Page 100 of Your Pucking Mom

“Please,” I whined as I threw myself on the bed next to her and held up the notebook we signed when we were naive kids. “This doesn’t count. We didn’t know what was going to happen.”

Emma was on her back as we stared at the bright-pink top, the tops of our heads touching as my curly blonde hair splayed all over the bed sheets. “No, no.” Emma giggled. “It so counts. It was a promise to our future selves, and it took me three years before I pulled it out.”

She looked over at me, her eyes large and her lips pouting. “Ugh,” I complained. “Only an hour.”

Emma squealed, then gave me a hug before insisting I wear my favorite flare jeans.

* * *

Ledger smiled as the birds came over to the wisteria and played around us. “I knew you guys were close, I didn’t realize you guys grew up like sisters.”

“Who? Me and Emma?” I asked, and Ledger nodded.

I sighed. “The best of friends. She was, or is, more like a sister to me.”

“You must miss her, being in Chicago and her back home in Michigan.”

I nodded. “Endlessly.”

I swallowed and looked up at Ledger’s face. “I have to keep telling you. I—the party?—”

* * *

“I hate this,” I lamented, shoving my hands across my chest to try to hide the fact that my boobs were spilling over this top that didn’t take into account that I would grow freaking massive boobs over the last three years. It was far less clothing than I was used to, and Emma told me it was practically social-suicide if I wore a sweater or hoodie over it.

“Come on,” she commented. “It’s not that bad.”

It was that bad. I ran my hands over my straightened hair, hating the way I didn’t feel the curls bounce as I touched the smoothness. We were in the middle of JXX’s house. He was the most popular guy in school by far. Even though he was a junior, he—along with everyone else—knew he would be captain of the football team next year, and rumor had it that his parents were flight attendants, so when they both worked, he had the house to himself, which was why he threw these massive parties.

“There he is,” Emma said, and grabbed my hand, squealing into it as she guided me through the pumping living room. There must’ve been hundreds of people from school and people I didn’t recognize littering the house. Though it was dark inside the house, there was no doubt the house was destroyed. We walked past a dozen couples humping and making out on couches.

Ew. In front of everyone.

“I’m going to get a drink first.” By a beverage, I meant I would scrounge for something non-alcoholic. My mom had let me taste some of her wine once, and it wasn’t for me.

I was standing in a corner of the crowded living room, watching Emma as she made her way over to the bar. She was distracted by a few guys from the football team.

“Great,” I muttered to myself as I pressed my back against the wall. I couldn’t leave her here, but I also knew there was no way she would come back anytime soon.

Glancing around the room, I noticed a few hundred fewer people outside. I bet I could wait out there for her until she was done, and I would still have a clear shot of the bar area.

I summoned the strength to get off the wall and make the step a few feet toward the door, reminding myself to touch as few sweaty bodies as possible.

I looked down, tracing my steps, then smacked into the chest of a sweaty man.

I looked up and recognized JXX.

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auburn

“Follow me,” he said, tugging on my hair to follow him.

He had pulled me outside, and we sat in the chairs for a few minutes. He was sweaty and told me he needed to cool down. We chatted for a bit about school and friends. I had this obsession with books, and he convinced me that his father had the best library in all of town and many pieces in his collection were first editions.

“I can’t believe we’ve been in the same classes and I never knew your name,” JXX said as we walked up toward the library.

Yeah, for years, I wanted to tell him, but he’d convinced me that upstairs he had a first edition Jane Austen in his dad’s library, and nothing had me nerding-out more than a special edition of any book, so a classic was my kryptonite.

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