Chapter 9

Life is soup, and I’m a fork.

-Krisney to Reed

Reed

Then

I stared at the phone number on my phone, biting my lip as I tried to decide what to do.

I’d been contemplating texting her for three days, but I couldn’t quite make myself press the send button on my Nokia phone.

“Just do it, pussy.”

I looked up to find my brother, Travis, staring at me like I was the king of losers.

“What if she doesn’t answer?”

“Then she doesn’t answer,” Travis countered. “But how will you know if you don’t pony up and do it?”

I grimaced.

“Fine.”

I hit send, and then had a mild heart attack while I waited for her to reply.

After the twentieth minute of just staring at my phone, I got frustrated and shoved the phone into my pocket.

“I’m heading out to the field,” I said. “Do you want to come?”

I was in my third semester of classes at the local community college to get all my basics set in place so I could enter medical school in exactly two years.

I had it all planned out, and had for a very long time now.

My last two years of high school, I’d started taking dual credit classes at the local college to get me a few steps ahead of the game. My freshman year of college, I started with over thirty credits to my name, meaning that I was actually considered a junior instead of a freshman.

Now, at eighteen, I was halfway through my sophomore year, and well on my way to getting all my classes done so I could start pre-med. Then, after that was accomplished, I’d start medical school.

Once I was finished with medical school, I would join the Army as an officer.

I had it all mapped out, every single bit of my life.

Which was what was throwing me when it came to Krisney Shaw.

She was everything I didn’t need. A distraction. A person who was well on the way to making me forget my duties, and what I wanted to make out of my life.

Did that stop me from thinking about her, though? Hell no.

It only made me think about her more, and I felt like a goddamn moron.

Which was why I’d contemplated sending the message in the first place.

Did I really want to start something I couldn’t finish?

I kicked the ball up, bounced it off my chest, and then did a few foot drills while I contemplated what to do next.

“Hey.”

My whole body froze when I heard her voice.

I hadn’t realized how much I’d wanted to hear it until now.

Turning around, my eyes widened.

“You’re sweaty.”

She started to laugh. “I had practice. Volleyball. I got your text. I was about to text you back when I saw you up here, so I thought I’d come say hi.”

I hadn’t realized that she was in volleyball.

I hadn’t realized she was still in high school…which made me feel incredibly awkward.

I was eighteen. Which meant I was at least two years older than her.

Her brother was one year older than her, and he was still in high school, so I suppose I should’ve put two and two together.

I hadn’t, though.

“You’re still in high school?” I blurted.

Her smile slipped. “Yeah…why? Didn’t you know?”

I frowned. “Jay’s still in high school. I guess I kind of thought you were the older one.”

She shook her head. “Jay’s eighteen months older than me, but he failed two classes last year, so he had to repeat the grade. They considered letting him graduate with summer school, but since it was math and reading, they—my parents—decided that it was best to let him repeat.”

I’d actually known that. Her brother had been good friends with Tobias for a while now…a couple years, at least. I hadn’t realized that they were in different grades, though.

“Oh,” I said, not able to think of anything better to say.

Krisney shifted from foot to foot, and that’s when I saw that she was in tight black shorts—and when I say tight, I meant that they left very little to the imagination—and a tank top that molded to her every curve.

My dick hardened behind my soccer shorts, and I dropped the ball that was under my arm to hold in front of my dick.

It was incredibly embarrassing.

“I guess I’ll go…”

Before she could take even two steps, I was in front of her, stopping her forward movement.

“Go out with me,” I blurted.

Her eyes widened.

“You want to go out with me?” she asked in surprise.

I nodded. “That’s why I sent the text.”

Her mouth tipped up into a small smile. “You said ‘hey.’”

I shrugged. “If you’d have answered back, I would’ve followed up with ‘do you want to go out to dinner.’”

She started to snicker, and then her eyes met mine.

Something flashed so fast in their depths that before I could get a gauge on what it was, it was gone.

“Sure.”

And just like that, all was right with my world once again.

“Good.”

“I like your shirt.” She reached forward and peeled the wet fabric away from my skin. “After you wash it, can I borrow it?”

My mouth kicked up into a grin. “I don’t think that it’ll fit you.”

I let my eyes trail up the length of her body, and she blushed bright red before laughing.

“No, but I can wear it to sleep in,” she admitted. “Where do you want to go eat, and do I have time to go home and shower first?”

I nodded. “Take all the time you need.” I paused. “Can I pick you up?”

Her eyes studied me for a second, and then she nodded. “Unless you want my dad bringing me to the date, I think that’ll be best.”

My brows furrowed. “You don’t have a car?”

She shook her head. “No…my parents don’t believe in cars.”

“But Jay has one.”

“Let me rephrase…my parents don’t believe in cars for me.”

One eyebrow cocked up at that. “That’s sexist.”

“That’s my life. My mother makes the rules, I just follow them or pay the consequences.”

I actually had met her mother once before when she was dropping Jay off for the weekend. She was a bitch. I remembered her staring at our house with a disgusted look overtaking her features before she could smooth them into a blank mask.

I’d brought it up to my brother after Jay had been picked up the next day, and Tobias had explained that Jay’s parents were super rich and didn’t really like it much that he was spending so much time at the Hail house.

“Will your mother be okay with me taking you out?” I finally asked.

I’d hate to find out that she wasn’t.

Krisney paused, thinking it over. “Technically? Not yet. I have about four months until I’m seventeen, and officially considered an adult. Age of consent is seventeen in Texas…so if that’s what you’re worried about…”

Age of consent. Sex. Oh my God.

I’d thought about it before, of course. But I didn’t think she’d just bring it up in a casual conversation like we were having.

“That doesn’t mean that she will be okay with it…”

I bit my lip as I thought about it. “Maybe we should just get it out of the way. Are your parents home? I’ll come introduce myself before we go out.”

She looked like she’d rather do anything else, but reluctantly nodded her head.

“I guess that’s best,” she admitted. “What time?”

I looked at my watch, noticed that it was almost after four, and said, “How about seven?”

“I have to be at practice tomorrow morning by six thirty,” she admitted. “We have practice early, before school. I won’t be able to stay out too late. Nine at most.”

“Six?”

Her smile was radiant. “That’s better.”

“Okay. Six it is,” I replied softly.

Her eyes were bright as she offered me a small smile. “See you then.”

Then she was gone, walking away without another word.

I watched her go across the entire field, then move through the gates that led to the parking lot beyond.

There, she disappeared around the side of the building and left me to my thoughts, which were rioting.

On one hand, I knew that this wasn’t a good idea. Jay’s parents—Krisney’s parents—were fucking nuts. They were asshole rich people who thought they were better than us. It wasn’t a stretch to think that they wouldn’t like me. Based on her mother’s face as she stared at my house, I knew that when I showed up at her door dressed in nice jeans and a collared shirt, she wouldn’t think I was good enough for her daughter, either.

But I couldn’t see myself not going out on this date.

It’d been three days, and I couldn’t get her out of my mind.

She’d always be that ‘what if’ that I couldn’t stop thinking about. I just knew it.

And let’s not forget that she was still sixteen. Those years didn’t make that much of a difference in the grand scheme of things, but for state law…yeah, that made a difference.

So, after twenty minutes of more playing around on the field, I drove home and quickly showered.

Once I was dressed in my nicest pair of jeans and my polo shirt—the only collared one I owned—I drove over to her house with ten minutes to spare.

My car was loud in her driveway, and I immediately winced.

The car that I had was loud because I’d cut the mufflers off of it a few weeks ago. I loved the way it sounded…but now, with the reverberation of it bouncing off the houses around me, I was acutely aware that it wasn’t going to be approved of by her parents, either.

Shit.

I shut the car off and walked up the perfectly landscaped path straight up to the front door. Before I could think better of it, I knocked and waited, shuffling from foot to foot.

The door opened moments later, and the nervousness exploded inside of me when Krisney’s father—or at least who I assumed was Krisney’s father—answered the door.

His eyes took me in quickly as he asked, “Can I help you?”

I cleared my throat. “I’m here to pick Krisney up for a date.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “And you are?”

“Dad, that’s Reed Hail. Tobias’s older brother. Jay’s best friend?” Krisney appeared wearing a pair of black jeans, a white t-shirt with black lettering that said ‘Hostel Volleyball’ on it in big bold letters, and a pair of tennis shoes.

“Oh, you,” the man said, finally taking my offered hand. “It’s nice to meet you. Have her back by ten.”

Then he left without another word.

Krisney came through the open door and patted my hand. “Let’s go before my mother gets home. If she sees us leaving, she’ll want to know a whole lot more than my father did.”

“What’s your father’s name?” I questioned her as I stuffed my hands into my pockets.

“My dad is Ephraim, and my mother is Brenda.”

I walked down the pathway with her to my ride, circled around the big beast to her side of the car, and opened the door.

She smiled at me, and I felt that smile straight in my heart.

It kicked thunderously, and I wanted nothing more than to pull her into my arms and kiss her.

She took her seat, though, and grinned up at me. “I’ve never been in a muscle car before.”

I snorted.

“This isn’t really considered a ‘muscle’ car,” I told her. “More like a fast car, with a little more oomph than anything.”

She snorted. “Yeah, whatever.”

Twenty minutes later, we were seated at one of the only restaurants in the city that was open that wouldn’t be packed this late at night.

Instead of sitting across from her, I sat next to her, scooting in close so she was either squished up against the wall or against me. She chose me, and we were touching from knee to shoulder. Her shoulder, not mine.

She was a tiny little thing, and though she had some muscle on her, it was more than obvious that I had quite a few pounds on her.

“How tall are you?” I questioned.

She looked up at me and narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

I shrugged. “Honestly? I’m just curious. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“Five-foot-one-and-a-half.”

“That half an inch is important to you?” I teased.

She blushed and looked back down at her menu before shrugging. “Yes. It really is.”

“In case you’re wondering, I’m six-foot-three.”

She looked back up at me, and our eyes met. “I wasn’t.”

I snorted. “What do you like to do for fun?”

She smelled good. Really, really good.

It was something sweet, melon maybe? Her hair was down around her shoulders, and she’d twisted half of it up and brought it around to lay across her chest.

She kept twisting the hair around her fingers, over and over and over again.

It was downright distracting. On instinct, I reached up and caught her hand, which was nervously twisting the hair, and pulled it down into my lap and gave it a slight squeeze.

“I…” she paused. “I like to play volleyball. Sometimes I like to go to the library.”

That was what she liked to do for fun?

“Really?” I asked. “You don’t go to the movies? Go to the mall?”

She grimaced. “One would have to have a car and money to do those things. Neither of which I have.”

I frowned, thinking about her brother.

“But your brother…”

Her brother didn’t have a job, and he also had a car. What the hell?

“My mother feels that I should be staying home and focusing on my studies.” She snorted. “I have straight As. I could seriously graduate right now, but it serves my purposes to do what I’m doing.”

“Why?” I asked.

She looked away. “What are you getting to eat?”

“A hamburger,” I answered, knowing that she didn’t want to discuss what we’d been talking about any longer. “You?”

“I’m thinking chocolate cake.”

My lips twitched.

“You’re thinking chocolate cake?” I laughed. “What about your main course?”

She pursed her lips. “Maybe fries, too. And a strawberry shake.”

I just laughed, knowing that she was being one hundred percent serious.

“Do you do this often?” I questioned, drawing a pattern on the back of her hand with my thumb.

“Do what?” She licked her lips.

“Order odd stuff for dinner,” I expounded.

She shrugged. “I like ordering pancakes and French fries when we go to IHOP, but that’s not all that often that I get to do that because my mother feels that I’ll gain a vast amount of weight if I eat like that too often.”

I didn’t have anything to say to that.

“I’ll gladly take you out to eat any time you want me to,” I told her. “And I highly doubt that you’ll put on weight like she’s thinking. You’re thin, active and young. Those three things are in your favor. Now, give it twenty years, and you might not have the same luxuries. But if you want to eat pancakes and French fries, then it won’t affect you like she’s thinking it will. At least not yet.”

Her smile was wide as she laughed.

“I’m glad someone agrees with me,” she admitted. “I go out and run a few miles every other day, depending on how hard of a workout I had that day. I can afford to eat the chocolate cake.”

The waiter came and took our order then, and he didn’t blink an eye at bringing dessert out with my meal.

And later, as I watched her enjoy her cake and strawberry shake—which she dipped her fries into—I didn’t once think that she was odd.

No, I thought she was enchanting, and I couldn’t wait for the next date.