“Oh, you little...” I chased her, fingers reaching for the soft, exposed piece of her back that her tank top had ridden up around. I sank my fingers into her flesh and she squealed again. The cashier flung her magazine down on the counter, and it made a wet flop of a sound.

“Y'all are gonna have to piss or get off the pot,” Old Ironsides hollered. I swallowed, and mustered the wherewithal to select a six pack of Modelo from the sweaty case at the back of the store. Doll clung to my heels like a puppy as we approached the register. (Another thing that might have been a clue.)

The lady peered at us as she rang up the drinks, and finally hovered for a second before opening the cash register. “Okay, kiddies,” she said, sighing. “Let me see some ID.”

I rolled my eyes, but was secretly pleased—it was happening less and less these days, my getting carded. It was the kind of thing that reminded me of how college was going to end soon. As of today, I had a mere two semesters left at UT, and to my shock and slight horror, everything everybody'd told me about college had proven mostly true. I was worried that I would be leaving the best years of my life behind on graduation day, the very best of me to wither in the dust. And if I didn't get drafted, there was no way my half-assed Earth Sciences degree would amount to a hill of beans. It was good to be young, so if I had my druthers? Young I would stay.

I slapped my ID down on the counter, coyly shielding its contents from Doll so she couldn't catch my name. Our game was so hot. I couldn't wait to—

“You too, missy.”

“What? What's that about? I'm the one paying.”

Crusty leaned over her counter. “And I'm the merchant, son. I've got a theory that you two are about to engage in dangerous behavior, and I've got a theory that missy here is jailbait.”

“Oh for fuck's sake!”

“I can refuse service to anyone I want to, y'hear? No skin off my nose, even if you are a living legend.” She gestured sarcastically at the rack of local papers by the door, each surely proclaiming my skill with the pigskin. I looked at Doll, and rolled my eyes in a give-the-old-bag-what-she-wants-so-we-can-get-outta-here kinda way. Then I let my eyes drift down to her perky nipples, which had come out to play in the air conditioning.

Doll approached the counter all slow, then pulled her wallet from the back pocket of her jeans. She could have just said 'no.' She could have pretended to be from Mexico, or something—though that might have been a harder con to pull, considering that pale skin. But it's a credit to her composure that she just slapped her ID down on the counter and looked Crusty in the eye. I'd already reached up to grab the Modelos when the lady shook her head slowly, her lips pursing.

“Not. Gonna. Cut. It,” she breathed, yanking the beers back. “And Mr. Jock Boy? You need to take little bit here straight home, before I call the police.”

When I turned to look at her—proud, angry, her chin a pillar of defiance—I still couldn't see it. I mean officer, I swear, she looked twenty-four. But I felt my hard-on wither all the same.

“How old are you?” I asked, willing her to look at me. Willing it to be some kind of joke. 'Cuz of all the girls I'd ever met, did it have to be this one, universe? This one, with her beautiful body, her perfect lips, that Mona Lisa smile?

“I'm seventeen,” she said, smiling sadly. And I swear, my heart stopped.

Not. Gonna. Cut. It.

Chapter Three

Landon

I woke up to lips mashed against my neck—pillowy, plump lips the texture of a deflated balloon. Zora had been injecting some chemical shit into her mouth for the past year and a half, promising after each treatment that “it was just a temporary thing.” But I'd never been a big fan of plastic surgery of any kind to begin with (sue me, I like a lady natural) and her long con was starting to get under my skin. Well the con, among other things.

I inched my neck away from her cloying touch and Z rolled over beside me, like a sleepy cat. Her eyes stayed closed. She was drifting in that fine space between sleeping and waking, which if truth be told was when I liked her best. Zora's got this long, fine, glossy, light brown hair, and her skin is this lush, tan color that's actually one of the few natural things about her. And when she sleeps, she's not self-conscious. There's no preening and pouting, there's no scanning the room for the available mirrors. It was the innocent span of her sleeping face that had done me in the first time, and it was this I still attempted to cling to—despite the fighting, and the boring conversations, and the Thing We're Not Supposed To Talk About Anymore, Cuz it's In The Past. For merely eight days before, my then ex-girlfriend had come to me Tracy Johns style, begging for another chance. And it was summer, and I was restless, and I was spineless, so I said yes.

“Stop looking at me, Landon,” she murmured, as her eyelids began to flicker. “I don't like how you watch me when I sleep.”

“I've always watched you when you sleep. You're beautiful.” She brought her perfectly manicured hands up to cover her face, emitting a groan. In response, I lifted the thin quilt above us, so I could get an eyeful of her naked body. Not that I'm shallow to excess or anything, but Zora's body is the other big one for her “PRO” column. I put an experimental hand on her taut, muscular stomach. I let my fingers graze the neat, clipped section of her pussy, where her landing strip began. It was a little intimidating to be with a woman who cared so much about her physical appearance. Sometimes it seemed like she was a mannequin. But as half of me mused this, my fingers drifted further down, to the velvety space between her legs.

“I haven't showered, you sicko!” Zora screeched, before sitting up in a way that kept the quilt clamped tight around her waist. “And don't you need to be getting ready for camp, or something?”

I kissed her sternum, hard enough so she could feel my stubble clash with her smoothness. I pressed my cheeks against the apple-sized mounds of her modest rack. Zora placed her palm on my forehead and pushed me backward, like I was a dog that needed to be muzzled.

“We have time, baby!”

“I don't, Landon. I don't have time. There's the pledge material to photocopy, and someone needs to eat shit about the dry-cleaning incident...plus, Betsy doesn't even have a deb dress yet, which we needed to take care of like three months ago.” Z climbed out of bed, smoothing her hair flat down her back in one fluid gesture. Still groggy, I swung my arms above my head and reached for the sky. A more petulant part of me had already decided this day was a scratch. What was it about these hot chicks and their hatred of morning sex?

“Do you have any idea what it's like to organize a deb ball for a completely ungrateful little shit?” Z cried, bending to crawl along the floor in a futile search for her panties. I covered a smile, before finding her lacy thong in the mess of my bedsheets, with the loop of my big toe. I pinched the garment between my feet. Hike!

“I mean, Betsy has no idea what an important Texas tradition it is she's—shirking. When I was her age, all I wanted to do was wear a long white ball gown and dance a waltz with my father.”

“She could wait till she gets married for most of that,” I said, before leaning back and assuming the diligent face stance of the boyfriend-who-cares. Meanwhile, I was really thinking, here we fucking go again.