Guilt pulsed through my chest, and then shame for being weak hit like a hard slap, and I tried to school my expression. I couldn’t blame them for keeping something from me, because I was very much doing the same. My eyes moved up to King, his green eyes darkening before narrowing his eyes on his cousin, probably misinterpreting my expression. Before I could say anything, he kissed the top of my head and walked with an air of determination down the stone steps of our porch towards his cousin’s house.
“Where are you going?” I called out, feeling a pout nearly slip onto my lips. He flashed me a knowing smile over his shoulder. Bastard.
“Don’t worry, princess, I’ll be right back. Give me five.” He winked as I bit my lip thoughtfully, wondering what he had to say to his cousin. He better be back…
See?! I was clingy. Ridiculous. I was ridiculous.
“Yeah,princess.” The deep, goading voice of my neighbor to the left had me rolling my eyes. Kingston snapped his gaze towards the neighbor in question, offering him a warning look I’d never seen before. A shiver rolled over my skin, because, of course, it turned me on.Damn him.Inhaling sharply, I turned to face the man to the left of me, knowing that his brand of crazy was always bound to make my afternoon interesting.
Stratton Lee.
I tried to not smile while looking over him, which was a feat, because the man was adorable. Alright, that probably wasn’t a word anyone had ever used to describe him, ever, but I couldn’t help but find him a bit cute. And sexy. I mean, he could be so grumpy, yet there was a sharp wit right there, waiting to snap out from under his brooding disposition. His energy was harsher but equally as powerful as King’s. The two of them were an intoxicating pair.
The man infuriated me though. Sometimes I just wanted to kiss his lips shut, but that wasn’t happening any time soon—that would not make my life any easier, nor the difficult situation I was in. He would be shocked, though. I could imagine it, and not much surprised the man, so I would consider that a win on my end.
Stratton liked to consider himself the symbolic ‘black sheep’ of Wildberry. Although frankly, I think that was just a way to distance himself from us. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I one hundred percent supported and believed that he enjoyed the gauges in his ears, the tattoos littering his forearms, and the dark motorcycle boots he always wore that looked like he could kick the mess out of someone with. It did draw a very large contrast, though, between him and everything that was Wildberry, which I was learning was purposeful on his end. I mean, there were also the bruised knuckles from fighting, the messy, unruly black hair, and ridiculously blue, piercing eyes that seemed to always be staring straight into my very soul, incinerating any possible walls I had up.
You’re starting to see my problem, right? None of these men should have this many things working for them.
“Stratton, I didn’t realize you were talking to me since you called me ‘princess,’” I chimed sarcastically.
The man’s full lips tweaked up as he looked over my red dress before literally vaulting over his porch rail, landing in the lawn and walking across our side yard to look up at me on the porch. Although looking up was somewhat subjective since he was around King’s height, if not slightly taller.
“Now I’m not good enough for you because King is back?” he asked softly, trying to sound sarcastic despite the wounded undertone of his voice.
How on earth had he gotten… you know what,no.I wasn’t going to overthink this one.
“First of all, you only hung out with me twice this summer, and all the other times I tried to spend time with you, you were ‘busy.’ Second, you know I enjoy hanging out with you when you aren’t acting like a jerk.” My hand darted out to mess up his dark hair as he grabbed my wrist and kissed the pulse gently, making me blush, much to my frustration.
While growing up, Stratton had been the kid I’d fought with. We had fought about everything and anything. One time, we came home covered in mud because he made a bet he could put more on himself than me, and at seven, that was like a fight to the death.
The habit had continued and shaped into this sarcastic banter that only got worse the more he tried to distance himself from our group. I had no idea what reason he’d come up with in his head for needing to do so, because if I knew one thing about Stratton, it was that he wassostubborn. The man was his own worst enemy, and I hoped he would realize that one day so that we could go back to how we had been before.
I knew it probably killed him that whenever we were together, we slipped into ‘us’ so easily, as if there was no distance. I loved it, but I knew it probably frustrated him. I really was understanding of the fact that he was clearly working some things out, but I couldn’t help him if he wouldn’t talk to me.
“Does your mother know you use those dirty words, angel face?” His grin was wicked as his warm hand dropped my wrist and instead wrapped around my ankle through the marble railings of the porch. My center clenched as I tried to not show just how much that smile and tone of voice affected me. The last thing I needed was Stratton realizing I was attracted to him.
“You’re annoying,” I claimed, a small smirk forming on his face as I tried to ignore the sound of my heartbeat in my ears.
I could tell he saw through it, though, his eyes lighting up to a near silver as he offered me a heated look. I knew it didn’t help that he was probably a bit worked up right now, especially since King was back. The two of them had always been competitive, even growing up.
Letting go of my ankle, he walked around the porch towards the front steps as I found myself walking to meet him there, hating that my feet seemed to move of their own accord. I hopped down two steps as he leaned against the railing, his hands wrapping around my waist to steady me as I tried to not sigh at the comfortable, familiar touch. This was the problem with him, with all of them! Their touch felt amazing.
“Yeah, Dahlia?” His deep voice had me feeling a bit dizzy as my gaze followed his lips. “How annoying?”
Not annoying at all. Unfortunately. And this was exactly why we didn’t spend a lot of time together, this insane chemistry.
Before I could come up with a sassy retort, my gaze snapped to the secondary gates of the community opening to let through a Mercedes G-class. Stratton muttered under his breath as the luxury vehicle rolled past the first two houses, blasting music. I leaned against the man, placing my hands on his shoulders as he turned towards the car.
Despite our little back and forth, Stratton was one of my best friends. We were just going through a difficult time. I mean, he had even taken me out on his motorcycle this summer, something that I’d enjoyed far more than I would have assumed. Now we just needed to work on getting his head out of his behind so he could stop overthinking everything.
In school he’d kept a distance as well, stating that he didn’t want to ‘fuck up’ what people thought about me. I had wanted to shake the man for thinking I would care about that, and I was thrilled that we didn’t need to worry about any of that anymore. It was over. A dark chill rolled up my spine, that nagging anxiety reminding me that my statement wasn’t completely true.
I wasn’t positive that particular problem was ever going to go away.