Page 1 of Buried Dreams

Chapter One

EVERLEIGH

The soft music plays in the background as I twist open the mascara and look in the mirror, leaning forward to apply it. My long black hair is freshly blow-dried and pushed to one side, and my white robe is open down the front and loosely tied. “Baby.” Brock walks into the bathroom, wearing his weekend mechanic’s uniform for when he goes to help his father. “I was calling you.” He places his hands on the counter beside my hips. Fitting himself behind me, he pushes his chest up against my back. I feel the hardness of him all over, and I can’t help but try not to smile at him.

“Brock, you are filthy.” His face is streaked with a little bit of grease as he watches me move the makeup wand up and through my lashes. I look into his dark brown almost black eyes through the mirror. His hand goes around my waist, pulling me closer to him. “Your hands are covered in oil.” I laugh at him as he leans down to kiss my neck, ignoring what I just said.

“Why did you take a shower without me?” he mumbles as I turn my head to the side. He doesn’t wait for me to answer him. Instead, his lips come down to mine, kissing me softly before his tongue invades my mouth. I turn in his arms, not caring he’s still dirty from work. My arms wrap around his neck as his hands grip my hips. “If you continue like this, we aren’t going out tonight.” His voice comes out hard and sexy as his hand moves from my hip and his finger trails down the edge of the opening of the robe. He pushes it to the side as my nipple, pebbled by his touch, stops the silk material from opening fully. His finger trails the little love bite he has been leaving me since we started sleeping together some six years ago. Right near my nipple, I wear his teeth marks or a little love bite. Either way, it’s always there. He loves it. I’m not going to lie—I feel naked now without it on me.

His eyes always fixate on that mark as he licks his lips. “If you continue this…” I push him back, stepping away from him. He puts his hip against the counter, taking one more look at me as I make my way to the door.

He pushes off, removing his shirt and tossing it to the side, my eyes roaming him up and down. “And if you keep looking at me like that?—”

“I’m leaving.” I turn and walk out of the bathroom with a backward glance at him as he’s unbuttoning his jeans, leading to one of my favorite parts of him. I close the door to make sure I don’t turn around and join him, leading to us having sex in the shower. Instead, I run around picking up things to put in the dishwasher. Between the two of us working full-time, him helping his father on the weekends, and me helping my mom, the house could use a good cleaning. I load the dishwasher before heading to the bedroom and grabbing a pair of jean shorts and a tank top. The bathroom door opens, and the steam from the shower follows him as he walks out with a towel around his waist instead of naked like he always is.

His hand holds the towel closed at the side of his hip. “They will be downstairs in five minutes,” he mumbles as he grabs a pair of boxers from his drawer by the bed, then drops the towel, showing me all of him. He’s been my only boyfriend, and I thought once we moved in with each other, I would get used to seeing him naked all the time, but I haven’t. Our sex life also hasn’t died down. If anything, we’re having more sex than ever. Before, we were having sex all the time, and we’ve also had sex all over the place: in his truck, by the creek, and in the bathroom at the bar. I smile at the memory, then shake my head. If we have an itch, we scratch it.

“I’m ready,” I say. I walk back into the bathroom and apply lip gloss before watching him saunter back in wearing jeans and a T-shirt. He runs his hands through his jet-black wet hair a couple of times before turning to me and kissing my neck.

He’s tying his sneakers at the same time the buzzer rings, and I look at him. “Don’t make any plans for tomorrow,” I inform him. “We are going to spend the day deep cleaning this place.”

“Can’t,” he says, opening the door and pushing me out of it, “I plan on spending it naked and having you on every single surface I can have you on.” He slaps my ass, pushing open the glass door to the apartment building. “I’m planning on wearing myself out.” He grabs the white cooler I prepared before he got home. We usually take turns bringing a couple of bottles of beer. I can’t help but laugh at him as we spot Waylon’s pickup at the curb. The music blasts at full volume.

“Hey,” I greet, holding up my hand and seeing Autumn smile at me as Brock opens the back door of Waylon’s truck. “How is everyone doing?” I ask, getting into the truck and scooting to the middle of the seat.

“Good,” Autumn answers with a smile over her shoulder. I can see she’s been crying, but I don’t ask her about it. We make eye contact, but she just shakes her head and looks over at Waylon. I can see this is another fight the two of them have had. The two of them spend ninety-five percent of their relationship fighting. The other five percent is Autumn tolerating what a dick Waylon is. If it wasn’t for Autumn, I don’t know if any of us would be friends with him.

“Hey,” Brock says, slapping Waylon on the shoulder, “how are you doing?”

“Could be better,” he replies, pulling away from the curb and almost peeling out of the parking lot. I put my hand on Brock’s knee and squeeze it. I look over at him and raise my eyebrows, sharing with him that we should have just stayed home and had pizza.

The windows are down, so my hair flies all around my face as I turn to look out the window. The green trees line both sides of the road as we make our way over to pick up Charlie and Jennifer.

No one even tries to make any conversation as we pull up to their house. The two of them recently moved in together. “I am going to go in and pee,” Autumn announces from the front seat of the truck.

“Jesus, again?” Waylon glares over at her, and the look isn’t a friendly one. Instead, he’s looking at her like he hates her. “You pee every ten seconds,” he says, honking the horn to let Jennifer and Charlie know we are here.

I lean over, putting my hand on Brock’s leg. His arm’s across the back seat, around my shoulders. “If you ever looked at me like that,” I whisper into his ear, “I would stab your big toe with a fork.”

He chuckles and kisses the side of my head. “Why a fork?”

“It has more entry wounds.” I look up at him as the passenger door closes. “So it means you’ll be in more pain, which would make me the happiest.”

The front door opens, and Autumn runs into the house. “She gets on my last nerve sometimes,” Waylon mumbles, and I bite my tongue to tell him she’s not the one who gets on our last nerve. I think Brock knows I’m about to say something because he picks up the hand that is on his knee and brings it to his lips and squeezes it.

The front door opens, and a second later, Jennifer is coming out, wearing white jeans and a turquoise top, her hair flying with the light wind. “Hey,” she says, opening the door closest to me, and I squish over to Brock. She gets in the truck and leans over to kiss my cheek. “How are you?” she asks with a smile on her face before looking over at Brock and saying hello. She then turns and says hello to Waylon, who just mumbles while he texts something on his phone before tossing it to the side. He puts his hand in a fist and pushes the steering wheel so the horn honks again.

This time, the front door opens, and Autumn walks out in front of Charlie, who follows her to the truck. “Took you long enough,” Waylon snaps when Autumn opens the passenger door and then looks over at Charlie.

“You sit up front.” Autumn tries to hide she’s pissed off at him and his words, but she fails miserably as she walks to the back door and opens it, sliding in and slamming the door, not giving Charlie an option. The four of us squish into the back seat. Jennifer moves closer to me, and I move closer to Brock, my ass practically in his lap. His arms wrap around my waist to make sure I don’t fly anywhere.

“Hey.” Charlie gets in the front seat, greeting us and trying to avoid the awkwardness of how quiet the truck is. He looks over at Brock, sharing a look. “How’s everyone doing?” Charlie barely has his seat belt on before Waylon drives off, making Brock shake his head. “Good times,” he says, looking at Jennifer, the two of them sharing an inside look. My eyes go to Autumn. She’s looking out the window and not talking to them. Her finger pulls the side of her eye to stop the tear from coming out. I shake my head and look at Brock, who just shakes his head, telling me not to.

We head over to Waylon’s family’s hunting cabin some fifteen minutes on the outskirts of town. The log cabin is painted red, with a wraparound porch and four rocking chairs. We’ve been hanging around at the cabin since we were all sixteen, going up there with a couple of cases of beer that Waylon would get using his older brother, Winston, to buy it for us. We all went to high school together, all except Charlie, who just moved to town a couple of years ago.

Even after high school, we all stayed local while going to school. I attended to get my marketing degree, while Brock just got his bachelor’s degree in architecture and will now be doing a complete internship for Waylon’s family’s construction company. Waylon’s family has been around this town dating back to the nineteen twenties, when his great-grandfather started a construction company and went into lumber trading or something like that. Now they just do construction. If a building goes up in town, it’s always with the Cartwright family building it. Brock will be helping them with the new development they plan on building. It’s going to be one of their biggest projects ever, and he’s helping develop the look of it.

As soon as Waylon turns the truck off, the doors open, and everyone jumps down. Brock goes to the back of the truck bed and grabs the cooler. He comes back to me and slides his hand in mine, as always, and we walk to the side of the house where eight big logs lie in an octagon shape around a firepit. We are here almost every single weekend just to sit and shoot the shit, or even during the week, we can go and eat and then just come here and chill.

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