The Mischief Mavens’ Baking Bloghas had over a million hits last year. Yes, you’ve read that right. A million hits means that they’ve actually spellbound a jury of their peers and tricked them into coming back time and time again. And believe you me, that whole baking thing is just a confectionary ruse. The most popular feature of their blog falls under the category ofmischief. You see, pranks and all things shenanigans happen to be our mothers’ specialty. Donning fuzzy pink robes and curlers just to drop us off at school was a regular running gag—the irony being that neither of them slept in curlers. I can’t even count how many Halloween nights they followed close behind the two of us with demonic clown masks and axes. If you’ve surmised the fact that we never trick-or-treated with other people, you’ve guessed right.
Then there was the time they showed up to our prom. They made no bones about the fact they were chronically pissed that both Jax and I chose to go stag rather than as each other’s plus one. Of course, the mischief mavens decided that what better way to mark the occasion as regrettable than dancing the Macarena right beside us? And the last, but I’m sure not final stunt they pulled on the two of us was altering the acceptance letters from the universities we applied to, informing us that we had swiftly been rejected from each and every school, when in fact the opposite were true. They copped to it soon enough, but the laugh was on them once I chose a school thousands of miles away from them at a private university in L.A. that came complete with a major scholarship. Only it wasn’t the two of them I was running from.
Sadie steps in close with her arms crossed, that oddly vexed look on her face, and it makes me wonder if she wants her cosmo back. “Of course, his mother knows he’s a pervert. Everybody with a pair of eyes knows that. But I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want that for her precious baby boy. In fact, you of all people should realize what Jaxson’s mother wants for him—or should I say who?”
“Not this again.” I down the rest of her drink and slam the glass on the table next to me like a gavel.
“You know it’s true.” Mack shakes her head. “Mom and Deb have always thought you two belonged together. As soon as you were born, they pressed your little hand in his.”
“I know. I’ve seen the picture.” It sits in a frame just outside my old bedroom along with an entire childhood montage of the friendship Jax and I once shared. Our mothers delivered us three months apart—and were they ever thrilled to have a bride for baby Jaxson. Little did they know their precious JJ, as they affectionately called him, would turn into a petri dish for all sorts of new strains of syphilis. “But, poor Deb will have to find another bride for her wayward slutty son,” I huff. “One that doesn’t mind sharing the marriage bed with a revolving door of hussies.”
Jax and I used to be the best of friends—and then puberty hit and ruined that good time. Jax and I started with the puppy dog eyes about fifth grade—but a quick peck of a kiss in the middle of our freshman year landed us in an unspeakably awkward place. It didn’t help that our mothers glommed onto that pimple-laced opportune moment to plan our upcoming nuptials.
Then, in our sophomore year of high school, Jax cornered me next to the old oak in his mother’s front yard that we must have climbed a thousand times to sit in the tree house perched in its branches—and he straight up asked if I liked him. Of course, I lied. I said I was totally in love with Miles Frampton from history class, and that if he ever cornered me with that I’m-going-to-land-you-horizontal look in his eyes again, I would have Miles tear his hairy little balls off. That, right there, launched us onto a rocky road that we have never recovered from.
Jax didn’t seem too afraid of my quasi-violent verbal exchange. Instead, he happily starred in a parade of vaginas—an entire sisterhood of girls who fell to their knees and worshiped at the altar of his boxers.
I know what you’re thinking. Why the lie? I wish I knew that myself. But sex, lies, and vagina parades aside, Jax has morphed from the sweet, kindhearted boy whom I once made mud pies with, to an obnoxious sex machine that sees prospective bedmates as nothing more than walking unruptured hymens and pillowy boobs he can bury both his face and junk in. Jax Stade is not the boy I grew up with, and that’s too bad because I actually miss that boy on occasion.
“Oh, hon”—Sadie shakes her head in his direction—“if I know one thing about Jaxson Stade—it’s that there will be no marriage bed.”
“And if you’re lucky”—Mack holds her drink in the air—“you’ll both escape that thorny matrimonial cage yourself.”
Both she and Sadie whoop it up in honor of their shared disdain for the diamond-clad union.
Mack shudders as she downs the shot in her hand and lets out a howl that nearly pierces my eardrum. “Who’s in for another round? I’ve got you covered, girls.” She takes a few dancing steps away as she edges toward the bar. “We’re going to get M.C. Hammered tonight!”
“Nice.” I frown over at my lush of a sister. It’s clear I’ll be the designated driver of the evening. Hunter, my old buddy who owns the Starry Nights Bar and Grill, actually has a system in place to make sure there are no drunk drivers on the loose in Oak Grove. There’s an entire volunteer force ready and willing to pick up the sloppy drunks as they stumble out of the bar.
“Nice?” Sadie nudges her shoulder up against mine. “Or is itnaughtythoughts infiltrating your undersexed brain? That boy has it going on, Poppy.” She lets out a deep, unruly moan. “You do realize you are the sole reason I haven’t pounced on that Christmas package he’s got tucked away in those tight in all the right places, naturally distressed Levi’s. This is the first night I’ve seen him in anything but a suit, and, dear God, you have not lived until you’ve seen Jaxson Stade in a well-sculpted Italian masterpiece.” She swoons on cue, and as much as I hate myself for it, I swoon right along with her.
“I’ve seen him in a suit plenty of times.” True. And I can attest to the fact he’s just as sexy and swoon-worthy as she claims.
“Not lately. Not with that new body of his. Jax has been hitting the irons like a prisoner. He’s practically a fixture on the main road as he jogs that rock-hard, shirtless, glossed with sweat body of his. Mmm...” She gives a wistful shake of the head. “You should see the backup on that two-lane stretch from seven to nine.”
“Seven to nine in the morning? I see he’s going after the MILF demographic.” Not surprising since everyone knows he’s just about raising his sister’s son ever since Jules’s husband ran out on her. Jules is a few years older than us, and my heart broke when I heard her oaf of a husband took off for the concrete pastures of Manhattan.
“He doesn’t care about the MILFs, Poppy.” Sadie cocks her head as if she wants me to read between the MILF-fy lines, but I refuse to do it. There is absolutely nothing to read at all. Jax and I simply aren’t happening.
And then, just like that, his clear blue eyes settle over me, and he rises a notch out of that crowd of estrogen enough for me to see his dimples digging in on either side of his cheeks, and both Sadie and I lurch a bit.
“He’s spotted you in the wild!” she squeals.
I open my mouth to protest the idea, but it’s too late. She’s right, and he’s headed this way.
“Oh my God!” Sadie does a quick tap dance in her ruby red slippers, and suddenly I’m feeling like there’s no place like home. Why did I think showing up at Starry Nights was a good idea, again? “He’s coming over! He’s parting the sea of redheaded skanks, and he’s coming to see you! Oh my God, this is so exciting! And to think, all those girls have waited all night to see where his penis compass would lead him, and here it’s been pointing to you all along. I bet that needle-dick of his has been pointinghardyour way for the last five years—not that he has anything as minute as a needle-dick. It’s just a play on—”
“I get it!” I give her a quick swat over the arm, but oh my God… It’s as if the world takes life down a notch, and suddenly everything is unfolding in slow motion.
Jaxson Stade walks steadily toward me with that cocky grin curling up his lips, those dangerous sapphire eyes fixed over mine, holding me hostage right where I am, helpless to do anything but wait for him to close the distance between us. His flannel is split open down the front, revealing a white T-shirt stretching taut over his chest, the contours of which demand that the cotton adhere to every sculpted ridge. Damn, that boy is sexy as hell. A breath gets locked in my throat as he swoops in so close I’d swear those lips were coming in for the kill far earlier than midnight.
“Poppy Montgomery.” He pulls me into a tight embrace, his heavy chest presses to mine as I take in the spiced scent of his thick cologne. Those strong, heavy arms, those thick fingers pressing into me, evoke a choking sigh from me. I try to tell myself that I’m not interested in his basic bad boy persona and those basic unearthly good looks. That the fact I’m shuddering from a spontaneous orgasm is just an aftereffect from the rather prolonged dry spell I’m currently enduring, but Jax’s stark sex appeal demands I tell the truth. His heart-stopping looks, those cobalt bedroom eyes, coupled with the fact his rock-hard girth is pressed tight against me, have my body quivering in all the right places.
“Jaxson Stade.” I try to sound equally as jovial, but it comes out more of a whimper after a long wild romp. Something I’m sure he’s accustomed to—both the whimper and the long wild romp.
He pulls back, his arms slipping down toward my waist, and our eyes lock a moment, and there it is—that unspoken secret we have lingering between the two of us about as welcome as head lice, but neither of us is willing to give in to it.
“Good to see you.” His fingers press in over my arms just enough, and a part of me wonders if that’s sexual code forlet’s hit the sheets later. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that he and his hussies have established their own perverted language through a series of clicks and whistles. “I hear you’re killing it in L.A.” He winces a little when he says it as if it pained him on some level. “I always knew you would.” He offers a congratulatory tap to my back before taking a step away, his arms hanging awkwardly at his side as if that were the last place they wanted to be.
