Sucker Punched (15 page)

“Did she marry him?”

“Yep.”

Confusion wrinkles my face. “Were you close with her?”

“Not until that night.”

“Then why’d she go to you?”

His mouth turns down as he shrugs. “I don’t know. She was so upset that I didn’t ask.”

“Did he find out?”

“I don’t think so. I stopped hanging out with him after that ’cause I felt too guilty. But I figure if he’d found out, he would’ve let me know.”

Yeah, he probably would’ve tracked you down and let you know how upset he was. With his fists.

Sitting here, I try to process everything he’s just said. “What a slut.”

Blake starts peeling the label off his beer, his mouth twisting to the side. “Yeah, it’s not my finest moment.”

“I’m talking about
her
.” When he cocks a brow, I explain. “She had that all planned out. No offense, but if she were having serious doubts, she wouldn’t have come to you. She would’ve gone to one of her friends, maybe even her mom.” I shake my head, amazed that he can’t see it. “She took advantage of you, not the other way around.”

He frowns. “Huh. I never thought of it like that.”

“You still shouldn’t have done it. But if anything, she’s guiltier than you. She’s the one who set it all in motion.”

He sets his empty bottle on the side table next to him. “Your turn.”

Oh. Right. This is the part where I scare him off forever.

I reluctantly pull out my phone and text my mom. “I can’t really
tell
you about this. I’ll have to show you.”

A minute later, she texts me back with what I need—a picture of me from high school, in all my ugly duckling glory.

Cringing, I hand him the phone. “Here.”

He frowns as he looks it over. Then realization hits and his face lights up. “Holy shit, is this
you
?”

“My awkward phase lasted longer than most.”
Some might say I’m still in it
, I think, feeling my face burn to an unnatural degree as I snatch my phone out of his hands.

Leaning forward, he grabs my beer from the table, preparing to take a swig. “I still want to fuck you, so this little exercise of yours was a total bust.”

Ditto, Blake. Ditto.

As soon as I close the front door, my mom calls to me from the dining room. “You’re just in time for dinner, hon. Hurry up before Justin eats it all.”

Sadly, my mother is not joking. My little brother eats enough for a family of five, despite being a single teenage boy. It’s astonishing and quite frankly, I’m jealous of his metabolism. If I ate like him I’d weigh five hundred pounds.

I hang my purse up by the front door and shrug out of my jacket, then hurry into the dining room.

Ooh, pork chops.

I grab a plate and start loading it up, suddenly famished. Apparently lusting after someone for an entire evening really gets my appetite going. Sitting down across from Justin, I start to dig in.

“How was your day, pumpkin?”

I turn to my dad and smile. “Awesome.”

He sets down his iced tea. “Did your car get fixed?”

I nod, since my mouth is full of mashed potatoes.

“What was wrong with it?”

I shrug. I’m not about to tell him I was too busy mentally undressing my mechanic to hear what was wrong with my car. It’s fixed, that’s all that matters.

I’ve just cut into my pork chop when Peanut, our Jack Russell Terrier, trots into the room with a pink dog toy in his mouth.

Wait a sec. . . I do a double take, because
holy fucking Christ.

That’s not a dog toy, that’s my vibrator!

Peanut drops my chewed up sex toy onto the floor, making my eyes pop so wide they hurt. And to add insult to injury, the thick, veiny shaft twists around a few times on the carpet before dying.

This can’t be happening. Please tell me I’m dreaming right now.

Justin’s snickering. My dad’s clearing his throat. My mom’s taking a sip of her wine, careful not to look at it.

Humiliation scalds me as I run over and pick up the destroyed toy, then sprint back to my room where I lock myself inside.

Well, this settles it. I have to move out and cut off all contact with my family. Immediately. And I know of only one place I can afford that will take me on such short notice.

I pull my phone from my pocket and text Blake, telling him that I’ll take him up on his offer. A second later he texts me back, letting me know it’s cool.

I toss my phone on the bed, looking at my ruined vibrator.

That fucker. The pink one was my favorite.

I never saw the point in decorating for the holidays unless you have little kids. Putting up lights and hauling some big-ass tree home—that you have to decorate and then throw away a month later—seems like too much work for what’s essentially one fucking day. But kids love it, so whatever. I can’t fault any parent for trying to make them happy.

I can, however, fault my grandparents for leaving the basement so disorganized. It looks like Christmas threw up down here.

No, scratch that. It looks like Christmas threw a rager with Santa, Rudolph, and Frosty, got shitfaced on eggnog, and then started flinging its clothes around the room before finally throwing up. There’s tinsel everywhere. And poor Rudolph looks like he’s seen some shit.

Moving the big plastic deer out of the way, I rifle through another box of decorations and pull out a tangled mass of Christmas lights. I sigh.

I’m starting to rethink this whole “let’s decorate the house as a surprise for Macy” thing. I know she loves this shit, but I’ve only got thirty minutes before she’s here and officially my roommate.

That’s not enough time to sort through all these boxes, and I really wanted to have a tree up and decorated by the time she gets here. And of course, a fake Christmas tree is the one thing not down here.

Baby Jesus in a manger? Got it.

Enough lights to wrap around the Earth five times? Got it.

But anything resembling a Christmas tree? Go fuck yourself.

Damn it. I don’t have time to go out and get a real one now.

Something green catches my eye and I clear a path to see what it is. Frowning, I hold up the giant, deflated vinyl. It looks like a green life raft—

My eyes widen once I realize what it is.

Holy shit. I can’t believe they kept it.

Nostalgia floods me as I pull the thing out of its box. I have such few good memories from my childhood, but this is definitely one of them.

This is not your conventional Christmas tree, but it’ll work. I stuff it in a box of decorations and head upstairs, excited for Macy to see it.

With my hands over her eyes, I guide Macy through the living room. “You’re not peeking, are you?”

“No, I can’t see anything.”

My heart skips a beat when we stop in front of our “tree.” I’m. . .nervous. I really want her to like it. “Are you ready to be amazed?”

“Yes. Amaze me.”

I drop my hands and step aside so I can see her reaction. At first it looks like she’s not sure what she’s looking at, then her mouth breaks into a smile so wide it makes
me
smile. She touches her fingers to her lips, giggling, and looks over at me.

I shrug. “It’s a Christmas tree-rex.”

“I see that.” She reaches out and ruffles the red tinsel garland wrapped around the seven-foot tall inflatable dinosaur. It’s wrapped from neck to tail, along with some multi-colored Christmas lights. A Santa hat on the t-rex’s head serves as our tree topper.

“I didn’t have time to get a real tree, and my grandparents didn’t have a fake one in the basement, so I had to work with what was down there.”

This makes her laugh even harder as she points to the green behemoth. “
Why
was this in the basement?”

“I was scared of this house when I was little. Couldn’t sleep without all the lights on. So my nana went out and bought Rex, here, and told me he was my own personal guard dinosaur. Said it was his job to stand next to my bed all night and protect me. He was huge and scary-looking to five-year-old me, so I believed her. Slept just fine in the dark after that.”

Her face softens. “Your nana sounds like good people.”

“She was.” Uncomfortable with the topic, I clear my throat. It’s been years since she died, and I still don’t like talking about her. “Do you need help carrying anything in?”

“Sure.”

She motions for me to follow her out to her car, and five minutes later, all her stuff’s sitting in my living room. Macy chose not to bring any furniture, which is fine, since both spare rooms are fully furnished.

I lead her upstairs so she can pick one out. “There’s my old room and there’s Declan’s. A bathroom connects the two, but it’ll be all yours. I should warn you, Declan’s old room has a teenage boy theme, complete with authentic band-poster wallpaper, unwashed sheets, and a general locker room smell.”

Her nose wrinkles as we reach the landing at the top of the stairs.

“Or there’s my old room, which is clean and totally empty.”

“Clean and totally empty it is.”

I push open the door in front of us. “I thought you might say that.”

She steps inside and looks around, but there’s not much to see. Just a bed, dresser, and a nightstand.

“Bathroom’s right there.” I point to the door next to the closet.

She nods, focusing on the cross above the bed. “There are a lot of crucifixes in your house.”

“My grandparents were Catholic. You can take it down if you want. Jesus will judge you, but I won’t.”

Macy smiles and bites her lip. “Can I see your room?”

“Sure.” She follows me down the hall to the master bedroom.

It used to be my grandparents’ room, obviously, and it’s the only room in the whole house that has furniture less than twenty years old. I bought a new bedroom set after Pops died because the thought of sleeping on a bed they’d had sex on kinda grossed me out.

Probably shouldn’t mention that to Macy, though, otherwise she might ask if anyone’s had sex on my old bed and I can’t say no. . .

Well, I
could
, but I’d be lying.

She plops down on my bed, bouncing a couple times. “So this is where the magic happens.” Grinning, she wiggles her eyebrows.

No, this is where the sex happens. And seeing Macy on my bed is making me think all kinds of dirty thoughts.

Resting against the doorframe, I shrug. “The only magic trick I know is how to make a girl’s panties disappear. You remember that one, right?” My lips curl the more her grin fades.

Her eyes narrow into the cutest little slits as she gets up and walks over. “It doesn’t count if I wasn’t wearing any to begin with.”

I put my hand on the other side of the doorframe, blocking her in. Then I lean down until my mouth is close to her ear. “I was eight inches deep, Duchess. The only person who could ever be deeper inside you is a surgeon, so yeah, it fucking counts.”

The resulting hitch in her breath has my cock straining against my jeans. I love how easy it is to get her all riled up. But despite what my dick thinks, the point of Macy moving in wasn’t to have sex with her again, so I have to try and keep things “friendly.”