Evie rolls her eyes. “Danica Miller. She goes by Dani. We have a couple of friends in common. She’s a real pill though. Nearly every time we’re within earshot of each other she deems it necessary to make a comment about me, whether it be about my looks, my height, my personality, any and all of it is fair game in her mind. She always tries to pass it off as joking or advice, but I mean really. It gets old. The only time she doesn’t, oddly, is when the horsemen are around.” Evie huffs out a breath and a few strands of her hair flutter about her face caught up in the air movement.
“The horsemen?” We’ve come to be fairly in sync most of the time, but right now I’m on Earth and she’s somewhere on Mars.
“Yeah. Ryne, Evan, Tyler, and Roman. Or as I personally refer to them, the four horsemen. Ya know, the whole apocalypse thing.” She waves her hand toward the crowd, and I look but don’t see them. “They’ve all got that weird vibe going. It fits them.” Are we talking about the same group of guys? I stare at her like she has three heads. Evie must see the confusion on my face because she answers my silent question. “Yeah… the same lovely group of guys you verbally dueled with at the diner. They can be real jerks, don’t get me wrong, but since elementary school, they’ve sort of, um, watched out for me? They literally never talk to me about it, it’s some kind of unspoken thing. I have no idea why and Lord knows most of the time we get on each other’s nerves. I really don’t understand, but it does come in handy once in a while.” A small gust of wind whips through. After it settles, Evie looks at me and laughs a little, then reaches over and places a few strands of my hair back into place. “You had a bit of a crazy scientist look there for a minute. Okay. Let’s go swim.”
“Sounds good to me.”
I stand up and brush some stray sand off my swim shorts. They’re new and I love them. A white band surrounds the top and the rest of the material is navy blue. They are pretty short and fairly tight but still have a tiny bit of room around the leg area so as to not look like boxer brief underwear. They make my abs and ass look really good. Although my ass and abs look good on their own. I put in a lot of effort to stay in shape.
Reaching a hand down I gently pull Evie up when she grabs hold, and we head down to the water’s edge. On the way there I sense eyes on me but I keep my own on the water. I’m the new face in the crowd so it’s to be expected. The lake is really beautiful. Small ripples float through the water from the breeze. Bright streams of sunshine beam down on it, creating a sparkling effect. Evie grabs my hand and we wade in together. The goosebumps are immediate. “Shit, the water’s cold. I figured it would be warmer since it’s summer.” Beside me, Evie’s teeth chatter together lightly. She looks over at me and smiles, her lip still shaking. “You know what helps you adjust to the cold temp faster, right?”
She starts backing away from me, dropping my hand and shaking her head. She repeats her very same words from earlier. “You wouldn’t dare.”
I nod slowly, taking a step toward her. “Oh, I do dare. I do dare indeed.”
It’s hard to move quickly through the water, and with my longer legs, I quickly catch up to her and wrap my arms around her, ready to dunk her. However, in what I can only describe as some moment of sorcery, Evie wraps her arms around me and manages to dunk me instead, catching me completely off guard. She climbs her legs up my back and pushes away to keep me from pulling her down with me. I emerge from the water, sputtering and wiping my eyes. I dip my head down in the water again and when I come back up this time I flick my hair back so it stays out of my face.
“How the heck did you do that?”
Evie grins and shrugs. We horse around for a while until someone calls out to her. She waves and turns to me. “I’m gonna go talk to Lucy for a minute,” she gestures over her shoulder at the girl with blonde hair tied in two braids. “Do you wanna come with me?”
“I’m gonna grab something to drink.”
“Okay! I’ll catch up with you in a minute.” Evie swims in the direction of her friends and I make my way out.
Water drips from my hair down my neck, and a few drops trail down my chest to my stomach. Wind whips by again and paired with the cool water on my chest, it’s a bit nippley. To my left is a group of people engrossed in what appears to be funny conversation given the laughter, save for one. Ryne stares at me with what I can only describe as contempt on his gorgeous face. His eyebrows are knitted together, and his lips are turned down at the edges. My stomach twinges. Our gazes stay locked longer than is generally socially acceptable, particularly when one of the parties involved has a very strong and unfounded dislike of the other.
Look away, Dacen. Don’t get sucked into the vortex.
Ryne’s eyes dance over my body before he turns away, just a quick look but not so fast I miss how they linger on the barbell pierced through my right nipple. The piercing is a new addition my parents let me get recently. I blink a few times and the sounds of the party fill my ears. There’s something about Ryne that sucks me in, draws me to him, even though if I get too close I’m at risk of being charred by the flames burning hot and bright behind the seemingly disinterested vibe he tries to give off. His expressions, his words, none of them have been particularly pleasant since I moved here, in fact, they’ve been downright rude. And yet… the pull is still there, strong as ever.
I look away and catch Noah’s eye. He’s standing near Ryne and his friends, and next to him is a girl with long, dark hair pulled up into a messy bun: Trisley Masters. Evie introduced us earlier. She seems pretty nice. Noah’s eyes brighten and he gives me another wave. Ryne leans over and says something to Tyler and Evan, and their heads turn like marionettes toward me.
I march right up to Noah and reach out my hand with a smile. “Hey, I’m Dacen Becker.” He clasps my hand. “Hi, Trisley.” I nod at her and she smiles.
“Noah Keller.” After a firm shake, we drop our hands again and he runs one through his hair. “It’s nice to meet you, Dacen Becker.”
The way my name comes out of his mouth sounds a little flirty. The corners of my lips turn up but I keep my eyes neutral and steady. He’s cute but not my type. I gravitate more toward tall, handsome, and jackass, apparently. I tip my chin up at him. “Likewise.”
Noah’s focus shifts to my chest, specifically to my piercing. He gulps audibly and Trisley shoots out an arm to elbow him in the side. The movement catches Ryne’s attention and he follows the line of Noah’s stare straight to my chest. He flicks his tongue out and licks his lower lip. Tyler coughs conspicuously and Ryne’s eyes snap to his face in an almost comically dramatic fashion. The look that passes between them is undecipherable. They have a lengthy, silent conversation within the confines of that brief look, an argument maybe. Tyler smirks and then turns to me.
“Did that hurt?” He gestures toward my chest with the hand holding his drink.
Roman finally tears himself away from a conversation he’s been in this entire time but leaves his arm draped around the shoulders of the blonde girl next to him. “Well shit, Pecker. You might have more balls than I initially gave you credit for. I still don’t like your dumb ass though.” The look he gives me is a cross between cocky jerk and dickhead.
“It’s Becker, and don’t worry, the feeling is mutual.”
“I wasn’t worried.” Roman sticks his tongue between his teeth and bites down gently, almost mockingly, then dismisses me just as abruptly as he’d inserted himself into the conversation by turning his attention to the blonde. He dips his head down and whispers something in her ear that makes her giggle and nod, and his lips move to her neck, planting a kiss on her skin, sucking on it a bit like a vacuum. The star-struck look on her face would be laughable if I didn’t feel sorta bad for her.
It’s just a hunch, but he comes across as the type to use and dump person after person. Dropping his arm from her shoulder, he snakes his hands around her waist and then lower, grabbing a handful of ass in each palm, pulling her up as she wraps her legs around his waist. I look around at each of Roman’s friends and they are unfazed. This must be his normal behavior then. I scoff and try to cover it with a cough. Tyler’s eyes flash brightly as he looks over at me, and Ryne just gives me a surly glare; what I now believe to be his default look. Like resting bitch face for the angsty-but-trying-to-act-chill teenage male.
Tyler repeats his question. “So did it hurt?”
I take a breath in and release it slowly. “More than my ear, less than…” I glance down at my swim trunks, “less than other areas probably.” I kind of want a Prince Albert but I’ve been too scared to take the plunge. Maybe someday.
Ryne, who’d been mid-drink from his bottle of water, chokes on the liquid. He spits it out in the sand at his feet, coughing and sputtering.
“Jesus, dude.” Evan smacks him on the back.
