Page 6 of A Love So Hard

I turned to see Johnny standing there looking madder than a wet hen. Angie was standing just behind him, back to the wall watching. I couldn’t believe she would do this to me. I thought we’d been friends. Granted, we weren’t besties, but still. I would remember her actions tonight. She was never to be trusted again. “Johnny,” I intoned as I turned away from him and toward Double-D once more while sipping from my coke, which was quickly batted out of my hand.

“What in the world did you do that for, Johnny?” I shrieked.

“You don’t know what’s in that,” he chided.

“I sure as heck did. It was probably 99 percent coke and 1 percent my backwash.” I heard people laughing in the background and instantly regretted adding the backwash part even though everyone knew it was most likely true of their drinks as well.

“You don’t know,” he started to say when I cocked my hip out, threw my hands up on them, and stared him down until I saw him shrink in on himself a little.

“I most certainly do know, because Double-D here handed me that drink unopened. I popped the top myself, and you just went and wasted it while making that huge mess for no good reason.” I pointed at the spilled can on the floor and watched as he winced.

“I’m real curious as to what you thought I might have been done to her drink?” Double-D questioned him and Johnny’s shoulders went rigid.

“I didn’t know you were the one who gave it to her,” he tried to play it off.

“I’m the one standing here, aren’t I?”

Johnny didn’t get a chance to respond because Rachel showed up at just that moment and wrapped her arms around Johnny’s waist. “I thought we were going upstairs, John,” she whined. I cocked an eyebrow up at him and couldn’t hide the smirk that played at the corner of my lips either. He always tried to play like he was innocent and devoutly waiting on me when I had always known better, despite what our parents thought. He moved to push her off of him, but my laughter stopped him cold.

“Don’t bother,” I told him as I pointed in the direction of the room I’d seen them making out in earlier. “I already saw the whole show earlier when I got here.” His face paled as the color drained from it.

“Lucy, I can explain,” he started to say, but was cut off by Rachel.

“What the hell do you have to explain to her? She’s in high school.”

“So are you,” he answered back rudely.

“I’m already 18 though,” she pointed out as her bottom lip poked out in a pout.

“You’re also the girl who will let someone feel them up and show them off to a whole room full of people. She’s not like that.”

“You are though,” I told him, because he was making me angry. I may not behave like Rachel, but she didn’t deserve to be called out for the same behavior he was participating in.

“No,” he started to say.

“Johnny, I saw you. Just because your clothes weren’t being moved to expose your strawberry panties to everyone doesn’t mean you weren’t the one making sure hers were. You participated in that spectacle and I didn’t see anyone holding a gun to your head forcing you to do it.”

“You expect me to be a saint while I wait for you?” Apparently, he was going to change his tack since he’d already been caught misbehaving.

“I expect you not to be waiting for me, since I already told you I didn’t want you like that.” I hadn’t realized I had raised my voice so loudly until his face reddened and laughter erupted in the room. Taunts were bandied about by men whom I assumed were his friends before he turned and left with a still pouting, yet oblivious Rachel hot on his heels. Angie glared in the direction of Double-D before also turning and walking away.

When I looked back over my shoulder I could understand why. There was murder in his eyes. I didn’t think he’d legitimately kill her for organizing that mess, but he was clearly not happy with her. “You definitely need better friends, little Lucy.”

I sighed. “Yeah, that’s become quite apparent. Now, I think I have two less.”

He chuckled. “I’d say more like one. Johnny boy will get over himself, and no man in his right mind would give up on trying to persuade you to change yours. Though, I have to say, I really hope he does.” There was something more meaningful in what he was saying, but I didn’t get a chance to second guess anything, because once again he had hold of my hand and was tugging me toward the door to the back yard. There were a few camp chairs scattered about the lawn out back, but there was also an old porch swing hanging from the back end of the porch and that’s where Double-D took me.

We sat side-by-side there with the stars hanging out in the sky just above us and drunken teen and twenty-somethings making asses of themselves off in the distance. We were in our own bubble there on that swing though. “So, how did you get a name like Double-D?” I asked the question nervously, and obviously without thinking.

He chuckled. “You really want to know?” Suddenly it hit me that I might not want an answer to that particular question. My wide-eyed deer in the headlights look just made him laugh. “The guys at the clubhouse are strange. Something happens and it just sticks a name to you.”

“What happens to stick a bra size as your name?” I felt a little inadequate as I asked because I definitely wasn’t rocking a set of DDs. I was barely filling out a full B-cup at the time.

“I went out with this girl when I was prospecting for the club, and the guys were tormenting me since I didn’t want to bring her around for them to run her off.” He glanced off in the distance as if he could see the memory playing out before him off in the distance. “Patty was a sweet girl, smart, funny,” he went on describing her and causing an ache in my tummy. I was big enough to admit I was jealous of the way he smiled at the memory of her. “She should have never been on my radar, but we’d worked on a project in school together right as we were about to graduate, and I guess one thing led to another.” He shrugged his shoulders before taking a sip of the bottle of beer he’d brought out with him.

“The guys thought I wasn’t bringing her around, because she was some gorgeous chick with huge tits,” he laughed as he said that. “Little did they know she was the complete opposite and I wasn’t bringing her around, because I didn’t think she could handle club life or their particular brand of teasing. She was sweet – as I said – but in a way where she was also too delicate to handle anything rough in her life. I knew the life I was headed for, and didn’t lead her on. We went out a couple times and then she headed off to go live with an aunt close to the college she planned on attending. Before she left though she stopped by the clubhouse to drop off a sweatshirt I’d loaned her when the night had gotten too chilly for what she had on.”

He turned to look at me then, the smile wiped off his face. “Patty was about an A-cup as bra size went. She was stick thin with mousy brown hair and she wore glasses most of the time because contacts bothered her. She was cute, but not super-model good looking, you know. Like I keep saying, she was also super sweet. The guys took one look at her and lost their shit, acting like assholes. Patty fled the clubhouse and never spoke to me again. The idiots started calling me Double-D, to be ironic since the girl I’d been hiding from them had the body of a 12-year old boy instead of a super model like they all thought. Now, when people see or hear my road name they just assume it’s because I like big tits.” He shrugged his shoulder and took another sip of his beer while waiting for my reaction.

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