with no other prospects. I
figure, per the song, love the one you’re with, right? I have a
need, he can fulfill it—this is part business deal. Life business,
that is.

Scout is never—has never been—without a
girl. You might even call him the ambassador to the Republic of
Labia. Man-whore? Eh, that might be severe, but then again, his
cock seems to be magnetic. Every sugar-hole from here to Nashville
has found a direct line to its pull. Everyone, that is, but me. I
have to wonder if I’m a repeller to his magnetic force? I keep
wishing I were like that dead star that was discovered recently…you
know, the one that produces a magnetic field around twenty trillion
times stronger than a refrigerator door magnet. That’s what I want
to be to him.

I think my friend status had officially
screwed me. So much for friends with benefits. I realize my chances
of getting killed by a vending machine falling on me—which is 1 in
112 million—is better than me getting some of him.

So here I am, doing all I can to be near
him, because if this is all I get, then I’ll take it. It’s still a
sweet deal. I’ll get to see him all the time, work with him on our
holographic concert movement, have drinks, take sniffs of his neck,
get a little grab-ass…I mean, come on, it’s “endless-ish.” Plus I
get to look at his traffic-stopper, fly, badass face, watch his
lips slide into that lickable smile, and watch that tongue of his
float along his plump bottom lip. Ahhh.

And, while he’s a guy’s guy, I also get to
ask him anything in the world and he’s good with that. Not many
guys would be. Anything from
Why do you cut your nails with a
pocket knife?
to
Will you take the
Cosmo
quiz with
me?
to
Why do you think Doritos are the fifth food
group?
to
Did you jack off last night?
and, yes, he’ll
tell me. Do you have a hunky guy friend like that? Didn’t think
so.

And
, I get to share every single line
item that floats through my brain with him. That punishing endless
diatribe. The stuff you share
only
with certain girlfriends.
The guy literally eats my mind dump like I’ve flipped on Sports
Center and I’m hand-feeding him M&M’s. He cares, he listens, he
laughs, he tells the best raunchy perv jokes…there is no
downside.

Okay. I lie. The downside is, I don’t ever
get to be naked against his well-muscled flesh. Ever. I don’t get
watch him walk out of the shower and dry off his chiseled arms, not
to mention his hindquarters. Ever. I don’t get to look down between
my legs to watch him wrap his hand around his hard and—I’m
assuming—beautiful cock, place it at my sex, then slide it into me.
Ever. I don’t get to watch him throw his head back in ecstasy,
calling out my name as his eyes slowly close right before he comes
inside of me. Ever.

But hey, let’s not get all
goldfish-died-Hallmark-y here. I’m just telling it like it is. I
get to flirt heavily, sit on his lap (while my clitoris calmly has
a nervous breakdown), hug him, kiss him, and talk
naughty-dirty…plus I can boss him around a little. Though I wish it
were him bossing me around—in the bedroom, that is. Ah well, while
it’s not the lottery win I want, it all adds up to some sort of pot
of gold at the end of the rainbow, now doesn’t it?

“Get your tushie over here and sit next to
me!” I tell him. “You’ve been behind the bar for the last hour. I
moved here to be close to you…now let me get my hands on my
merchandise before I call the store manager!” I love that I can
bark at him all Princess Leia like that. I promise you, no one gets
away with the stuff I do around Scout. It’s a feel-good thing for
me, I won’t lie. Not even his Little Bo Peep priss of a girlfriend
gets away with it. Speaking of…how she even makes him hard is
beyond me. Maybe they aren’t even screwing. Good question.

“Are you fucking her?”

He answers me with a criminally dark laugh.
His laugh, by the way, is bottle-able, lethal,
should-be-banned-like-absinthe good. Deep, rich, sexy. And yes, it
makes me rainforest wet. Sister, does it.

“Am I fucking whom, my love?” He has my hand
in his and he’s kissing the back of it like he does sometimes when
we talk. It makes me ache with a sweet, fiery, groin-grabbing
throb.

“That thing with bows. Miss
Elevator-Goes-to-the-Top-but-the-Doors-Don’t-Open. Are you getting
your toothless blow job on with her downstate condo? Or is her
south mouth all braided up in ribbons? I’m gonna lay a twenty on
the fact that she keeps her Beanie Babies collection stored up in
that attic. Do those get in the way of your big lead monster,
Scout?”

“Woman, you are on overdrive today. I think
your New York years added even more angel of darkness to your
sugared sarcasm. Do you really want to know?” The mystery in his
eyes, smoldering with fire, makes me want to bite the meat of my
thumb.

“Yeah. We’re drinking. It’s just
conversation. Drinking equals smack talk. Get those lips shakin’.
Move some ground, brutha!” Can you tell I despise her? Don’t judge;
I’ve staked my claim.

“You’re insufferable. Yes, I am fucking
her.” He almost sounds sad the way he says it. Numb. As though he’s
resigned himself to her. Not the words I want to hear.

“Oh my! She has an opening down there? I
know you aced health class…or would that be geography?”

“Pretty sure, baby. The female anatomy is
something I specialize in.”

His words strip me bare. I might need a
spanking or a clitoral amputation. I spin on my barstool, looking
back at him. I’m over the edge. I wish I weren’t. But I am. I can’t
help myself. Shamelessly eye-fucking him. The very act of it
wrapped in a prayer. I feel it coming straight back at me as he
allows himself a deep chuckle that rides his penetrating gaze. He’s
a master at it, all right. With every blink, the intensity of his
eyes become a shade deeper. And those would be my fingers right
between my legs.

“Details, Scout? Give it to me. Hard and
fast.”

“You want it hard and fast…is that right,
baby?”

Please, please, please…

His laugh is masculine, charging at my most
intimate parts almost against my will, sending me into survivor
mode.

“May I help myself?” I ask as I hold my
empty glass up.

“The fact that you’re asking if you can help
yourself is disturbing. You can help yourself to my anything. Must
I place my hands on your ass and hoist you up there myself?”

God yes…

“Please, just one little push, Romeo.” I
shake my apple-bottom at him. He rewards me with another deep gaze.
I wonder if those make him as hard as they make me wet? Dare I
ask?

“What’s her pet name for you?” I want to
suffocate her with post-game football player socks while she’s
strapped to a bed of nails.

“I’m not telling.” Not a good sign. He tells
me everything…could he actually like her?

“Did you ask me to move here so I could help
you relocate your lower anatomy? What’s happening to you? You’re
getting soft on me. Where is my Scout? Please don’t tell me she’s
also convinced you to eat chocolate bunny ears before the tail? Are
you pussy whipped? Tell me you’re not! Please!”

I kneel up on my stool, then lie across the
bar, sliding my belly straight to the tapper. Giving him a full,
perfect shot of my caboose. And he loves it. I don’t mind…not one
little bit.

“Get a good look. And while you’re at it,
slide your glass over here so I can fill you up, too.”

He looks at it, all right, then he shoots me
a glance that hits me from my heart to my gut. That little waggle
in his eyebrows doesn’t hurt either.

“You still got it, Tess. Still the hottest
girl in the room.”

You see? He tells me this stuff and I don’t
know what to do with it. I feel like a daisy that’s getting my
petals torn off.
He loves me, he loves me not, he loves
me….

“Aww, shucks, Scout…I’m blushing now.” I
think I am. I’m too old for these games. Gah.

“Yeah, I don’t think you’d blush if I
pantsed you.”
Try me…

I scoot back onto my barstool, then slide
his beer down to him. He’s a hair further away from me than I’d
like. I grab the leg of his stool and try to scootch him
closer—think mouse moving Superman—not happening. Naturally he gets
the hint and comes to me. Just not as close as I’d like.

“So, you never did tell me. Is she vanilla
in the sack? Or does she like naughty slap-and-tickle sex like we
do?”

“She’s vanilla. But a fuck is still a fuck,
Tess.”