Page 21 of Promise Not To Fall

Jake grins and raises an eyebrow at me, and then beckons me forward with two fingers. “How the fuck do you know what a hobo’s nut sack tastes like, Kendall?”

“Eh. College was a bit of a blur.”

“Nash!” a girl screams from behind us.

We both turn to see Nash buttoning his pants.

“Are you sure he only smokes weed? Something’s not right with him.”

Jake glances over his shoulder at Nash again. “No. Did he really just pull down his pants?”

“Yep. Looks that way.”

“Goddamn him. He has no class.” Jake’s gaze flickers around the bar a few times and then returns to me, landing on my face. “I don’t know what his deal is, but he gets to a certain point in the night when he’s had too much.” He points at Nash. “Like right now. And he starts showing people his dick.”

“Really?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

The girl apparently didn’t appreciate the show and hauls off and punches him. Right in the dick. “Stop showing me your dick, asshole!”

Nash walks by, shoulders slumped and looking shameful.

“Why you gotta do shit like that?” Jake shoves Nash forward as he stumbles around the bar. “Stop flirting and showin’ girls your fucking dick, man!”

Nash could barely stand up. He was just punched in the dick. I bet it knocked the wind out of him.

Nash takes off behind the bar into the kitchen. Probably to dump ice down his pants.

Jake nodded toward the girl who’d punched Nash. “If he does it again, just pull a lip out.”

“What?” She stares at Jake, alarmed.

Jakes doesn’t miss a beat as he pulls a towel from under the bar and rings out the water. “Make it even for him pulling his dick out.” He smiles, wiping down the bar with a rag. “Pull a vag lip out.”

He did not just say that? My wide-as-saucer eyes move from Jake to the girl, and it’s her look of horrification that makes me burst out laughing. I’m not sure if she wants to laugh or gag at the thought. “I swear to God, Jake, he does that shit to me again, and I’m going to chop his junk off!”

“I’ll give you the scissors,” Jake tells her, taking the money she hands him as she stands next to me at the bar. I don’t look at her. Well, I do, but I try not to stare. She’s so freaking pretty. All the chicks here are. It’s like California and Florida had babies together and sent them to live in the Bahamas because they were too pretty for the States.

Then the tan goddess hangs her arms around Jake’s shoulders. “When are you going to marry me, Jake?”

Okay, so I’m clearly not the only one taken by Island Boy. Jake’s entire body tenses. With an annoyed laugh, he reaches up and untangles her hands from around his neck. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not marriage material.”

She gazes at him like she wants to eat his face off. Or maybe his dick. I bet if he had been the one showing his dick, she wouldn’t have punched him. Stepping back, she winks at him. “Your loss.”

He kind of gives her that look like, yeah, right, and glances over at me, rolling his eyes. As if to say, he’s not interested.

The dick-puncher/Jake eater cashes out and departs, leaving me and a handful of others in the bar.

Watching her walk away, I can’t help but notice how fucking skinny she is. Seriously, she turned sideways, and I lost her in the wooden posts of the deck.

“She’s so fucking skinny,” I blurt out, watching her walk down the beach until she’s lost in the fading light from the bar.

Jake snorts. “That’s ’cause she only eats dick.”

I maintain my composure well, other than my giggle. Jake notices my amusement and smiles too, beaming and bright, like he enjoys the sound of my laughter. “That’s nice. I hear there’s at least protein in that diet.”

Jake angles his head, as if to agree. “I hear that too.”

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