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Prologue
Veronica
The bottle spunaround and around. When it finally came to a standstill, the round opening was pointing at me. The butterflies that had been hammering inside my belly turned into giant birds and I thought I would throw up.
I couldn’t help but notice all the others rolling their eyes. Porsha, a perfect blonde who’d lost her V card with the family’s gardener’s son, cast a judgmental eye at me.
“Well, aren’t you going to go into the closet and kiss Jacob?”
Her friends, Bianca and Juniper, laughed.
“Yeah, Veronica, your lover boy is waiting,” Bianca added.
Harmony leaned in. She was my best friend, my only real friend in the group. It was no secret I’d been crushing on her older cousin, Jacob, since our families had started forcing us into the same social circles as children.
“Don’t listen to them, V, you’ll be okay. You know Jacob is Mr. Dependable.”
I couldn’t help the giggle. She was right. I could always count on Jacob to do theright thing.
Harmony glared at the group and told them they could shove their attitudes where the sun doesn’t shine—in their freshly bleached butt holes.
A blush stole over my face at what she’d said. Did they really bleach their bottom holes? I flinched, imaging how painful that would be and for what? Why did they need their… Oh dear. A picture of Porsha getting nailed by the gardener’s son in the butt flashed through my mind and I just knew my pink-stained cheeks had turned a few shades darker. Maybe they were on to something. I mean, all three of them had confidence, something I sorely lacked.
“Harmony,” I whispered, “do you bleach your butt hole too?”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, V, now get going, Jacob’s waiting.”
I stood up on my wobbly legs and headed over to the closet. We’d been playing spin the bottle, first base version, thank goodness. At fifteen, I looked twelve as my body was slow to develop what the others had in spades—tits and ass. There was no way in hell I wanted to play spin the bottle strip or homerun. Jacob was nineteen and the oldest in our social elite friend group. I was sure he’d seen plenty of naked women, but I certainly didn’t need the comparison to them, especially by my crush, even if the closet was dark.
My hand gripped the doorknob for a moment while I took a deep breath and said a little prayer—Please don’t let me make a fool of myself—and opened the door. When I closed the door behind me, the light from the bedroom disappeared and I was momentarily blind. I felt a well of panic burble up inside and knew I’d be hurling the extravagant dinner we’d finished only an hour ago.
I grabbed the handle and wiggled, but it was locked. “Oh god,” I sobbed. “Let me out!” From the other side I heard a pealof giggles and then Harmony’s voice telling them to shut their holes. Warm hands gently gripped my shoulders.
“Shh, you’re okay, Veronica, just breathe.”
Jacob tugged me against him, and his size alone made me feel safe in a way my father never had. My parents weren’t bad people, they just weren’t fans of showing emotions. I blamed their ancestry. Everyone knew the British only showed emotions to dogs and horses. I’d only received hugs on special occasions, which resulted in me being physically awkward. Add to that my undeveloped body and lack of confidence, and you had a recipe for loneliness.
But this, right here with him, differed from any hug I’d ever received before. Jacob rubbed my shoulders and arms, while muttering words like “you’re okay now V. No one will hurt you, little one. You’re safe with me,”and on and on.
When my heartbeat calmed down from a rackety, rackety inside my chest cavity to a rat-a-tat-tat and the fluttering in my stomach reduced once again to only butterflies, I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.
“Thank you, Jacob. I’m a little afraid of the dark.”
A slightly amused chuckle reverberated through my body from his. “If memory serves, the dark is one of many.”
He turned me around and even though I couldn’t see his face, his minty breath reached me, and I wondered if he’d taken a breath mint before I came in. “Are you ready for your first kiss, Veronica?”
I pulled away from him to gaze into his eyes, which weren’t really visible in the dark closet. “How did you know?” If Harmony told him… well, let’s just say we’d have words.
Another light chuckle from him. “Just a guess. Well, that and I asked my cousin,” he admitted.
“Right,” I said with a snark.
“Now, now, don’t be a brat.”
“Or what?” I crossed my arms. Not that he could see me do it, which took away a little of the defiance I’d been feeling.
“Or this.”
