Page 1 of Strelitzias in Spring

Prologue

Serena

Of all the ways I thought I’d lose my virginity, half-dressed in my dad’s guest house with socks on was not one of them. I also didn’t anticipate that I’d have sex for the first time on the hardwood floor, but here I am: uncomfortable and sweaty. Lying here, knees bent, and wool shirt pushed up to my bra, I can’t help but think of all the things I need to do when I get back to my apartment. My plants need a good watering, and I probably should buy some of the plant food for my herb basket. I also need to call the printer for Sigma Tau Delta, the English National Honor Society, and verify that they received the payment for the marketing materials for next month’s poetry night.

I feel like I’m forgetting something, but it’s hard to concentrate when a two-hundred-pound man is drilling into you like his dick is an electric screwdriver and your vagina is a metal beam.

“Fuck, your wet hole feels so fucking good, Siren,” Devin pants above me, and I do everything I can not to cringe at his use of “wet hole.” Pussy, cunt, even vagina would have been preferable to “wet hole.”

At least he didn’t say petals, I reason in my head.

“You like my big dick, Siren? You’ll never have better than this. Fuck,” he groans, stilling on top of me and coming into the condom. I haven’t seen many penises, but I assume that his length is average while the girth is thin, almost like a Number 2 pencil. Devin plops down next to me and rips the condom off his dick, tying it like a balloon before flinging it across the room.

That’s disgusting and highly unsanitary.

“Yep, it was great,” I murmur. Other than the slight twinge of discomfort when he first rammed into me, I didn’t feel much of anything besides the cold floor digging into my back.

“Fuck, I’m tired. Where’s my phone?” Devin muses, getting up and walking toward his discarded pants. Slipping them on, he grabs his phone from the coffee table and releases a sharp breath. “Fuck, Marina texted me. I need to go over there and see what she needs.” Marina, my former best friend turned stepsister turned archnemesis and Devin’s ex-girlfriend, is a manipulative she-devil who gets everything she wants. However, in this instance, I’m not complaining about her tactics because I need Devin and his pencil dick to leave so that I can scrounge up what’s left of my dignity.

“Okay, see you around,” I call out from my position on the floor. I reach for my leggings, which Devin tossed haphazardly next to me, and quickly slide them up my legs. I have no idea where my thong is, but that’s the least of my concerns.

As soon as I stand up, Devin is on me, shoving his pointy tongue into my mouth and licking into my gums like I’m one of those grape-flavored ice pops he loved as a kid.

“You were so hot, Siren. But”—he plants another sloppy kiss on my mouth before pulling back—“no one can know about this. If I find out you told Marina, I’ll kill you.” I nod my head at his dramatics. Do I think he’ll actually kill me? No. But I do believe that he’ll make my life a living hell if Marina somehow finds out about this.

I already regret my weakness and decision to sleep with him. I know it was wrong; I know I shouldn’t have done it, even though he told me they were broken up. But I was lonely and upset when he came to the guest house this afternoon, and when he kissed me and called me beautiful, I didn’t stop him.

God, I’m such an idiot. And now, I’m the other woman.

My friends, Ava and Celeste, both experienced romance-novel-worthy love as soon as they arrived at college, Ava with Greyson, and Celeste with Dante. And though Celeste has resisted Dante’s affections, there’s no doubt that their men are obsessed with them. But after impulsively kissing my best friend, Dylan, last week and now this, I’m convinced that there’s something fundamentally wrong with me.

When Dylan molded his lips to mine in a sweet, gentle kiss, it felt wrong, almost incestuous. Devin’s hip thrusts and tongue-lashing were only nominally better.

“Did you hear me? Or are you ignoring me, Serena?” Devin’s words jerk me out of my thoughts, and I look up at his handsome face. Why did he have to be such an asshole? Tall and broad, Devin looks like he stepped out of the pages of a Ralph Lauren catalog. Before puberty, we had been close friends, but when my parents divorced, our time together dwindled until we were reduced to strangers.

“I heard you,” I whisper. “I won’t say anything.”

“You better fucking not,” he growls before opening the door and walking down the path to the main house, where Marina is ensconced in my old room, living the life I might have had if my father wasn’t a cheating asshole.

1

Serena

It’s funny how betrayal feels like an ulcer in my stomach, an undeniable burning radiating from my chest and encompassing every part of my body. I feel sick and hot but also strangely cold, as though my blood is frozen in my veins and refuses to pump in time with the rhythm of my heart.

I know that’s scientifically inaccurate, but there’s no rationale for the disloyalty I’m facing.

When I came to Greyson, Dante, and Lincoln’s house with Dylan to hang out with CeCe and Ava for a movie night, I never anticipated that my poor decisions would cause such irreparable damage. After Devin stormed into the house to find me and fought with Celeste’s boyfriend, Dante, the very last thing I expected was for Dylan, my best friend since childhood, to admit to telling Marina that Devin and I slept together.

It’s not that I think I didn’t do something wrong; I did. I messed up. I should have stayed far away from Devin, and it’s something I will regret for the rest of my life.

“You fucked him after we hooked up? You’re a fucking whore, just like he said you’d be once you got a taste of dick,” Dylan seethes. Shaking my head, I feel the tears roll down my cheeks as I stare at the boy I once thought of as my best friend. His gross exaggeration simultaneously angers and hurts me; Dylan and I kissed, but it never went beyond that point. For him to claim that it was anything more is mortifying. I’m about to open my mouth to defend myself when CeCe approaches him calmly, like a warrior ready for peace negotiations. But instead of diffusing the situation, she lifts her right hand to shove his head back by his forehead and uses her left hand to hit his throat with an open palm. Simultaneously, she hooks her right leg around his foot and moves the hand from Dylan’s forehead to his knee, pushing him backward until he crumbles.

Looking down at him, she lifts her leg and positions it over his dick. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t crush your balls for speaking to Serena like that.” It’s hard to remember that my five-foot-nothing friend is trained in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and can incapacitate a person with little to no effort.

“Fuck you, you fucking bitch,” Dylan wheezes, struggling to speak after she karate-chopped his windpipe.

Before CeCe can respond, Ava’s voice breaks in. “You suck at kissing. And you,” Ava turns to Devin, who’s now slumped against the wall from Dante’s hits. “You’re a selfish lover.”

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