At least, that’s how I feel standing in the middle of the Johnstones field, next to their quintessential red barn, as hundreds of teenagers drink themselves stupid on shitty keg beer.
This was my stomping ground, back in the day, and I’m not surprised to see that it’s lived on in our absence after we graduated. Kids were doing it before us, kids are doing it after us, and long after these drunk morons go off into the real world, some other teenagers will pick up the torch and run with it.
The Johnstones are one of the oldest families in Brentwick, the original nuclear family boasting nine children. The branches of the family down through the years have seen dozens of aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandkids take up residence in the town. I went to high school with approximately fifteen Johnstones, and I know there are more in the grades below me. The barn parties, like I said, started before I ever took my first sip of beer at fifteen, but they’ve always been located in the same place. The Johnstone’s own many businesses, one being a fifty-acre farm on the outskirts of town. This barn has been abandoned since I don’t know when, and it’s common knowledge by both parents and cops that kids party here every Friday and Saturday night. The adults have always looked the other way.
Graden drags me out around eleven, well into the partying hour for these amateurs, all of whom probably have midnight curfews or are lying to their parents and claiming to be sleeping at a friend’s house. So, when we arrive, the bonfire is roaring, the air stinks of marijuana, and a hundred or more drunk as fuck high school kids are making out, laughing their heads off, or singing to country music like they’ll die tomorrow.
After grabbing two cups of mostly foam and a smidge of shit beer, I follow my best friend as he walks around fist bumping and dabbing people. A couple of the onlookers give me the once-over, and I know they know who I am. No one is going to broach the subject, or maybe someone drunk enough actually will.
“Let’s get you laid tonight, brother. You need to let off some steam.” Graden rubs his hands together, scoping out the party like a lion searching for the ripest kill.
“Let’s not,” I grumble, taking a swig of shitty keg beer.
I’d love to take a puff off the joint I smell so strongly in the air, but that would require chatting up a group and getting in on it, and I have no desire to talk to anyone else at this party.
“Come on, look at all of this available pussy. As long as they’re eighteen, wrap it up and go to town.” He pretends to smack a fake ass in front of his crotch.
“Smooth.” I roll my eyes.
“You don’t still have that card you took with you to Iraq, do you?” Graden eyes me curiously.
I turn my head, sipping my beer to avoid him.
“Holy fuck, you do. You’ve never gotten your dick wet, still to this day.”
It’s as if I’ve revealed that I’m really the son of an alien king, and I’ve come to take him back to the future with me. That’s how much his eyes are bulging out of his head.
“Yell it fucking louder, why don’t you?” I grumble, flipping him my middle finger.
It’s pretty easy not to lose your fucking virginity when you’re six feet deep in the ground being tortured on the regular. I won’t say I wasn’t tempted before that, when in high school and then there were options overseas. Female soldiers get just as lonely as male ones, and there were some locals who would come around. When I still attended school in Brentwick, it’s not as if the invitations weren’t plentiful; I was the quarterback of the football team for fuck’s sake. If I’d wanted to screw someone, I could have by now.
But what I never told Kennedy was that, while she was holding out for her first kiss, I was waiting to … lose it to her. That sounds fucking corny now, like I was some poetic sap who believed in romance and everlasting love. I guess at that point I kind of did. But now, it feels so fucking stupid.
I’m a twenty-year-old who has shot and killed people, but never got my nut off in a chick.
“How the hell is this even possible? That’s it, now we’re really finding you a fuck buddy for the night.” The hard set of my friend’s jaw tells me that he’s actually going to put this plan in motion.
A gust of wind blows past me, taking the heat of the fire on its tail, and that’s when I hear her laugh.
I should have known she’d be here. Hell, she came flouncing out of her car the first day I got back to Brentwick in her cheerleading uniform. And if there is anything I know about these parties, it’s that cheerleaders and jocks always attend. I should know, I was in that crowd.
Kennedy stands across the field, the bonfire between us, so every time it moves as I try to get a good look at her, it appears as if tiny sparks of light are glittering off her skin. It might be a cold autumn night, but by the way she’s cracking a smile and shaking her hips to the latest Luke Combs song, you’d think the long-sleeve painted to her curves and the jeans plastered to her long, slim legs were made of fleece.
All those dark brown curls swirl around her face as she chats with her friends or slings her arms around a different guy’s shoulder every other minute. The energy coming off of her is electric, there is no way I can keep my eyes off of her.
She’s wearing a sweater that shouldn’t even be legal. It’s tight as hell, the round globes of her curvy tits pressing against the pink fluff. The V splitting the neck wide open reveals her ample cleavage, and instantly, I’m sporting a semi.
Fuck me. Apparently, since returning home, I’ve forgotten my dick. Some quality jack off time is in order to keep the horny guy under control.
Because, as unbelievable as Kennedy looks, sipping from a red solo cup across the bonfire, she is off-limits. Not only did she fucking break the promise she made to me, but falling down that rabbit hole will only destroy us both. I’m not the guy she used to moon over, and I’d be a complete idiot not to know she used to harbor a cruise-sized crush for me. Maybe she still does, why else would she bring up the kiss?
A flashback in my mind lands me in this very field, Kennedy on my lap, my fingers playing dangerously with the hem of her thin camisole. Fuck, how many times had I almost brought her back into those woods and undressed her perfect little body? We used to flirt toward the edge of a cliff during these parties, but I’d always held myself back.
Spoiler alert, I used to harbor an Everest-sized crush on her, too.
But I’m a different person now. The kind of man that dashes her hope and slut shames her. The man who can only tell her about vivid nightmares, not take part in the dreams of her future. The soldier who turned against his country.
No one can learn my secret, least of all Kennedy. What would she think of me? How would she respond, knowing I landed myself in that godforsaken torture camp trying to protect the people I was supposed to fight against?
I turn away, actively trying not to have her in my line of sight. If one of these fuckboys starts groping on her, I’m not sure I can be counted on to control my temper. As much as I tell myself I want no part of her, if I see her with her tongue down another guy’s throat, I’ll probably cut his right out.
It’s maybe a minute before I hear a commotion coming from the direction I just purposely turned away from, and I can’t help myself. I turn to watch.
Kennedy, her two best friends, Rachel and Bianca, and a couple of other girls I don’t recognize, stand in a circle, raising shot glasses into the air. They chant some line about being friends forever, and then toss them back, a lot of the party-goers cheering wildly after the girls come up, sputtering for beer or something to chase with.