“I—yes.” I scramble to get my jeans and underwear off, sliding to the edge of the bed. Thea looks up at me from between my thighs, holding my dick and hovering her mouth over the tip and, fuck, it’s my new favorite sight. “Are you sure you want to do it this way? I’ll gladly jerk off on your tits if you’re not ready for more.”
“I want it this way.”
Then she takes me in her mouth and I swear I ascend to a higher plane. Her perfect, pouty lips wrapped around my cock are a straight up electric stairway to heaven. She’s tentative at first, licking around the tip. I thread my fingers through her hair, groaning as she sucks, taking me deeper. I watch her and the mirror. It’s too much, I don’t last long. Within minutes she has me coming with her name on my lips.
“Thea,” I breathe.
She backs up with a yelp and I release a raspy chuckle, feeling too good to care if I get jizz on the floor. I grin at her, my golden sunshine. There’s come on her tits and leaking from the corner of her mouth, a startled but pleased look in her eye.
“You’re like a magic little sunbeam,” I whisper, brushing a thumb over her cheek.
The shy smile she gives me fills me with warmth.
After we clean up in the bathroom, which leads to another make-out session because I can’t resist her, we pull our clothes back on. It’s late, after midnight.
On her way out, I give her the key to the pool house and watch as she picks her way across my yard, through hers until she reaches her back door. She glances back at me before slipping inside her house.
A smug curve tilts my mouth as I amble inside, thinking about the cliche of deflowering the neighbor girl.
Fucking worth it.
Twenty-One
Thea
Connor saw exactly who I was in that mirror and made me face it so I knew, too.
He’s given me secretive smiles at school this week and sent me good morning and goodnight texts every day. Last night we talked on FaceTime until I fell asleep, and this morning I saw he kept the call connected for another hour.
But I’m still alone at home on a Saturday at the end of the week.
I can’t call Maisy to come over because she’s out of town. I’ve already baked my way through lunch. I was ready for more until Mom yelled at me to stop taking up all the Tupperware and storage space in the fridge.
After trudging up the steps, I wind up bored after only a half hour of watching baking videos on YouTube. I roll on my back in the middle of my bed and look at the colorful posters on my wall.
“Maybe Maise posted a story of her yoga intensive.” Flipping to my stomach, I grab my phone again.
What I find when I pull up Instagram sinks my stomach. My feed is full of photos. There’s a huge party today up at Silver Lake Forest Estates. I don’t know anyone that lives in the most elite gated community of Ridgeview, but Connor does. Devlin lives there. And Connor is tagged in a picture with him, armed with water guns.
At first my breath is stolen by how good he looks, shirtless and tan, abs for days and a swimsuit almost painted on his powerful soccer thighs. He’s grinning, genuinely carefree. I recognize the smile because it’s the same one he gave me in his pool house after he came with my name rolling off his lips.
But then reality sets in, along with my inner critic.
We agreed to be together in the pool house, but if I’m his girlfriend, why didn’t I get invited to this party with him? I thought we made some progress. Things haven’t changed if I’m sitting at home while he’s out with his friends.
You’re still his dirty little secret.
Not that I’d jump at the chance for a beach day, but it is unseasonably hot today and I’ve been baking since this morning. A swim in the cool lake would be nice, even if it means I’d stress over what to wear around the popular crowd.
With a sigh, I remind my inner critic that I don’t hate every imperfection and inconvenience of my body. It’s beach ready no matter what I wear.
Biting my lip, I spend twenty minutes going through account after account to find more photos, like a stalker. In each one I find, Connor is with one of the dance squad girls. Blair Davis is even there. I’m kind of surprised to see Devlin Murphy wrapped around her, and the reserved but happy expression on her face. She’s cool with him after he made her dump water on herself in the cafeteria while everyone laughed? It wasn’t that long ago, yet there they are, sharing an intimate moment someone captured for social media.
The more I scroll Instagram, watching a party I’m not at, the more invisible I feel.
Unseen.
Like always.
Will Connor only ever be mine when the moon is out?
I won’t stand for this. I wanted to be together because I like him, not because I was happy to only be trotted out when he needed me.
Closing out of the app on my phone with a frustrated sound, I face plant into my ruffled purple bedspread, letting the darkness swallow me. Once I grant myself a few minutes to wallow, I get up and get my laptop from the desk. As I return to the bed, the positive posters on my wall remind me of my outlook. I turn my back on them and hunch my shoulders as I sink to the floor, opening the laptop.
“I’m not invisible.”
Before I’ve finished typing the address to my blog, I stop. It doesn’t feel right. The comments, or even the old emails from Henry aren’t what I want right now. It’s only a feeble bandage; it won’t cure the wound.
I want Connor instead of my secret coping habit.
With a deflated exhale, I lean my head against the side of my mattress. What I want is in Connor’s pool house, where we hid away from the world together under the moonlight. Where I felt free to be my true self, no more secret folders, no more splitting myself between who I should be and who I wish I was.
“Are you a clingy girl?” I ask myself, reasoning that I should leave this alone and do my own thing. I don’t need him to entertain myself. With another sigh, I shake my head. “But you deserve the universe, so why settle when it doesn’t make you feel good?”
Maybe this is one of those things Connor doesn’t know to think about. He did make a point about only being with girls as hookup partners before. We’re both tripping our way through being in a relationship, the first real one for both of us.
If I don’t tell him, he won’t know that this made me doubt everything.
After arguing with myself some more, I change out of the ratty old sweats I’ve been in all day into a stretchy jumpsuit with a pink flower print and sneak out of the house. I avoid Mom by the skin of my teeth as she’s leaving through the garage door with sunglasses on. Once she’s gone, I creep around the corner and slip out the back door with my phone and the key Connor gave me, cutting across our yard into his.
My heart races as I use the key to get in. Any second I’m ready for someone to ask what I’m doing in the Bishop’s yard without an invitation.
Once inside, I leave my key by the door and go to the full-length mirror. It still smells like Connor in here. I lick my lips and sit down in front of the mirror with my legs to the side in a sensual pose, feeling the pinup vibe I have going on right now. I allow one of my straps to slip off my shoulder and angle my boobs forward.
After snapping a few pics, I pick one and send it to him. No caption. It doesn’t need one. He’ll know where I am.