Page 65 of Lovestrung

I wanted revenge on the twins because they’d ratted me out to Dad about finding me with my boyfriend, Adam, in my bedroom making out – and me only wearing my bra and panties – a couple days before, and to say that Dad wasn’t pleased to find out I was growing up would’ve been an understatement.

He’d been furious and even grounded me for the rest of the school year, as if I was some snotty brat and not a sixteen-year-old woman.

I knew I should’ve locked the door, but Adam’s mouth had completely made me forget all about it.

Kate sighed and flipped her hair away from her shoulders.

“Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you, Pippa.”

I turned my back and rolled my eyes at my friend. Well, maybe friend was pushing it a little too far, but she was the only girl in my class at high school who was friendly toward me. We’d struck up a sort-of-kinda-friendship at the beginning of the year, and now that summer was coming, and our exams would be over soon, she was still the only girl I really felt close to.

“Relax. I know what I’m doing.” Sighing, I sat down on my knees and aimed the big stargazing binoculars to the swimming pool not too far from our spot. The treehouse was at the very back of our lawn, and the pool in the middle was lit up, making it easy to see the party going on underneath us. Parker, Max, and Ethan were down there, celebrating their finished exams with a large group of girls and guys they knew from God-knows-where, and I hadn’t been invited.

Not that I ever thought I would be, but it still stung that not even Ethan had tried to persuade the twins into letting me hang out with them for at least part of the evening.

I hadn’t seen him much since he’d moved out and gone to college a year ago. Every time he came home from college – which wasn’t often to begin with – he seemed just a little more closed off than the last time, and it hurt.

It hurt a freaking lot, but I didn’t know how to talk with him about it. So, I didn’t. I waited him out, just like I’d done when he first moved in, and so far, it always worked. The last day or two he’d be home, he would finally seek me out, and we’d spend the rest of the holiday or long weekend together. It didn’t matter if we simply spent our limited time together hanging out in his old room, either reading or watching movies…or talking.

We were just Pippa and Ethan again. Best friends. The end.

But tonight, as I peered through the binoculars, something odd prickled underneath my skin at the sight of a scantily clad blonde sitting in Ethan’s lap. Where the hell did she come from? She was wearing a bright red bikini that didn’t leave much to the imagination – but that wasn’t odd seeing as the whole party was in various stages of undress – but what struck me this very moment was seeing Ethan with a girl for the first time. They were sharing lazy, secretive smiles and laughing and drinking together. Whenever she leaned down to whisper something in his ear, his hands roamed her back or legs, his eyes kept glancing down to her lips, and it made me grit my teeth.

It was completely irrational, of course. I was happy with Adam – he was sweet, and a little shy, but I liked that he wasn’t one of the rowdy ones. Best of all, he seemed to genuinely care about me. I’d learned a lot about kissing from him, and I enjoyed spending time with him – especially the foreign feelings he awoke within some secret place when we kissed. Oh, yes, I really loved how he made me feel like a woman.

But now, Dad had pretty much put a stop to that, what with grounding me and taking away my cell, and Adam wasn’t even allowed to come to my house to see me for the next couple weeks. Life was so unfair, but…I frowned when I thought about it. Shouldn’t I be feeling heartbroken, or sad, or anxious that I had no way of communicating with my boyfriend for the foreseeable future? I was angrier about having nowhere to go than the actual being-apart-from-my-boyfriend part of the whole mess.

I didn’t know how I should feel about being barred from my first boyfriend, but I did know this:

I shouldn’t be having mixed feelings about seeing my best friend enjoying himself with a college girl. I shouldn’t feel angry, or hurt, or sick to my stomach, when, the last time she bent her head to his, he placed his hand behind her neck and met her inviting mouth with his.

I gasped as I kept watching the way he bent her over his leg, his hand holding her head secure as he completely took control of her mouth, or the way she clung to his muscled arms. My breath hitched but even though every ounce of my being demanded that I pulled away from the sight before me, I kept staring at them through the binoculars. Her hair swept over his arm as he kept up the wildly erotic assault on her mouth, making my own lips tingle. I rubbed them lightly and pushed up on my knees.

“Pippa? What’s going on?”

I shushed Kate and didn’t answer, my eyes riveted on the sight below me. The music was blaring, but all sound disappeared as I watched Ethan move the girl further up his lap until she was sitting astride him. The smile he aimed at her before they started to make out again was savage and erotic, lazy yet determined at the same time, and a small seed of insecurity at never having seen that look on Adam’s face moments before he kissed me swept through me.

When Ethan’s hands molded the globes of the girl’s ass, squeezing it, I wrenched my eyes away, overcome with embarrassment at being the witness to what should be an intimate moment between them. It should’ve been private, shouldn’t it? Frowning, I bit my lip at the thrumming sensation between my legs. If Ethan was together with this girl, why were they being so open and sexual in front of all these people? I didn’t understand how he could so obviously be into her but completely ignored the fact that they weren’t alone.

I didn’t understand how he could be like that with someone who, by all accounts and purposes, should be special to him.

“Pippa!” Kate’s impatient voice broke me away and I blinked as I tried to clear my head.

“I’ll never understand guys,” I murmured.

“What?”

“Never mind.” I shook my head and gave her a crooked smile. “They’re starting to party pretty hard down there.”

She gave me a small smile. “Why don’t we go down, crash their party?”

“Are you nuts?” I gaped at her. “I’m already in enough trouble as I can get.”

She shrugged and crawled closer to the steps. “Being up here is boring, Pippa. If you’re afraid of being caught by your brothers, don’t worry.” She squinted at the party and I followed her line of sight – both Parker and Max were busy playing in the pool with some girls. “I don’t think you’ll get in trouble. Besides, didn’t you say you wanted to get even with them? This will be the perfect way to do it. I have my cell, we’ll snap some photos of them drinking...We can send them to your parents.”

“I’m not sure…”

I knew I was stalling, teetering between wanting to get revenge and staying up here, safe in my treehouse with my thoughts.