Page 15 of Thick & Thin

Damn, she was good.

“Fucking A, man, she’s kicking your ass!” JJ laughed, slapping me on the arm.

“Fuck you,” I muttered.

The truth was, it was hot. I loved that Jenny could beat me at things.

When we were younger, I would sometimes let her win, but that didn’t last long, and soon, she was besting me.

Races.

Video games.

You name it. She was always good at it.

She grinned up at me, before standing and moving to another side of the table. I grinned back at her, and something she saw in my expression made her smile drop. She looked away before taking the shot and missing.

I didn’t know what it was, but I didn’t dwell on it as I moved to the side of the table and started sinking balls until I scratched, accidentally sinking the cue ball when I hit it too hard.

We played, her pulling ahead until we got to a point in the game where she just needed to land the eight ball, and she would win the game. I didn’t care. The show she was giving me was worth the loss.

Again, she bent over the table.

“If I make this shot, you owe me gummies,” she said.

I swallowed again, my eyes roaming her face. “Deal.”

I had bags of gummies in my room ready for any occasion.

We played a few more rounds of pool before finding a table in the corner. More friends from school showed up, and our quiet corner soon became loud. Something was off with me. I was all about the party on any other night, but I felt anxious and annoyed. Every time I tried to talk to Jenny, she was being pulled away from me, and I knew it had nothing to do with her conversational skills and everything to do with her coming out of the river earlier without her shorts.

The guys were like a pack of horny dogs chasing after a bitch.

My bitch, to be exact.

Instead of laughing with the crowd and socializing, I sat in my corner with my chair leaning back and my feet resting on the top of the table. I lost count of how many beers I put down but fuck it. I needed something to lessen the anger simmering inside me.

“Come dance with me, Josh,” Brandy called from the center of the room where she and a group of girls had started a small dance floor.

I smiled, my face feeling stiff, and I waved her off. I wasn’t in the mood to pretend. The truth was, no other girl had done it for me in months, and I wasn’t going to bullshit myself and act like I didn’t know the reason for my sudden change.

Jenny.

I bobbed my head to the song playing and took a long pull from the fresh beer the waitress had just set on my table. My eyes roamed the room, taking in the final moments of our teenage life, when I caught Jenny in my sights.

She was in the corner, and Colton Lane was leaning toward her, his arm resting against the wall above her head. Whatever he was whispering in her ear was making her blush.

These fuckers didn’t listen. Only this afternoon, I was telling Colton to keep his eyes and hands away from Jenny. Everyone assumed it was because she was my best friend, which a good bit of it was for that reason, but no one suspected it was because I wanted to be the one whispering dirty things in her ear.

The one touching her.

The one kissing her.

The one … I stopped, my cock growing and pressing into my zipper.

Fuck.

Standing, I went over to JJ.

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