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“All valid questions. Do you have an answer for that?” Of course she asks. Because she’s my best friend and she’s not going to let me get away with my bullshit.
I sip from my water bottle to buy myself a minute to think.
Finally, I land on, “I just can’t answer that right now, and I wish everyone would just give me some space to figure things out.”
I feel so awkward and anxious the rest of the day, I avoid Addie at lunchtime. Just as well, I’m not exactly hungry.
Swim practice only adds to my anxiety when, while Coach Weston is going over our strategy for our first swim meet this weekend, I overhear Ridley quietly spouting off to Hadley. What she says makes me about ready to toss up the peanut M&Ms that substituted for lunch.
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“And my dad’s flying off to New York over Christmas, but I have to stay here with my mom and her fiancé, plus the dorky soon-to-be step-sibling. Just her latest attempt to model the perfect, traditional family holiday for her Instagram followers.”
The panicky, over-dramatic teenager inside of me wonders if I should call this whole thing off. I shouldn’t be this stressed out about a relationship. The gifts? The car? Is it worth it? No.
Hadley replies to Ridley, “Yeah, but think of the guilt presents you’ll be getting out of it from your dad! What do you think it’ll be? Front row at Fashion Week?”
“Please. That was last year’s guilt present. And anyway, I doubt he has any guilt at all. He’s been acting really strange for the last month. He’s suddenly got this whole thing about me needing a better work ethic, and saying I’m not getting a new car for graduation. Instead he’s gifting me his old Range Rover.”
Despite my anxiety, I can’t help but be proud of Rushmore for finally putting his foot down with Ridley. This news also improves my mood on another level: my petty feelings for Ridley run deep.
As we’re finishing up practice, Addie tells me she has a quick meeting with Coach Ford and wonders if I can wait to give her a ride home. At the same time, I get a text from Rushmore.
“The car will be waiting for you when you get home. Wear your uniform.”
I apologize to Addie, but she assures me she can find another ride.
Shit. Why does her being so nice about it make me feel worse?
19
Hunter
Whatever nervousness overtook me as the car pulled up to Rushmore’s house, it disappears as soon as I step up to the front door. Rushmore opens it himself—no butler in sight. He’s wearing khaki trousers, a button-down shirt, and a Greenbridge Academy necktie like my classmates wear.
I laugh. “What’s going on? You look like an overgrown chess team nerdlet. Are we, like, role—”
He pulls me to him in a fiery kiss that seems out of nowhere. Or like he’s been thinking about this all day. He breaks the kiss just long enough to pretend-complain about school and asks about swim practice.
Playing along, I tell him it was fine but I’m nervous about our first meet on Sunday.
“Will my boyfriend Anthony be there to cheer me on?”
“You know I will,” he says roughly while mouthing my nipples through the fabric of my sweater.
He ravages my lips once more and my knees almost give out. His lips blaze a trail of kisses down my neck as I moan. “I miss you all the time. Do you think about me when you’re at rugby practice?”
“You know I do,” he says, pressing me against the inside of the front door.
Rushmore groans into the V in my sweater when I palm his cock over his trousers. His breath against me lights up my nipples, which ache for his touch. There’s no way I’m ending this visit without some actual, real, skin-on-skin naked time. My body is screaming for it.
His hands scramble at the fly of his trousers.
“Ooh,” I squeal. “Did my boyfriend bring a condom?”
He grunts as he frees his cock from his briefs. “Don’t need one for what we’re doing.”
“What are we doing? More high school fantasy stuff?”
