All The Wild Ones | Wildfire Series

Away Games

GRAYSON

Elective classes were my favorite ones to take back in high school. Music, PE, Health. No surprise there.

A lot of my friends on the football team loved Physical Education but rolled their eyes when it came time for to take Health. I understood their perspective. Health wasn't active. It wasn't practicing lateral passes out on the field on a seventy-five degree day instead of sitting in a classroom sweating your balls off.

But my friends also hadn't been born with a narrow aorta. Health was something they could shrug off because they'd never had to worry about it.

It was different for me. Learning about the body fascinated me. Learning about about healthy choices. And the not so healthy ones.

On my sixteenth birthday, Mr. Hopkins brought in drunk goggles. I joked that it was like turning twenty-one early, but it wasn't even close. I put those damn things on, realized I felt so fucked up that I couldn't walk down the gym bleachers and said never again. Never again.

Sometimes I felt like I was constantly playing an away game. Constantly playing the team on the home field because I was born with a disadvantage.

A few beer weren't worth giving me another one.

That was why I never drank. My heart would probably tolerate it—to an extent. But it wasn't worth it.

Driving home from Nessa's house, though? I felt like I was back in tenth grade, wearing drunk goggles in the gymnasium. I felt like I'd taken shots before kissing Nessa goodbye, and the liquor was slowly soaking into my bloodstream.

Something wasn't right.

And it had nothing to do with Nessa.

Nessa was perfect. Nessa was everything that was right. Last night she let me hold her—like really hold her—and I'd never slept so damn good in my life. She felt amazing. Smelled amazing. Sounded amazing with those little soft snores that I was tempted to capture between my lips.

She didn't even blink twice when I said she was mine today. Because we both knew it was the truth. She'd been mine since the beginning. Stubborn girl just didn't want to admit it.

Nessa was perfect. She gave me the blow job of my life on the way home, and I didn't think I'd ever get over how she'd moaned on my dick. How she'd taken me so deep into her mouth. How she'd sucked me so perfectly right. How that pretty little hand had wrapped around my base.

And sure, I was a little shocked to hear that she'd done the same thing to Bren, but as long as she didn't have any plans on doing that again in the future, I could get over it. Nessa had never shown any indication that she had feelings for Bren, and I trusted her when she said that was the case. If anything, I was more concerned that he got the message.

Her mouth was mine now.

Nessa was perfect. But I did a shitty job of reassuring her of that in the moments before I drove away.

I wasn't lying; I was tired.

Exhausted and a bit dizzy. There was a pressure in my chest that I'd been feeling on and off for a while now. I should have looked into it, but I'd been so wrapped up in things on campus. And by that, I meant a dark-haired, sharp-tongued girl named Wednesday.

Maman was the first one to sense my arrival. She was standing on the porch when I pulled up, nursing a steaming mug that I definitely held some kind of herbal tea.

She smiled, and as much as I wished I was still on campus with Nessa, I warmed at seeing her. At being home.

As soon as I stepped foot onto the porch, she raised a brow.