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I did not take teasing about this subject well, so I wound my arm back as if I might launch my bag of feces at his face. “You want me to use this on you instead?” I threatened.
He gagged and held up his hands to protect himself. “No! No. Jesus God, I’ll stop, I swear. Just keep that thing away from me.”
I lowered my arm, and together, the three of us made our way back to Fox’s place that was about six blocks away from the Lowes’.
There, we camped out on the front porch swing and played on our phones, making jokes together about things we saw online. Trick found an old car for sale that he wanted to fix up with his dad, and Fox checked out sound systems he wanted to install in his room, while I stalked both Bentley and Ridgely’s social media accounts to see if either of them were updating with posts about their night. But all was quiet on their pages, and that drove me crazy because I couldn’t decide if that meant they were having a good time together or not.
At one point, Fox’s dad came home from work.
Knox paused after walking up the front steps to the porch and wrinkled his nose at the odor that the three of us must’ve grown used to by now because I’d stopped smelling it a while back.
“Do I even want to know what you three are up to?” he asked.
“Hey, Uncle Knox,” Trick called good-naturedly. “We got your back here; don’t worry. We’re going to keep Bentley from getting a goodnight kiss at the end of that date she’s on right now, easy peasy.”
“Uh, well, thanks for looking out for my girl, but…” He shook his head slowly. “Have any of you considered the possibility that she’ll never forgive you if you keep doing this to her?”
“But Beau says this guy’s a real tool.”
Knox sighed. “Why don’t you just tell her you like her already?” he asked pointedly, lifting his eyebrows as he turned to look directly at me.
“Who? Me?” I squawked in total denial, pressing a finger to my chest and attempting to look completely innocent.
There was a very good reason I would never tell her that. Because if she knew what I actually thought about her, there was a chance she’d reject me.
And my entire existence would cease to exist if that happened. Ergo, it was far safer to keep her hating me, where I couldn’t receive a legitimate rejection since I’d never actually made a legitimate play for her.
Besides, she was like family. It seemed as if it should be weird to like someone who’d grown up being raised like a cousin to you. Seemed as if it should feel like incest. And that was weird. I refused to acknowledge some weird crush on anyone.
So I adamantly told her dad, “I don’t like her.”
He rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Just don’t come crying to me when she gives you a black eye.” And he went inside.
A few minutes later, Fox’s mom came out and offered us drinks for our wait, suspiciously eyeing the bag of shit the whole time. “You boys aren’t actually going to throw that on anyone, are you?”
“Ma, come on. Really?” Fox snorted. “That would be gross. We’re just going to make things nice and smelly so there’s no chance of a kiss goodnight. You don’t want your daughter kissing someone who didn’t even bother to meet you before taking her out, do you?”
“Well, if she really likes him—” Felicity started uneasily.
But the idea of Bentley kissing or even liking someone else made my chest feel all wrong, so I spoke up. “We’ll make sure no one gets hurt, I swear.”
And that shut down any kind of talk about Bentley actually liking the douche nozzle she was with right now.
My mother’s best friend sent me a sympathetic glance. “Okay, but clean up any messes you make, and make sure that smell is gone from my porch before the night’s over, alright?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, sending her a big grin.
Trick shook his head. “Wait, so you’re seriously okay with us sabotaging Bentley’s date?”
Bentley’s mom sighed. “Oh, you boys won’t be sabotaging anything.” Her voice was full of warning. “Because you all would be in so much trouble if anything untoward happened. I’d make sure of it through your parents. Got me?”
We all grumbled our understanding.
Then she gave a careless one-shouldered shrug. “Though if anything, I don’t know, unexpected did occur, I might possibly be able to see some value in observing the results, so we could learn the true mettle of this young man she’s with and see how willing he is to withstand a little adversity in order to be with our Bentley.”
A big grin spread across my face. Yep, I loved this woman.
Felicity pointed at us, narrowing her eyes. “But no shenanigans, you hear?”
