“There was always drinking and drugs around if you knew the right people. God, it happened so fast and so slow at the same time. One day I was hanging out with the kids who knew who to ask, and the next I was friends with the ones you ask. They were all older than me, most of them should’ve really been at college parties, but high-schoolers are easy to impress and have fewer options. By the time I was fifteen, I wasn’t at the high-school parties anymore and I’d met a guy…”
“How old?”
“Twenty-six.”
"Is he still breathing?" Zero asks, murder in his voice.
I shiver. The chill that races through me is both scary and a little exciting. I feel like I’m holding my ex’s life in my hands with my answer. “I don’t know. Seth wasn’t… he didn’t force me. It was just toxic.”
"You were a fucking kid,” Beast growls. “I’m twenty-seven. Think about that for a minute. Fifteen-year-olds are like flowers. You might stop and think ‘man, that’s a pretty flower’ but then you move the fuck on with your day.”
Logically, I know he’s right, but in my head, I can still remember how special it felt to be chosen. To feel beautiful and ‘mature for my age’. One of the confusing parts to look back on is knowing that I actually was, but not like he meant it. I had to grow up fast to deal with some of what I did, and Seth? He was an immature loser who should’ve known better. We met somewhere in the middle.
“Natalie tried, she really did, but she didn’t know what to do. I don’t even remember moving in with him. I just stopped going home. Seth sold drugs and partied, and they called me his sidekick. It… It wasn’t great, but he made me feel like I’d made my choice.”
"What got you out?" Piston asks with a frown. "You said a judge put you into a rehab program, right?"
“Yeah. Eventually the cops raided the apartment we were sharing with a few other people. I got picked up along with everyone else, but I was the only minor. They could’ve been a lot harder on me, but Natalie used what was left of the money she’d saved from our parents’ life insurance to get a decent lawyer.I gave her such a hard time, but she was still there for me.” Unshed tears sting the corners of my eyes.
Beast’s strong arms pull me into his broad, warm chest. "Neither of you deserved that shit. Eighteen? She had no chance. The fact that you guys came out of it as well as you did, and are still talking to each other? That means something."
My throat is thick and aching. I grab his cut in my fists, just for something to cling to. "Does it? My stupid choices almost got her killedagainwhen Seth told the Unwanted that I had the hundred grand he owed them before skipping town."
Zero shakes his head. "Still wasn’t your fault. It was fucked up, and I get why you feel guilty, but you’re just letting a grown man use you all over again if you take responsibility for his shitty decisions."
"But I?—"
"Not your fucking fault."
The floodgates open, and I find myself bawling into Beast's T-shirt. He just holds me tighter while he waits for me to get it out. No pressure, no annoyance, just gently stroking my hair and making sure I’m not going anywhere.
When I finally run out of tears, I push away, still sniffling. "I'm sorry. What a crappy date, huh? First a bar fight and then you have to deal with my trauma dump."
Beast kisses the top of my head. "So let’s not end it on this. Wanna go for a swim?"
It's so out of left field that my response is simply a very intelligent-sounding, "Huh?"
"Come on. There’s nobody else here and the weather is perfect for it." His chuckle rumbles in his chest.
"I'm in." Piston's already peeling off his shirt.
"I don't have a swimsuit."
"Does it look like we do?" And with that, Piston yanks down his jeans and boxer briefs in a single move, exposing a perfectly sculpted ass you could bounce a quarter off.
I let out an embarrassing squeak, but I’m too mesmerized to look away. Oh my God, what have I gotten myself into?
He wades out into the water, and after a few steps, dives in. "Fuck, that's nice," he yells when his head comes back up out of the water.
"How deep is it?"
Piston stands. The water comes up to about his mid chest. "The bottom’s not too bad, mostly sand."
I swallow nervously. I kind of want to, but do I dare?
Beast barrels past me, bare-ass naked. He hops off the rock and runs out into the water with a loud laugh. "Last one in’s a pussy!" The splash when he launches himself at the water hits Piston like a tidal wave.
I turn to Zero to ask if he's doing this too, and get my answer in the form of a full frontal of his hard body, from his broad inked pecs, to his narrow waist, and below that, the kind of cock that should be immortalized in silicone and shared with the world. And he's not even hard. My heart goes from pounding to absolutely racing. "Oh," is all I get out, at a loss for words. Heflashes me a quick wink and runs for the water, throwing himself into it like he was born in it.
