The Complete Arrogant Series(58)

Neither of us has put a label on whatever it is we’re doing. I’m not sure we even know what we’re doing, we just know that it feels good, and when we’re fucking like bunnies, we kind of forget about life’s bullshit for a while.

The last night of Camp Zion is a sort of prom-like, chaperoned celebration complete with a live band playing church songs and punch bowls filled with Country Time lemonade. There’s even a sheet cake with a group photo laser-printed onto the frosting. It doesn’t get much more G-rated than that, but still, Mark refuses to let his kids attend.

So we made plans of our own.

I rap on Waverly’s door at eleven o’clock that Saturday night. “You ready yet?”

Her door flings open a moment later. She’s in jeans and a hoodie, not exactly party material, but I don’t say anything because she’s still pretty damn fine. I press my finger against my lips and we tread lightly down the hall, down the stairs, and out the front door. The second our shoes hit the grass we sprint for my truck like we’re being chased.

“Go, go, go!” She yanks her seatbelt across her chest the second we get inside, peering over her shoulder to make sure all three houses are still black.

They are.

I shift into neutral and push the truck to the end of the street, starting it up and peeling around the corner. By the time we’re halfway to Liberty’s place, Waverly tugs her sweatshirt off and tosses it aside, revealing a low-cut, lace trimmed tank top that hardly covers the top of her breasts.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I can’t stop staring. Fuck, I’ve seen her naked, but I’ve never seen her dress like this.

“What? You like?”

Months of fucking the shit out of her has evidently turned her into a saucy minx. “Yeah, I like. But I don’t like that other guys might like.”

“You’d get jealous? Over me?”

She’s surprised, and I’m surprised that she’s surprised. I thought it was obvious.

I’m falling for her.

“Cover up,” I say.

“No.”

I reach behind the seat of my truck and pull out a gray and blue flannel shirt. “Wear this.”

“No.” She says it harder this time, not budging. “I wore this for you.”

So there we have it. She’s dressing for me and I’m getting jealous over her. We’ve been in each other’s pants for months, unable to keep our hands off each other. She’s in my thoughts, motivating my actions, and invading the air I breathe.

I love every god damn minute of it, too.

We pull up to Liberty’s, cars parked up and down the street and filling the parking lot of her dad’s shop. I take her hand as we walk in, not because I’m trying to be romantic, but because I want every drunken jackass in that party to know from the second they see her, she’s off-limits. As long as I’m fucking her, she belongs to me.

And it’s true. She’s mine from now until the end of summer when we go our separate ways. It’ll be hard knowing she’ll be off to college, probably fucking the first jackass who gifts her a wicked smile because that’s what attention-starved girls do when they get out from under their parents’ thumbs. But I try not to think about that too much.

We show ourselves in, like everyone else seems to be doing, and bump into the plastered hostess.

“Heyyyyy!” It’s Liberty, swaying back and forth, with an armful of beer. “You get a beer! You get a beer! You get a beer!”

Music blasts from speakers behind her, nearly drowning out her voice. Kian’s behind her, smoking a joint. People stare at us with dead-eyed, glassy stares, and a few guys check out Waverly. I squeeze her hand tight and take a couple beers from Liberty’s arms.

“I can hardly hear myself think,” Waverly yells into my ear, “but I love it.”

She takes a swig of beer as we find a couple empty folding chairs in the kitchen. The apartment’s so tiny, though, we’ve barely escaped the noise. I find a stack of playing cards amongst the mess of stale, broken chips and crunched beer cans that line the counter.

“Wanna play a game?” I raise a brow. “A drinking game?”

She nods, smiling, gazing at me from across the table. The party is loud and chaotic, but we may as well be the only ones here.

I shuffle the deck and go over the rules, a simple game of War, modified for drinking. By the time we get through the first shuffle, we need more beers. Three rounds later, and we’re both buzzing. The room’s a little off-kilter, and I feel a stupid smile on my face that won’t go away no matter how hard I try.

“Hey, what’s your name?” A drunk guy stumbles into the kitchen to grab another drink, his gaze fixed on Waverly. “I’m Jared.”