Page 33 of The Sun
“Um. Hello? Dear friend. Ben’s a super-hot football player.”
“Exactly why you shouldnotsleep with him.”
She rolled her eyes so hard her head actually followed suit, lulling to the side on a groan. “You need to loosen up.”
“And let my best friend make a tragic mistake?” I shook my head. “Don’t think so.”
“Having sex—”
“Correction, giving up your virginity.”
“Whatever. Giving your V-card to a hot guy isn’t tragic, Sunny.” She blew an exhausted breath through her lips. “Being hung up on one guy your entire life is.” The second those words left her mouth, her eyes widened.
She had reached the level of intoxication where the brain-to-mouth filter was definitely broken. I pushed my back against the booth, pretending her comment didn’t slice me right open.
“I’m,” she mumbled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I. . .”
“It’s fine.” I shrugged a shoulder then grabbed the straw paper from the table, balling it up and tossing it to the floor.
“Sunny?”
“It’s fine, Daisy. You’re right. You wanna sleep with Ben—like half the girls in the senior class, go right ahead. It’s not disgusting at all.” My chest was tight, and my skin grew hotter by the second. She was right. I was pathetic.Iwas the hopeless romantic, not her.
I held too tightly to a boy I had kissed once. A boy I’d said I love you to when I didn’t understand the concept—I still didn’t. Heck, I wasn’t sure half of the adults in my life understood what it meant because it sure as hell wasn’t the bliss Hollywood portrayed.
I was hung up on the idea of almost when Elias and I were so far from almost anything it was laughable.
Yet I couldn’t let go of him.
“Shhh. No more mention of the V-card.” Daisy slapped the table. “Here they come.”
“Party at Mussafer’s house!” Ben pumped his fist in the air, Daisy clapped, and Brandon shrugged.
Bless him. He was as disinterested as I was which meant heart-throb Brandon was starting to earn some major points with me.
Ben gripped Brandon’s shoulders and shook him. “Let’s go, homie.”
The two guys went ahead of us into the gravel parking lot. I leaned in by Daisy. “Did he seriously just say homie? You did hear that, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And you still want to. . .whatever it is you want to do with him?”
Daisy gave me a playful shove before we loaded into Brandon’s Land Rover and headed out to the island.
Brandon showed his pass,and the guard who looked old enough to have fought in the first World War waved him through.
The tires thumped over the tiny, two-lane bridge that led onto Ono Island.
Daisy wiggled in the seat beside me, eyes wide as she peered through the window at the massive houses hidden behind palm trees and boats.
Brandon and Joey Mussafer where two of three kids from the island who attended Robertsdale. The rest of the kids here went to Lockhart Private school. The problem with Lockhart was, while their education was top-notch, their sports teams sucked. Hence the reason Brandon and Joey ended up at a public school.
Football was everything in Alabama. Players—good players—were treated like royalty. They were handed grades if needed, they didn’t get arrested for spray painting the cows out at Dallas Farms, and most importantly, their house parties never had the cops called on them.
We wound around the road, past the water tower, finally pulling through an open wrought iron gate, the intricate kind you would imagine Michael Jackson had in front of Neverland Ranch. When the house came into view, Daisy gasped. “Holy. Hell. That thing is huge!” She wedged herself between the front two seats. “Is your house like this, Brandon?”
“Kinda.”
