Page 6 of All Roads Lead to You

After finishing off my food, I stood, kissed Mom on the cheek, high-fived Wyatt, and snuffled my baby sister, making her giggle.

“Later!” I yelled as I walked out.

I hopped into my silver Ford Escort and drove off to pick up my best girl and my best friend.

“Fuck, man. This party is raging,” Caleb said as we walked into Will’s house, who was a buddy of mine from high school and also on the varsity tennis team. “I’m so gonna get fucking laid tonight.”

I was, too, once I snuck Lauren into my bedroom later tonight.

Caleb pulled a comb from his back pocket and ran it through his perfectly parted, nearly white, blond hair. His pale brown eyes twinkled, filled with arrogant mischief. He wore a silky-looking gray button-up with a thin burgundy tie and jeans. The girls loved him, despite being a player, because he didn’t only look like a damn model, but he was nice to them and never trash-talked about them. He was just oddly hyper-sexual. Sometimes I worried about his constant need to get his fix with sex.

“You’re so gnarly,” Lauren said to him, scrunching her cute button nose. “Why must everything be about getting laid?”

“Uh, duh, I’m a dude.”

“No guy is that sexual,” she said, looking at me as if I had any control over Caleb. Instead, I grabbed her hand and kissed it. “You look gorgeous tonight, not that you don’t always look gorgeous.”

“You don’t fool me, Nicolas Theodoropoulos. I know when I’m being manipulated.”

I feigned hurt. “Fine, but I’m not lying either.”

She really did look stunning. Her strawberry blonde hair was crimped and teased. I especially loved the splash of freckles across her nose. She wore baggy jeans, a cropped blue T-shirt, and an oversized yellow sweater spilling off her slender shoulder.

Lauren rolled her tawny-brown eyes, but she smiled anyway.

“Speaking of getting laid,” I said, waggling my brows.

She snorted a laugh. “Ugh… men! Is sex all you think about?”

“Yes,” Caleb and I said at the same time.

I tugged on her hand, and we stepped inside to the raging party, playing Madonna’s ‘Into the Groove.’

“Oh, I love this song! Let’s dance, Nicky!”

Still holding her hand, I led her toward the kitchen. “Drink first.”

We worked our way through the mixed crowd of former high school students and college students I didn’t know, high fiving, shaking hands, and patting backs along the way. Yeah, I was pretty popular, even for a tennis player. Logan should’ve been the most popular one, and he was, in a way, but he was way too broody and introverted. Despite his cool vibe, the girls saw him as the unreachable bad boy, and the guys mirrored his personality. Not me, though. I loved being the center of attention and the life of the party.

Once we stepped into the kitchen, I snagged a raspberry cooler for Lauren and a beer for me. Caleb already had run off somewhere, hunting down a girl for the night, no doubt.

“Come on, Nicky. Let’s dance. They’re playing our song.”

Sure enough, I recognized ‘Take My Breath Away’ by Berlin. Lauren and I had lost our virginities to that song, full of sweaty fumbling in the dim light of my bedroom.

I threaded our fingers together and led her to the living room, where the furniture had been shoved aside to make room for a dance floor.

Lauren wrapped an arm around my neck and pressed her body against mine while taking a sip of her cooler. I pressed my face to her throat, inhaling her familiar flowery scent I couldn’t name if my life depended on it, and swayed with her.

I got lost in the song and the movement of our bodies pressed together when something tugged my attention. Do you know that tingly feeling you get when someone’s thinking about you or watching you, making your ears burn? That’s how I always felt when Logan was nearby.

When I looked up, I found him holding up the wall with his back and his foot propped up. His arm was wrapped around himself, giving off his ‘don’t talk to me’ energy as he cradled a beer, scowling at me. His long bangs fell over his thick, furrowed brows, giving him a weirdly sexy vibe. No wonder everyone wanted to be him or be with him, except for me.

Standing next to him was his best friend, Hunter, who was actually cool and way nicer than Logan, at least to me.

When Logan didn’t look away, I gave him the finger. Hunter burst out laughing as I went back to dancing with my girl, loving her big tits pressed against my chest. I couldn’t wait to suck on them tonight.

By the end of the song, Lauren saw her friends sitting on one of the sofas and dragged me over there by my hand. She hugged Shelly and Denise and sat down with them.

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