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CHAPTER1
Jayden
Icoughed and waved my hand in front of my face. “Do you have to smoke while you’re at my house?” I grumbled, frowning at Draven.
Draven grunted and flicked his ink-black hair out of his eyes before tugging me closer to him. I sighed, resting my back against his chest as he raised his blunt to his lips again. Cameron draped his legs across ours, the wind blowing his normally perfectly styled blonde hair out of place. “Stop griping, Jay,” Draven muttered.
I huffed. “Yeah, but that shit is choking me,” I muttered.
Draven just lightly patted my chest and continued to smoke his blunt, but at least now, he was blowing the smoke in the direction the wind was going so it wouldn’t pelt me in the face. Sighing, I reached forward to grab my phone. It was Thanksgiving, but just like every other Thanksgiving since my freshman year of college, it was nothing special. We didn’t cook. We didn’t bake.
It was just the three of us, chilling like this all day until the regular world called again tomorrow and we had to go back to our normal jobs.
We were the only family each other had. My grandmother had raised me—my parents loving their drugs more than they could ever love a child, so they’d pawned me off on her the moment I was born. My grandmother passed away my senior year of high school, three weeks after I turned eighteen. Draven grew up in the system, never knowing his parents or any other family. Cameron lost his parents at thirteen in a car accident.
So, we stuck together. We’d been joined at the hip since we all got tossed into the same dorm room in college, and we’d been inseparable since.
“Hey, look at this,” I gushed, sitting up so I was no longer slouched back against Draven. Draven signed in irritation. Cameron leaned forward to look at my phone. Draven remained uninterested. He normally did unless I pestered him. But I never took it to heart and neither did Cameron.
Draven was just…bored with life, really. Monotonous, I guess would be a good way to describe him. He didn’t get excited about anything, and he was emotionally closed off from everyone. But despite him being a grumpy, goth guy, helovedcuddles, hence why I was currently between his legs and he was eyeing me with a disapproving look over the blunt he held between his fingers.
“It’s a pen pal thing,” Cameron said.
I nodded and clicked on the ad. “This could be cool.” My lips curled into a smile as I began scrolling through, quickly reading through the information provided. “We would get assigned someone overseas to be our pen pal,” I informed them. I looked at Cameron and then Draven. “Will you guys do it with me?”
“Sure,” Cameron said at the same time Draven grunted, “No.”
I pouted at my best friend. “But Draven…” I whined.
He sighed. “Why would I want to talk to a stranger, Jay? I fuckin’ hate people. You know that.”
I jutted my bottom lip out further and clasped my hands together in front of my chest, not above begging him to get my way. “Pretty pretty pretty please?” I begged. “It would make mesohappy if you did it with us.”
He blew out a loud, long breath and put his blunt out in the ashtray beside him. “For fuck’s sake, you aresucha brat, Jay. Yeah. Send me the fuckin’ link, I guess.”
I beamed at him, not even bothered by how many variations of fuck he’d just managed. But honestly, Cameron and I had gotten so used to Draven’s language that it didn’t even really phase us anymore.
Draven’s favorite word was fuck. Pretty sure he was going to one day include it in his will that when he died, he wanted his headstone to read Draven Fucking McMahon.
I copied the link and pasted it into our group message thread before hitting send. Then, I began to fill out the application, so excited that I could barely contain it. Ireallyhoped I got paired with a guy and not a woman. Not that I wouldn’t happily write a woman and try to make her holidays a little brighter, but I was so far from being straight that it wasn’t even funny.
It was an added bonus that Cameron was, too, so he’d helped me a lot in college as I started to date and hook up. And Draven… well, no one knew what Draven was. Even Draven didn’t. He’d just never found anyone attractive. That was okay though—we loved him just as he was.
“Done!” I chimed, looking at my friends just as they finished theirs.
“So now what?” Draven asked, lighting up his blunt again. He snagged an arm around my waist and hauled me back against him.
“Now, we wait, I guess,” Cameron shrugged. He leaned back on his lounger and closed his eyes. “I wonder what it would be like to live somewhere where there’s snow,” he mused.
“Fuck snow,” Draven grumbled.
I snorted.
I stared at the blank piece of paper in front of me, suddenly nervous now that I’d been approved and was expected to write a letter. I mean, I didn’thaveto write one, but it was the nice thing to do. Especially since my pen pal may not get a letter if I didn’t suck it up, get over my nerves, and write one to him.
I blew out a soft breath, glancing at the photo I’d been sent of the man I was supposed to write to. Nikolai Fox was a Sergeant First Class. A quick Google search told me that meant he was important and was sort of in-charge, though not fully. I didn’t pretend to grasp it completely. But damn, it was impressive. And hot, too.
And his face… Even though the image I’d been given was more than likely a few years old, considering he looked eighteen in the picture, he was hot as hell. Sinfully hot, really. Sharp jawline. Blue eyes that seemed flat and cold but still sent needy little shivers down my spine. Full lips that Iachedto taste.
