Tight

“Come on. Saturday will be lit as fuck. Hot girls, easy pussy, flowing booze. It’ll be fucking great.”

I was shaking my head as I pushed open the door. “I don’t need or want some random pussy.”

“You can’t tell me there isn’t anyone you want.”

I hesitated a second too long.

“Ah ha! I knew there was someone. So, who is she? She go to school here?” My silence was getting under his skin, I could tell. “Come on, Rome, who is she?”

“None of your fucking business.” I made my way across the lawn to the parking lot.

I got to my truck and unlocked the driver’s side door, pulling it open and tossing my bag across the seat. I climbed in and looked over at Theo, who had a goofy-ass grin on his face as he stared at me, clearly wanting me to tell him more than I was willing to.

“Is this why you’ve been acting so funky lately?” He lifted his arm and braced it against the doorframe, leaning in slightly, staring at me as if he were trying to read me.

“Theo, don’t you think if I wanted you to know anything I would’ve told you?” I lifted a brow and tried to shut the door. But Theo blocked me from doing that. I exhaled and stared at him, “Theo, enough fucking around.”

“She coming to the party Saturday?” He was a little too eager and I was getting pissed.

“Theo, I need to get the fuck out of here and go home. I need to get some rest before I have to work this evening.” I gave him a point-blank stare, my expression telling him I was done fucking around. He took a step back and held his hands out in surrender. I shut the door, shoved the key in the ignition, and turned over the engine.

“You can’t keep her secret forever, Rome,” he shouted and I could hear him through the closed window and the rumble of my engine.

I started heading home, not realizing until I was pulling onto her street that I’d taken the long way home, the way that took me right past Kennedy’s house. I turned onto her street, slowed down marginally, and looked out the passenger side window as I passed her house.

Her car was in the driveway, the same place the tow truck had put it when it had been dropped off at the house. I saw her dad’s truck beside that. The garage door was closed, so I had to assume that my aunt’s car was in there.

It was late enough in the day that they’d all be home by now. Kennedy was probably lying on her bed, books open in front of her as she studied.

I pictured her like that, pushing her glasses up her nose, maybe chewing on the end of her pencil. And just like that my cock got hard. And as I thought about her lifting her hand and moving it through her dark hair, maybe playing with the ends of those locks, the fucker got even stiffer, pressing against my zipper, demanding to get out.

Fuck.

I pressed down on the gas and drove quickly past her house. Here I was, too much of a chickenshit to tell her how I felt, but acting like an obsessed bastard as I drove by her house.

I was a fucking mess, but I guess if I was going to be a wreck what better reason than because I was in love with my step-cousin?

Ten minutes later I was pulling onto the cracked driveway in front of my garage. The house I rented was decent size, but outdated as shit. It was owned by a friend of Randy’s, and since Randy and I were pretty tight, I got a good deal where rent was concerned.

I cut the engine, grabbed my bag, and climbed out of the truck. Once inside the house, I tossed my shit in the corner, headed to the fridge, and pulled out a bottle of water. I leaned against the sink as I opened it, staring out the sliding glass doors as I drank half the water in one go.

I could see cornfields in the distance, owned by the landlord who rented me this house. Although there were a few neighbors around, I had enough space between them to give me a semblance of privacy.

That didn’t mean they weren’t nosy fuckers, though. Especially the one across the street, where she looked through her blinds any time someone came or went past her house.

I pushed away from the counter and walked back out into the living room. I made a beeline to one of the only pictures I had sitting on my old-ass chipped and peeling coffee table I’d gotten from Randy before he threw the fucker out.

I picked it up, staring at Victor, my aunt, my parents, and finally me and Kennedy. She stood beside me, her head barely reaching the top of my chest. It was a family reunion last summer. It had been hot as hell, in the high nineties and humid as fuck.