9.
The First Lesson
Lenley
THE GUYS LAUGH AT CHANNING’Scockiness, ribbing him about him never being right; there’s no animosity, they just make fun of each other, trying to come up with the smartest comebacks.
Silence descends in the room all of a sudden and I realize that once again, all eyes are on me.
“Do you have any plans for tonight, Lenley?” Peyton asks.
I immediately get the feeling that he’s trying to get rid of me. “Not really. If you guys need to be somewhere, I can call an Uber—”
“Why would you do that?” Jameson asks, looking confused.
“I don’t know, I assumed you guys were busy? Normally when I was hanging out with Dar—uhm, with friends, they’d ask something like that if they had to go somewhere I wasn’t invited.”
What I don’t say is that usually that meant he was going to see another girl.
Peyton immediately sees through my words. “Lenley, did Penn really ask you if you had plans when he wanted to ditch you?”
There’s a hard light in the depths of his dark blue eyes and I realize that nothing I can say at this point can make him hate Darrius any less.
So I admit it. “Yeah. He’d always ask me if I had plans whenever he was going somewhere and he didn’t want me to tag along.”
Peyton snorts. “If I have plans that don’t include any of the people in this room, I’ll say so, Len.”
Channing winks at me before barking a laugh at his best friend. “Right, as if you had any other friends.”
“Fuck you, Chan.” Peyton laughs, flipping his best friend off.
They’re a lot like me and Sarah; sometimes we tell each other the meanest or most disgusting things but we mean nothing by it. Kiara was always a lot testier and we had to watch what we said with her.
“Come here,” Peyton says suddenly from the couch opposite mine, offering me his hand.
My fingers immediately tingle with sensation as I touch his slightly rough palm.
He pulls me to him, lowering me to sit on one of his knees. “The reason I asked, is that the guys and I were planning to hang out. Maybe order some pizzas, watch a movie. I was going to ask you if you wanted to stay and have dinner with us. We’ll drive you back later or you can stay with us if you want.”
I blush, thinking that probably I’ll end up spending some nights here sometimes. “I’d love to stay,” I say with my eyes fixed onto Peyton’s. “I’d be home alone anyway; my mom has a date tonight. So if you don’t mind taking me home later, I’d really like to be there when she comes home. To hear how it went.”
Jameson chuckles. “Well fuck, if the date goes well, she might not come home.”
I giggle. “Eww, no! Seriously don’t make me think about my mom doing it with some guy!”
Peyton chimes in, clearly amused but I can tell from the soft note in his tone that he isn’t trying to make fun of me. “I hate to be the one to burst your bubble, Snow, but you exist. So that means your mom had sex.”
We all laugh, agreeing that imagining our parents having sex is at the very least a little weird.
Channing takes out his phone. “Ok, all this talking about sex made me hungry. What sort of pizza do you like, Lenley?”
I shrug. “I love pizza. Pretty much anything goes, except for anchovies or pineapple.”
“Ha!” Jameson laughs. “I knew I’d like hanging out with you, princess! Anchovies are nasty and there’s never enough people in the world to tell Channing that pineapple doesn’t fucking belong on pizza!”
Channing immediately retaliates. “Don’t knock it until you try it! It’s really delicious!”
I smile apologetically, looking at the tallest of the three Devils. “Sorry, Channing. I did try it because Sarah likes it from time to time and it’s just weird.”
Jameson chuckles again. “See, dude? You’re weird.”
As Channing opens his mouth to retort, Peyton intervenes. “Guys. I think by now we can agree that you aren’t going to change each other’s minds on this. Please try not to scare Lenley off already. Let’s just order something before we starve to death.”
He keeps looking at me while Jameson and Channing decide on a variety of pies to satisfy everyone’s taste.
I find myself staring into the blue pools of Peyton’s eyes as he runs gentle fingers along the length of my arm.
“I really want to kiss you right now, Lenley,” he whispers into my ear.
I want to kiss him too; I haven’t been able to think about much else since last night.
I don’t say anything, I just close the negligible distance between our faces until our lips touch.
His lips are even softer than I remember them and as I surround his neck with my arms, Peyton applies more pressure, making warmth spread all over my body.
When his tongue teases the seam of my lips, I allow him in, meeting each stroke of his tongue with mine.
Sensation shoots down my body as I let him explore my mouth, forgetting everything else around me; my nipples are hard against the fabric of my tank top and there’s a throbbing ache between my thighs.
I never want this to end and I chase him when he retreats, prolonging our kiss until two distinct chuckles interrupt us.
“So, is this what you guys do while we order pizza for everyone?” Jameson asks.
“Yeah,” Channing agrees. “You two can’t start without us!”