Page 62 of Her Devils

“I couldn’t.” I sigh. “The second I pushed Darrius away, Peyton came in and things got...intense.”

I explain what happened with my stepbrother, and Sarah shakes her head, looking at me as if she was seeing me for the first time. “So to be clear, you told Darrius—the guy you’ve been in love with forever—to fuck off, and then you went to have sex with Peyton?”

“Yeah. Darrius didn’t kiss me for the right reasons,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. “And it wasn’t a real kiss. It was over in seconds. I pushed him away the second he tried to slip his tongue inside my mouth, so it doesn’t count.”

“The fuck it doesn’t count,” she argues.

We bicker for a minute about what makes a kiss “real,” but then Sarah ends the argument by focusing on something else. “We agree to disagree on this, Len. I say the kiss counts, and the reason why he did it only partially matters, but it says a lot that you didn’t encourage Darrius when he did what you’ve been waiting for all these years. It says even more that you snubbed him for Peyton.”

I don’t like her tone and the probing way she’s looking at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sarah’s shrewd blue eyes look right into my soul, making me feel so exposed that I tighten my arms around my middle. “I noticed the way you and Peyton look at each other,” she says. “And you look at Channing and Jameson the same way. Are you sure that this weird ‘fuck buddies deal’ you have is all there is to your relationship with the Cove Devils?”

The words leave my mouth in a rush. “I’m positive. What else should it be? We have a deal, and I’m just having fun.”

She doesn’t even try to hide the skepticism in her expression. “I hope so, because, Lenley, the way Peyton, Channing, and J look at you and the way you look at them in return is very—”

“How?” I challenge her.

She levels me with an intense stare. “I know you say you guys are becoming friends, but be careful with those guys, Len. Make sure that you stay on the same page with this deal.”

Her words hit her intended target, and I try to hide my fear behind a scowl. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sarah.”

Sarah has known me for a long time, though, almost as long as Darrius, and she isn’t fooled by my less than stellar distraction techniques. “You know exactly what I mean,” she bites out, closing her fingers over my bicep. “Guys are more wired to see sex as just a physical act. Women are more susceptible to catching feelings, and your guys? They are the prime example of sex as a sport.”

“That’s some bullshit if I ever heard it. Men and women can equally have no strings attached sex. Don’t give me this pre-feminist bullshit, Sarah.”

She shakes her head, probably seeing through my attempt to deflect attention away from my relationship with the Cove Devils. “I’m not talking about ‘women’ in their entirety, Len. I’m talking aboutyou. I could totally see Kiara fucking for the sake of it, but it’s you who really aren’t the type.”

I bristle at her words, my heart constricting at the memory of how I thought, just for a second, that maybe things between Peyton and me could be different. The way Peyton looked at me when we were having sex and then after when he was holding me made me think that maybe we could have more than our deal.

And it hurt when that flicker of hope was snuffed out straightaway by the way Peyton gloated about the look on Darrius’s face when I pushed him away.

What hurt even more was that he encouraged me to keep teasing Darrius, even if that means making out with him.

Someone who is starting to have feelings for you would never say that, so I need to remember that next time I let my heart loose around one of the Cove Devils.

I don’t want to be the heartbreakers’ next victim. I like them too much as friends and fuck buddies to ruin our deal with feelings.

“Don’t worry,” I tell my bestie, raising my voice to be heard above the noise of our aircraft’s engine. “I know what I’m doing.”

And if I don’t, what’s that saying?

Fake it until you make it.

***

Channing

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THE PILOT GIVES MEthe signal that I’m clear to exit the aircraft, and I jump right on cue.

As soon as I’m out, I immediately adjust my position to point my head toward the ground, which is fourteen thousand feet below me. This is today’s exit altitude, the maximum allowed by the USPA.

The feeling of exhilaration, spiked with a hint of fear, never gets old. It’s the biggest thrill I’ve ever felt, and the biggest rush of adrenaline a human being can feel. We aren’t supposed to fly. When we’re in the air, we’re totally out of our own element and the closest a young person like me will ever get to death.

The only rush that’s comparable to this feeling is sex—the moment right before I come, when my body is tense and more alive than ever, and my thrusts still right before I explode.

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