We pack up and hit the road. I give him directions to Carlton, and he doesn’t bat a lash as the highway approaches.
“It’s my summer job,” I explain. “I have to make deliveries, but today, I wasn’t really able to.” Totally not a lie. I’m completely unable to. In fact, if you carefully analyze my level of fear, I’m downright disabled from ever getting these confections to where they need to be. “By the way, there’s no way in hell I’ll even let you look at one of those cute little cupcakes.” Because, honestly, they would totally be toast. They really are that delicious. I had about six myself. A thought comes to me. “But I have a very creative way to pay you for your troubles.”
Rex glances at me a second, his hands flexing over the steering wheel as if getting a better grip. “If this involves you, me, a bed, and our parents hovering in horror, you can forget it. Every day this week, my mother has called making sure I haven’t deflowered her ‘daughter’. Do you even understand how wrong that sounds?” He winces into the road up ahead.
“Oh, totally. My father texted and said he’s back on his anxiety medicine. He’s sort of waiting for affirmation that the two of us will never knock boots.” I frown at the sexual side street we just went down. “But, no, my older yet no wiser perverted brother, this in no way involves an incestuous flesh exchange. Although it does involve something sticky sweet with a hole in it that I’m betting you’d be happy to stick your tongue in.” I let him stew in his perverse frame of mind for a moment. “Donuts. I pay in donuts.”
“Donuts.” His head arches back, and he closes his eyes briefly before getting back to the task of keeping us both alive. “Hell yes. Donuts.”
We finally make it to Carlton, to the exact venue where the bat mitzvah is taking place. Rex helps me haul in the boxes of bakery treats to the kitchen where he’s bombarded with the girl of the hour along with about a dozen of her pre-teen friends, all gawking over how cute the delivery boy is. A paparazzi worth of pictures is snapped by the teen scene, with some of the girls boldly asking to pose with him.
Once we manage to escape the underaged mob, we hop into the truck and head back on the road. I pull out my phone and do a quick search for the nearest donut shop and pull it up on my map app.
“They got an Auntie’s Donuts about three miles down if you get off on the second exit.”
“Auntie’s? That’s my favorite.” A wistful look crosses his face as he makes the necessary lane change.
“It’s my absolute favorite. I hit the one in Hollow Brook every Sunday, and it’s a donut-fest from sun up till sundown.”
“Really?” His brows knit into one long black wiggle worm across his forehead as if the thought of me voluntarily clogging my arteries gave him reason to worry.
“Yes, really. I get up early and ride my bike over. I bring back two boxes and leave one in the commons room because I’m nice that way.” I make a face at myself in the passenger’s side mirror because I think we both know I’m not all that nice. The fact I’ve chosen to outwardly deceive my father can testify to that. I can’t help it, though. Lynette Toberman has mistake stamped all over both her and that beach bag of a Louis Vuitton purse she demands to cart around.
“That is nice.” He inches his head back as if this act of carbohydrate kindness stumped him on some level. We get off the highway and thread through traffic until I point across the street at the gleaming green and white building.
“Oh my God, it’s huge!” I marvel at the sheer expanse of the business and silently wonder if this is the flagship store.
“I love it when girls say that.” He shakes his head as if reliving a memory.
“Could you stop being a pervert for like one second? I’m talking about the building. I know my way around a donut shop, and that’s like the Taj Mahal of deep-fried ooey gooey goodness.”
“Ooey gooey goodness?” Now it’s his turn to make a face as he pulls into the nearest parking stall.
“Let me guess. Another little quip you like to hear in bed?”
“Now who’s the pervert?”
We head inside, and, to my satisfaction, I was right. This is the biggest, baddest donut shop in the East, because not only is it large enough to house every donut ever consumed by humankind but the deep fryer runs along a plate glass window, allowing the customers a peek into the mysterious donut making process.
“Where do we start?” He bounces on his heels, and I can’t help but note the fact he looks boyishly intrigued, which at the moment is a good thing because the thirteen-year-old in me is just as eager to be on this spontaneous field trip.
“How about in dough town?” We head over to where the proofers are set up near the front and follow along as raw donuts are spit onto a conveyer belt of a fryer. About halfway through, the donuts flip over, and finally down at the end, each golden brown confection runs under a waterfall of warm, sugary glaze.
“Shit,” he whimpers, and about three different mothers give him dirty looks. Of course, those dirty looks morph into wide-eyed come hither, lip-licking forms of sexual advancement. All of which I’m sure Sexy Rexy here is used to.
We head up to the counter, and I put in an order for two-dozen fresh, hot, glazed.
“Add two more,” Rex says, pulling out his credit card.
“Four dozen boxes coming right up.” The young, lanky boy behind the counter doesn’t even blink. I’m betting he hears such ludicrous orders all the livelong day, and why not? They practically have you hypnotized to make absurd purchases after subjecting you to their entrancing conveyer belt voodoo.
“That’s right.” Rex pays for our purchase before I can protest.
“Hey—I’m supposed to be paying for these. I’m making restitution, remember? I feel like I’m ruining your Friday night.”
“Oh, you’ll pay for this, all right.” We step aside as we wait for our boxes.
“If this involves you sticking your tongue into a sticky, sweet hole that happens to be attached to my body, you can forget it.”
A whole new crowd of mothers turns around and sizes up both Rex and me. The shorter one with a bob gives me a sly thumbs-up. Perverts, all of them. But I give her a little wink back.
“I was thinking something a little more creative—and wholesome.” He gives a tight smile to the peanut gallery before returning those serious eyes back to mine. “A movie at my place.”
After successfully scarfing down one box of hot, glazed donuts, and many miles later, we pull into the driveway of a small clapboard scholastic retreat otherwise known as Rex’s place.
“So this is the sex lab,” I say as he unlocks the door and lets us in.
“This is where the magic happens.”
The scent of stale coffee and a thin trail of his cologne are the first to greet us.
“If by magic you mean disillusionment and cheesy sleight of hand, then I believe you.”
“All right, Queen of the Donut.” He takes the boxes from me and sets them onto his coffee table. It’s surprisingly clean inside, considering he had no clue company was coming. Dark wood floors complement the sparse white walls, save for the overgrown television taking up the entire north side of the house. “Make yourself at home.”
“I love it.” I gasp at how aesthetically clean the place looks. The dark floors have nary a footprint on them, and there aren’t any notable dust bunnies lurking in the corner. I know for a fact dark floors are the hardest to keep clean because the slightest bit of dust creates snowy tracks before you know it. His furniture looks new. Espresso-colored leather sofas and a black coffee table all add to the modern clean look he seems to be shooting for. There’s an expensive appeal to his furnishings, yet they’re understated and not too showy, a lot like Rex himself. As much as I’ve wanted to peg him as the spoiled rich boy, he’s broken down just about every stereotype I tried to shove him in.
Rex points the remote at the one-eyed beast against the wall, and it flicks to life, raining a supernova of light over the tiny living room. “Let me gue
ss, chick flick?”
“I was thinking more dick flick. I prefer the shoot ’em up action movies to sappy rom-coms. If there’s archery involved, it’s an added bonus.”
“Cool.” He disappears into the kitchen and comes back with a tall glass of—
“Almond milk?” he offers. “I gave up moo juice. It’s all I’ve got.”
“Perfect. It’s all I drink.” We take seats on opposing ends of the sofa as he scrolls through the movie selections until we both settle on Braveheart.
“So, what gives?” He cracks a custard-filled buttermilk donut in half and offers me a piece. We splurged and purchased a box of mixed delights in the event we experienced a glazed burnout.
“What gives with what?” I take it from him and indulge in a moan-worthy bite. “It’s still hot, and the cream is warm, too. I love custard filled.” My eyes roll into the back of my head a moment before I spot that perverse grin of his blooming on his face. “I know what you’re thinking, and you’re sick.”
“You’re sick, sister. You’re the one who said it.” He lands his feet over the coffee table, and we watch the remainder of the movie while gorging ourselves on the carbohydrate-fest. No sooner do the credits roll than my stomach does the same with nausea. “God, I never want to see another cream-filled delight for the rest of my life. I don’t think I can swallow another drop of that ooey gooey goodness.” I blink up at the ceiling a moment before glancing to Rex. I led him right to the door with that one. If he doesn’t take it, I’ll begin to question his true intentions.
“If you were only the first girl to utter those words within these walls.”
And there it is. Rex and I break out into sugar-induced hysterics over my ill choice of words, appropriate as they were.
“I’d better get going.” I hop up and gather my purse, still wiping the tears from my eyes. It’s pretty easy hanging out with Rex—almost, well, brotherly in a way. Almost.
“Let’s do this again.” Rex gets up lazily and stretches before snatching his keys off the table.
“Oh, I don’t need a ride.” I feel bad enough I clogged up so much of his time already. “It’s a nice night. I don’t mind getting some fresh air.”
Rex walks me to the door, and just as I’m about to exit, he blocks it with his tree trunk of an arm. My eyes trace out his perfectly formed bicep—those long, green-blue veins that pop to the surface and rope around his forearm, twisting all the way up to his shoulder. Rex is tall, well-built, and far too handsome for it to ever be fair. His T-shirt is rumpled, his jeans slung low and tight in all the right places, and for a second, I envision what he might look like without all of those clothes on. His chest would be a wall of contours, sheer girth and muscles, his arms rock-hard as his—
“My eyes are up here, sweetheart.” He bleeds a dry smile.
His chest sits inches from mine, and the slight scent of his cologne inebriates me—makes me crave a man, not particularly this one, but still, that scent sets my ovaries on fire. Damn the cologne industry to hell for infusing those bottles with pheromones. It’s hormonal warfare at its finest. They really don’t fight fair. Those lucent eyes of his meet up with mine, and for the first time I’m close enough to inspect them for color, a strange mixture of blue-green with flecks of brown near the iris. Robin’s egg blue. I’ve never seen a color like that before. Every last bit of me wants to get lost just looking at them, examining them, memorizing them, so I can pour over their delicate details late into the night.
“You never answered my question.” He blinks and pulls me out of my trance. “What gives?” He glances down at my shoes. “You said you hurt your foot, and yet I haven’t heard you talk about it, haven’t seen you limp.” He tilts his head knowingly. “Admit it. You didn’t hurt anything.”
“Are you accusing me of being a liar?” Quite frankly, I’m aghast, affronted! But mostly I’m just flummoxed to be so proficiently called out on my bullshit.
“Oh, sweetie”—a dark laugh gets buried in his chest—“I’m not accusing you of being a liar—I’m well aware you are one.”
I suck in a sharp breath. My face burns with heat. I know full well when my cheeks heat up as if they’ve been stuffed with live coals that my face is practically glowing. I hate that something as benign as my complexion gives away my intentions. My Irish heritage can be such a brutal traitor.
He frowns. “I’m accusing you of having two perfectly good feet, and I want to know why you asked me to come with you.”
“I like your leather seats.” Gah! That’s the best I can do? I like your freaking leather seats? “They smell nice.” At least I didn’t say that he smelled nice. His brows rise in amusement. Crap. He’s going to think I’m psychotic. There has to be a better reason. “And if we’re going to play the part of a couple—we should be doing things as a couple.” God, where is this going? And where the hell is the shut-off valve to my vocal cords? And why the fuck aren’t my feet working so I can run the hell out of here? “You know, like kissing.” I stutter my way through that last word because for the life of me I can’t recall the last time I kissed a set of human lips. “Plus, I don’t really want you spending your Friday night with your lips buried in some sticky, sweet hole when I fully know where they’ll be in two weeks.”
“Two weeks?” His lips twitch as if he’s holding back a laugh. “Yes, Saturday after next. My dad says they want to get us all together for dinner and discuss the final details of the wedding.”
His eyes bear into mine as if he’s holding me hostage with them, and he might be. “And that’s when we’ll do the things that couples do?” Rex leans in until his searing breath rakes over my mouth. “Like kissing?” I can tell by that mocking smile, those hooded eyes, that he’s relishing the moment—to ridicule it for later no doubt.
My heart stomps its way out of my body with such efficiency, any minute now I expect to see it lying at my feet. People will ask how I died, and the answer will be I had a brief and fleeting desire to test out my kissing skills with my future stepbrother of all people. Of course, rumors do love exaggeration. It’s the hog the tick feeds off to get nice and bloody fat.
“Yes, we will kiss if we have to.” I brush past him and into the cool night. The scent of jasmine perfumes the air, and I take it in like a necessary elixir to calm my fragile nerves. The closer Rex Toberman inched to my body, the more I felt I was about to detonate.
“Maybe we should practice!” he shouts after me like a taunt, and I let out a raging scream that’s been building in me for as far back as that first night at the Happy Squirrel.
“You wish! I bet you can’t wait to stick that sick tongue of yours into my mouth!”
Someone lets off a catcall from across the street.
“I was thinking of a hole that’s a little stickier and sweeter!”
That’s it. I cover my ears and run all the way across the street to Whitney Briggs.
No sooner do I get into my dorm and jump into bed than my phone buzzes. It’s a text from the sticky, not-so sweet pervert himself.
Sorry. You bring out the best in me, Muffin Top. ;)
A dull smile comes and goes as I text him back. No problem, Goober. You bring out the donut-loving, dirty little stepsister in me. Thanx for keeping it real. Be ready to initiate a full and total takedown in two weeks.
He pings right back. I’m all in. Get ready to have your tonsils invaded.
A warm shiver rides down my spine right to my quivering thighs. Quick, I need something sarcastic and snappy to lop right back, or he’s going to think I’m actually meditating on the idea, blushing from head to toe as I envision how it would feel to have Rex Toberman invading my oral personal space in such a passionate manner—not that there would be actual passion, just your garden variety knockoff version specifically designed to spook our parents. My heart gives a few unnatural thuds at the thought of Rex invading my anything.
Crap. I shake my phone. “Say something.” I begin typing without giving it too much thought. r />
Every sticky, sweet orifice of my body is ready for your invasion. Let’s give them a show they’ll never forget. I hit Send then stare at my phone in horror for a solid five minutes before burying it beneath my mattress.
It goes off again, but I spare myself the misery.
I try to go to sleep, but sleep never comes. All night long I think of a thorough and complete bodily invasion.
I can’t seem to get Rex Toberman out of my head.
I don’t seem to want to.
Rex
Saturday night at the Black Bear lends its own unique energy to life, but a Saturday night at the Black Bear in the middle of June is a bit thinner and sparser than it is the rest of the year. Seeing that the Black Bear caters to a trifecta of universities in the area, most people went home or simply away for the summer. It’s still plenty busy, plenty of bodies bustling—scantily clad bodies, which is understandable since we’re embroiled in a hellish heat wave at the moment. I spot Jet and Owen near the back. Piper’s brother, Cade, is with them. He’s managing the bar for the summer as a part of his work-study program. His girlfriend, Cassidy, is waitressing here, so it’s a sweet setup for him. Any minute I’m expecting to see Owen’s girlfriend pop up with her friends. Scarlett happens to be one of them, and I know for a fact she’ll be here because Owen mentioned something about a bachelor-bachelorette party taking place tonight. Piper’s brothers are both getting married soon, and tonight’s the last night of unabashed freedom for all involved.
“Dude.” Owen slaps me five as I take a seat and nod over to Jet. “You ready to let loose?”
“I’m already loose.” I grin over at Cade. “Rumor has it you’re the best man to both grooms. You ready for the big day?”
He grimaces. Cade and Piper share the same dark hair, same features. In some ways, they look more like twins than Knox and Trixy. “All I have to do is stand there. It’s going to be a short and sweet ceremony at the overlook. The reception is right here at the bar. They’re closing off the back.”