Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
“Garrett …” Colten clicks his tongue a few times. “You are a placeholder. A stand-in. A knockoff of the real thing. Go before you embarrass yourself anymore.”
Garrett breaks free from my grip. “I’m out of here. I’m not down with this stupid shit.”
When Garrett’s no longer at my back, and I can’t seem to find a word to say, Colten shifts his attention from Garrett’s vacant spot to my unblinking eyes. He shrugs. “You were right. We can’t end.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
By the end of our junior year, Tessa was the flavor of the month—Josie’s label, not mine.
A senior, Tessa Hart declared her intention to give me her virginity after just three weeks of dating.
“I’m going to college in the fall. I don’t want to be a virgin. And I don’t want a boyfriend. You still have a year left. And you’re experienced, so what do you say?” Tessa pinned me to the side of the concession stand with her big boobs after my first baseball game of the season. Her fake fingernails teased my groin area, and she frowned when she realized my cock was safely tucked into my jock strap and covered with a cup.
Just the thought of her trying to touch me there had my dick at attention. As for her assumption that I was experienced … I didn’t know where she heard that. And what was I supposed to say? That I needed to go have sex with Josie first?
Did I mention Josie had a boyfriend?
“Say yes, Colten,” she whispered, lifting onto her toes and licking my lower lip until I took the bait and kissed her.
“Get a room,” Tami said as she and a group of girls turned the corner of the concession stand, sports drinks and candy in their hands.
Bringing up the end of the cluster of giggles? Josephine Watts. But she wasn’t giggling. Or smiling. The look on her face could only be described as murder.
“Maybe we will get a room. My bedroom. Maybe this weekend when my parents are at the lake,” Tessa said, looking at me, but the volume of her voice was unmistakably announcing her intentions to the rest of the world—or at least to the group of girls.
My relationship with Josie was complicated … flat-out fucked-up by that point. I felt loyal to baseball. My mom and her desire for me to get a musical scholarship. Chief Watts and keeping my balance on the tall pedestal where he put me. And … there was Josie.
The reason my unconventional relationship with Josie seemed to work was because there was nothing conventional about Josephine Watts.
One minute I thought she understood my need to keep my promise to her dad (or at least the illusion of it), and the next minute I feared that she would take my life long before her dad ever got the chance to do it.
To say I had a love-hate-fear relationship with the Watts family might have been a gigantic understatement.
Tessa kissed me, closing her eyes.
I kept mine open, watching Josie toss her drink and bag of licorice into the trash before sprinting toward the parking lot.
“I gotta go,” I said, turning my head to break Tessa’s suction on my mouth before grabbing my duffle bag and running after Josie.
“Colten!”
Ignoring Tessa, I sped up. “Josie!” I smacked the side of her red Honda Civic as she sped out of the parking lot. “Fuck …” I mumbled, dropping my bag to the ground in the cloud of dust she kicked up speeding past me.
By the time I made it home, Josie was in her house, and Chief Watts was home, sorting through his tackle boxes in the garage. As soon as I grabbed my bag from the back seat of my blue, rusty Chevy Silverado, he called my name.
Every time he called me into his garage, which was quite often, I dragged my feet, wondering if that was the moment he was going to break the news to me that Josie told him everything about us.
Break the news to me that he no longer thought of me as his son, and I would have to make amends with my own dad.
Break the news to me that I would soon die because I knew what Josie’s nipples looked like.
There would be no lenience for staying out of her pants. I would die. And Roland Tompkins would cremate me and keep Chief Watts’s secret because Roland had three daughters and would kill anyone who violated his daughters.
For the record, I didn’t violate Josie.
“Congrats on your win,” Chief Watts said.
I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing I’d live another day. “Thanks.”
“Josie ran into the house mad as hell. Savannah is gone for the evening with Benji. Would you mind talking to her? She won’t talk to me.”
Jabbing my thumb over my shoulder, I fumbled my words. “Uh … I … it’s … my mom’s waiting on me. Dinner. And homework.”