TW: Mature content

I needed my head examined.

First, I convinced myself that searching Ellie's room was an act of best friend service. A potential snooper was no joke, and I did my due diligence digging through my best friend's shit.

Completed homework, pictures of Logan she probably kissed while missing him, Jake's ugly face, under the bed dildo still in its packaging—nothing out of sorts.

Except for my best friend's admission.

Wait—and extra carpet marks near her dresser.

Searching the drawers yielded nothing, but I paused at her rows of pictures. Two new additions of Logan joined her neatly placed rows. Up front, she probably kissed them while missing him.

Love.

While the word made my nose wrinkle, at one time, it didn't. A time of purer, naïve feelings before my current state of fucked up, borderline toxic existence. Before my life revolved around counting the time left before being released from the hells of high school.

So fucking poetic.

My smirk faded at the proof, Ellie and I at Jake's first game. All of us beamed like idiots but his eyes locked on me over her head. Worse, I was hiding a smile.

Gooey-eyed disgustingness wasn't the embarrassing part—it was feeling that way over Jake.

He'd started our pre-hate-sex-hate relationship when he'd left, of all things, a note in my locker the last school day before seventh grade ended.

Roses are red, violets are blue

Harper Reynolds, I wanna kiss you

Nothing like the muscle head now, thirteen-year-old Jake was normal, awkward, cute. The picture showed the truth—About my height, with thin and gangly arms and legs, greasy and acne-covered skin like Ellie, braces, and greasy hair. Beneath the metal face, he had an endearing snaggletooth smile.

"Harper, this is my gross, stinky brother, Jake."

The adorkable boy in my health class I'd been too shy to approach stared at me with his eyes and mouth open. I wasn't much better, blushing even.

After dinner, I giggled with Ellie that her brother was cute. Well, I giggled, and she gagged, so I kept my sentiments scrawled in my class note margins.

In hindsight, the entire school knew how I felt when Jake's note found my locker. I knew that horrible handwriting anywhere, but he never acted on the words or even acknowledged my existence.

The picture beside it though? "Much better."

Ellie and I flanked a red, paint-chipped locker, plastered top to bottom with feminine products. Our grins and thumbs up were ridiculous, but we thought we were awesome.

"He's going to kill us." Ellie's cheeks pinched as she giggled.

"Looks better than I'd thought."

Admiring our handiwork, the pads looked like abstract blue and white butterflies in flight while the tampons were more like a clip of cottoned ammunition... Or they did until I spelled Jake's name with them.

Losing all those feminine products was worth the color of red that Jake's face had turned, redder than our lockers. We also learned that the extent of his swear word vocabulary was impressive for a thirteen-year-old.

"What the fucking fuck? Who fucking did this!?"

My smile faded at the picture beside it. Ellie and I stretched on sun loungers at the pool two blocks from here.

The summer that Jake fulfilled that note's wish.

He was a month shy of fourteen, me two months. Ironic, two of the oldest in our class and we were probably the most immature...still were.

After Ellie and I spent too long shopping for the perfect bathing suit candidates, that was the first time Ellie and I sported bikinis. The picture didn't lie—Mine was filled out completely thanks to my overnight growth spurt into 'booberty,' as we'd called it, but Ellie's mosquito-bite A-cups barely filled out her top.

Now, my breasts jiggled to my advantage, but back then were embarrassing.

I smiled as the sun flowed into my skin. Even the shrieks of kids and the tinged scent of chlorine and sunscreen in the air hadn't dulled my relaxed state.

With a sploot, Ellie slathered on SPF-65 lotion like mayonnaise onto a sandwich.

"The point is to absorb the vitamin D." I slid my sunglasses down my nose and giggled at the white smears on her face and arms.

"Stupid sun." She continued buttering her skin. "I don't want melanoma."

Before I asked her what melanoma was, cold droplets pelted my outstretched ankles. Flinching, I shaded my eyes and pretended to scowl at the perpetrator.

Jake, semi-tall, vaguely handsome, and dripping water everywhere.

Overly chlorinated water—since kids like Tommy Johnson preferred the pool over the bathrooms—ran out of Jake's slicked-down dark hair, over his lean, tanned torso, out of his red-and-white printed board shorts, and down his thin chicken legs.

Jake Harrison before leg days was so... ordinarily normal.

His braces gone, a wide grin revealed straight teeth, and he must've eaten his summer vegetables since the drowned teenage poltergeist hovered taller over me.

"Seriously?" I swung my legs away. "You're getting me wet!"

"C'mon, Harps."

A wet hand grabbed my wrist and tugged me to stand. I followed his gaze, melted under those endearing eyes, and nodded.

Despite the lifeguard's whistle, we ran, hand-in-hand, and jumped in with our knees tucked.

Our backs hit the water with a splash, and I laughed as we sank. My butt bumping the bottom, I prayed to the god my mother made me attend church services for that my bathing suit top stayed in place.

Thankfully, my suit was still in mostly all the right places. As with any cannonball though, a definite wedgie dug in between my ass cheeks. I pushed my feet flat to resurface, but Jake tugged on my hand to stay.

Before I knew why, he'd pulled me closer, grabbed behind my head, and pushed his lips against mine.

Our first kiss was not terrible, considering neither of us had a clue how the mechanics worked. I remember it so vividly, maybe because our feelings were so innocent and pure. Or because we floated together like freefall. Or because his lips were so soft that I barely felt them.

Or maybe the memory just burned into me because chlorine went up my nose.

Definitely the chlorine burn.

I sputtered, shoved his shoulders, and broke through the water. Hearty laughs followed me as I swam away, so I scissor-kicked extra hard to splash that stupid grin.

Hosting my butt onto the rough cement of the pool's edge, I wiped my face with my palms and shot Jake two middle fingers as he slapped high-fives with his friends across the pool.

"Do I even want to know what that was about?" Ellie blinked as I returned, rubbed my burning eyes, and wrapped my towel around my shoulders. Shifting under her umbrella's shade, she pointed at Jake, who still laughed with his friends.

I burst out laughing at Ellie's gigantic sunglasses and shoulder-width sunhat she now wore.

This girl hates everything that's great about California.

In hindsight, maybe that was why Ellie and I were friends, she hated certain things as much as I did.

"No." I dug the gigantic wedgie out of my crack. "No, you don't."

After I got home from the pool, I found another sweet note inside my beach bag. Crumpled, damp, and smelled like chlorine.

Roses are red, violets are blue

Harper Reynolds I really like you

Those two lines and happy emotions flooding into me were the first domino tipped over, and it took another year, but further and further knockdowns tipped into my emotional detriment. The hand that knocked them over belonged to the eventually cocky, arrogant asshole Jake Harrison, who ripped my heart out of my chest and crushed every last innocent, happy, squishy girly feeling out of me.

In hindsight, I never stood a chance.

My toe brushed something under her dresser. Kneeling, I pulled out a small, silver object, a glass eyeball on the end—fuck, a recorder?

Knowing Ellie wasn't that kind of girl, I pried open the back with my nail and ripped out the battery. Thankfully, the red light faded, so I tucked it into my pocket. "Fucking creepy."

As much as I really didn't want to see Jake, I needed to ask about this weirdo-stalker whose mouth I'd patted duct tape over. Grabbing my phone on Ellie's bed, I frowned at a new message.

Asshole: wyd?

Worst three letters ever. No effort, no thought put in whatsoever. Practically butt-dialed.

Bracing myself for a Harper-vention, I pulled out my perfume, spritzed a path down the hall, and kicked open Jake's door.

Empty.

Didn't stop the smell assaulting my nose, which I covered with my shirt and sprayed my perfume to empty. Total waste of spicy vanilla against toxic boystink, but I made sure to sprinkle the last drops on his pillow and tossed the bottle into his gear bag.

Then I pulled out my phone.

Me: You misdialed the herpes clinic again. Please try any other number.

Silence, the sweet sound of two brain cells malfunctioning, followed. I scoffed, tucked my phone in my pocket, and packed the rest of my hair shit into my bag. Ellie was halfway toward dropping Logan's jaw onto the ground by now, so I had no reason to linger.

Shit, there was only one reason.

"The worst reason," I muttered and flung my bag over my shoulder.

Asshole: 🙄

Asshole: u still here?

While my answer didn't matter, it made me smile.

Me: The vagina you have reached is no longer in service. Please hang up and never contact her again.

The house that, at one point, I'd spent more time at than mine, was quiet. Mr. and Mrs. H. must've gone out. They were gross like that, going on dates.

Every room was dark except for the glow around the door between the kitchen and garage. Muted bangs sounded behind it.

Bad idea, Harper.

As bad as the thrill rushing through me at their parents being out. As bad as me not locking my bedroom window this summer.

Not once, or twice, but four times. I probably should've felt more shameful than I actually did but couldn't bring myself to care.

Everywhere his weight pressed on ached, a blanket of heated boy stink covered me, and his low groans mimicked my rising ache. "I want you. So fucking badly."

Husky words vibrated over my lips, unleashing a violent shudder. My traitorous cunt throbbed sensitive, which he indulged with a thrust. Hard, hot friction buzzed where he rubbed me.

Like a desperate dog. Like an animal. Like a horny teenage guy with nothing to lose but his load into his favorite crusty sock.

It was so wrong. So fucking inappropriate. Given how much he'd hurt me, I shouldn't have wanted him, but I did. I wanted to ride his face until he choked on my release, my thighs squeezing his stupid head until it popped off.

Maddeningly, I still felt that way, especially after what this dumbass had done now.

And I'd thought my Homecoming was a shitshow.

But that was Jake. He didn't care about Chloe's feelings now, and he didn't care about mine before the school year started. Only himself.

"You're all I think about." His words were short, cut off by each ragged breath. "Not her. You."

The clothes between us buffered each stroke into a fucking tease. I scraped my nails down his back. "Stop talking."

Fuck, sometimes I hated my body as much as how well he knew it. Every line and curve, the right pressure to grab and twist until I pulsed with ache. Until every breath was shallow and the pulse in my clit mimicked my pounding heart.

Until I wanted him. Because that's what this sick psycho did, make me want him even though I hated him with every breath.

" Look at you." His head dipped, greedy mouth capturing my right nipple and sucking. Bolts of lust bunched my insides tighter. "Begging. I bet you're soaking wet."

"Mmmph." Threading my fingers through his hair, I tugged him closer, burying his head into my breast. Maybe that would shut him up. "Check for yourself, fucking tease."

Yanking up my shirt, his mouth moved harsher, raspy tongue painting my skin with saliva. Lips sucking. Teeth nipping. I burned wherever he attached. Aching, my nipples protruded practically like fucking airport wands that directed planes. Traitors.

Fuck, I hated this asshole.

Every possessive claim of his mouth.

Every arrogant word.

His hand slipped between my thighs, pushing aside the drenched fabric and swiping his finger. The nerves jolted me again, but this time, his low groan mimicked the need bunching tighter.

"You're dripping." Another stroke smeared my wetness over the aching nerves. "Messy."

"You like messy." The words came out more bitter than I liked. As if I wanted some claim on him. "Camille, not so much."

Red-faced and panting, he hovered over me. "She's gone this week," he offered in a tone that implied this information was good news. "Last summer trip."

Shoving his shoulders, he barely flinched, pulling upright and rolling on a condom. "Can't tell you how thrilled I am to be your backup booty call."

"Not the first time."

Wanting to claw the smirk off his face, I settled for compressing his cheeks until his lips puffed. "Consider this the last."

"You said that last time."

Grabbing his sheathed dick, I teased the tip at my entrance. He shuddered with a low, tortured groan, slipping in easily.

"Do I need to remind you?" I reveled in the clench of his jaw as I took him deeper. "You started this?"

"And I intend to finish it."

Leaning over, his mouth attacked mine. Forceful and insistent, our teeth scraped, and his tongue stabbed mine with intrusive jabs.

And when his stupid, stupid mouth opened, his words, not mine, slammed reality home.

"I'm breaking up with her."

I paused with my hand reaching for the garage door. Four times. Four times we'd fucked hard, shamelessly. Cheating didn't bother me—he'd cheated, not me.

He'd come over to my house, climbed into my bed, and disturbed my sleep. All I felt while his heavy ass pinned me down, pummeling in and out, was how much I wanted him again. We kept going until whatever that raw, desperate feeling was had been fucked out of us.

Or, so I'd thought. The last round morphed him into a damn stranger.

Jake's lips, swollen and red, moved over mine with a delicate, feather-like touch. Propping his weight onto his elbows, his eyes stared straight into mine.

"Wanna see you this time," he murmured.

My hands clutching his sides, I opened my legs wider. In slow, deliberate movements, he was everywhere. Musky, heated skin, hot breaths fanning over my neck, the hardest determination in his steady, rolling thrusts. His eyes held mine for every slow, deliberate stroke rolling me off the bed.

I'd felt cherished. Appreciated. Wanted.
Then that terrifying part.
I'd felt loved.

Tears pricked the corners of my eyes as we finished. As Jake rolled off me and cleaned up, a drowsy drunken sleep took over. The warmth of his hand compressed my head, smoothed my hair, and tucked some behind my ears.

Not stopping, his fingers traced my jaw and cheeks, and his lips kissed like breathless, whispered promises he couldn't keep.

The pathetic neediness returned. Just like every inch of me silently begged for him to join me. To wrap his stupid, gigantor, heat-pumping frame around mine, and hold me like I was important.

Like I mattered.

Like I was...his.

All of it fucking useless because, as I'd kept my eyes closed and waited, Jake did what he did best.

Left.

Wising up, I'd avoided him since, falling back on insulting him. Teasing him. Dangling what he couldn't have anymore.

"But this?" I silenced my phone. "Is almost unbelievable."

My name, not his girlfriend's, falling from his mouth as he came undone. Dick wants what the dick wants, I supposed, and yanked open the door.

The crackle of muffled music filled the silence between bangs of metal and his curses.

"Unbelievable," he muttered. "Fucking waste."

So, he had been grounded. No wonder Ellie was elated. Parting my lips to tell him it was about time, his next words struck me first.

"No one but Harper, my ass."

Me? If he was grounded, I'd be the only non-Harrison vagina allowed in the house.

Oh, the irony. Dear, sweet, clueless Harrisons.

The words paused him too. Pulling upright and cursing at the engine block, clearly similar thoughts to mine passed through his head, slower of course, because he smirked. It faded as he bent back over.

"Don't drag my ass into your bullshit." I crossed my arms and leaned against the door, jolting him so quick, his head smacked the hood. Not hard enough to knock sense into him. "Heard you were grounded."

Head snapping up from the open hood, his dark eyes roamed over me like a feral animal that hadn't eaten in weeks, and I was its bait.

Loved that look for him. Tortured. Moody. Assholy.

What I didn't love was the shudder threatening to roll through me. Despite the yellow lighting, sweat highlighted every muscle. Shirtless and streaked with grease marks. Like all emotions I felt towards this ass, I tamped it down.

Within two steps, his large frame stood before me. Eyes dark and soaked in frustration. Hand rubbing his head, the bicep bunched into definition.

"You're fine, asshole." Teasing him brought the usual twitch to his nostrils, and if I looked down, he was probably getting hard again. "Your fat head's hard enough."

"Thought it was my ass that was fat." That smirk widened, and he reached for a rag on the nearby workbench. "Despite your obsession with my head."

"The only thing I'm obsessed with is how fucking stupid you are." I took a pretend visual sweep. Yep, hard bulge already in his baggy shorts. He couldn't be seriously thinking I was here to do anything other than keep him this way. Jake, hard and hating me, was my favorite look on him.

While my insult was more biting than usual, while speaking, his eyes took an appreciative look at my tight, revealing clothes. Extra-tight after Ellie told me he was grounded, and my boobs almost spilled out the top, which he definitely noticed.

Hunger, frustration, wanting to tear into me—there was the unfiltered version he'd been hiding.

Not that Ellie would ever notice. Her eyes were only focused on her boyfriend.

A pang of guilt struck my chest.

His eyes continued shamelessly dragging over me. His tongue poked into the inside of his mouth. As if tasting the filthy ideas polluting his mind. "What are you doing here?"

"We had a date," I teased in a sugary, pretend-hurt voice. "Aww, don't tell me you forgot. Such a disappointment."

"As you told me all week..." Oh, he was still mad about my rejections, and tossed the rag aside. "You don't do dates."

Not with him. And, after Ryan, never again. The only 'safe' option was detachment. Which Jake could offer except, like everything else in our shit history, too much had already happened.

Baggage was a bitch better left gaslighted.

"Unfortunately for your...situation." I eyed his crotch rod, which he adjusted with a shameless hand yank. "I'm not doing you either."

With a thump, his forearm landed on the door above my head. Leaning in, he pinned me in place. Involuntarily, my eyes fluttered as my breath caught in the back of my throat.

Before I said anything, his head dipped. Warm, pillowy lips brushed the spot where my neck curved into my shoulder. Matted hair tickled my neck while he worked over my skin, nipping and flicking the tip of his tongue.

"Fuck, you smell good." He took a deep breath into my hair. "Drives me crazy."

Vanilla. Same brand as your ex, I didn't say, instead squeezing my arms over my chest to cover my tightening nipples.

Mental note: spray his locker too.

Ignoring my elbows jutting between us as much as I ignored the prominent need camping behind my tent flaps, his lips blazed a hot trail up the side of my neck until they reached my ear and tugged the lobe between his teeth.

"Go out with me."

Hurt slipped into his voice, which younger Harper would've pitied, but I refused to believe was anything more than burned ego. This, along with the attentive kisses he gave my neck, was just part of his game.

Knowing the ending, I should've been a better player. Older me died the day he turned on me, accusing me of being the ultimate distraction on Ellie's awful night, and leaving me to absorb his guilt as well as mine.

New me was a heartless, ice-cold bitch, and no sweet words or temptations would ever make me change my mind about him. So, when my heavy eyes closed, I snapped them open.

"No."

"You want a public declaration? My team knows, but I'll tell the whole fucking school you're mine."

His? Oh, fuck no. I wasn't anybody's, especially not his. The ass gave up that when he fucking crushed fourteen-year-old Harper's heart. The fuck was wrong with him?

"Do that, and I'll junk punch you until your balls ascend." Slipping my hand between us, his shorts' thin, slippery material hid nothing. I squeezed his sacs for emphasis. The tortured strain in his groan was so satisfying. "Don't say stupid shit like this. Not even one week after Chloe came to her senses, you're already banging some random fangirl."

Pulling back, a slow grin spread across his whole, stupid face. "Jealousy looks good on you." Ghosting the back of his knuckles down my cheek, his grin faded into a serious expression, and he swallowed. "But I haven't slept with anyone since you."

"Wow. Eight weeks. Am I supposed to be impressed, or guess which color of blue your balls are?"

Instant effect, his face wrenched with frustration. "No, only you."

Only me? My heart pounded every word deeper. Only. Me.

The manwhore couldn't be serious. Three years and...nothing? As much as my ears bled to hear girls squealing about his 'talents,' they weren't lying. There were countless ways of finding relief, but he was too selfish not to chase his first. "Don't fucking talk semantics with me."

"Lotta ways to get yourself off, Harper." His knuckles trailed lower, skimming down my neck and outlining my breast. "Which you're screaming for."

"Such sweet words," was my breathy response, my chest pitching as if chasing his touch. The hard points of my nipples rubbing my bra were obscene. "What's next? Roses are red, violets are blue?"

"If that's what you want to hear." Smirking, his lips pulled away from my skin.

"I'm not sloppy seconds."

Slipping my hands up his hair exposed my chest, which he palmed and gave a rough squeeze. My back arched as he kneaded roughly, giving me enough leverage to push him back.

Glaring like I'd taken away his favorite toy, he stepped back. "So, if you don't want me in your pants, then why are you really here?"

Tipping my head, telling him someone recorded his sister might not be the best idea. With his overprotective mode also deactivated, they were sort of good terms. Best I asked her first.

"I did Ellie's hair tonight. You know, for attending the dance with her hot, sexy rival football player boyfriend."

My words doused him like a cold shower. "Don't go there," he warned and clenched his jaw. The mental image of his sister, her short shirt, stumpy legs wrapped around Logan had to play through his mind because a red flush spread up his neck.

Honestly, I was surprised he hadn't punched Logan more. With mere words, he looked ready to deliver a few broken ribs.

"He's not as bad as you think." I poked the bear again, literally, denting his chest with a hard poke. "They've caught feelings."

"She deserves better," he mumbled and raked a frustrated hand through his hair, dark tendrils slipped over and between his fingers. Like always, flickers of guilt followed.

Never, ever would he let it go. For all our sakes, he should, but he never would.

The piece of shit he hadn't protected her from.

Like always, as natural as breathing, he channeled his guilt into hardened anger. Slipping on his asshole-armor and attacking the closest target, "Feelings is a word I never thought you'd say, Reynolds."

"Ouch," I said flatly. "If this was from anyone else, I might feel offended."

"Harps—"

"I'm actually here because I heard the best rumor. Wanna hear? It's deliciously...juicy."

His only response was a blank expression. Emboldened, I pressed off the door, slotting my chest into his and eliciting a sharp breath. "You've been a very, very bad boy, Jacob Harrison."