Page 3 of First Time Rush
"I got this, old man." Allister urges me to make my way home. "Like I said, that little one isn't half-bad, it's just—"
"Shut up." The anger in my voice shocks me.
All he's doing is talking about her, and I'm ready to turn against my best friend.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I don't want anyone's eyes on her. Not his. Not a customer. Not Buzz. Especially not Buzz. She's here to dance half-naked for a roomful of men, and that thought has me ready to split heads.
"I'll send the other two home. I'll talk to this one." I look down at the picture in my hand, then back up.
My cock is filling my pants, a thing that has not happened, not once, in all the years I've been around these girls.
Whoever this little thing is, she's moved things inside me I wasn't sure were still alive.
Blood rushes through my ears, blocking out the music and the bar. Heat radiates from my core. I'm drawn into a vortex of something long forgotten. I want her in ways I didn't realize I could want. Some primal part of me stirs, and I know what I've been waiting for.
Right here.
Right now.
She's mine.
I just have to go tell her.
2
May
“You are not sneaking out!" Leah shouts, doing her best to sound threatening.
Tapestries hang on my bedroom walls beside oil paintings framed in ornate gold leaf. In between them are my posters and torn-off magazine covers. When I was younger, it was all boy bands. Now it's Bon Appetit covers and a truckload of retro '80s posters I found in the attic.
Simon, our guardian, took the posters down over and over when I was growing up, but I'd always get one of the staff to smuggle me more. Miss Henrietta and Mr. Fredby pity me and Leah, basically acting like grandparents, and most of the estate staff stuck around after the accident. I'd save the new ones up and then cover the walls in one go overnight, because Simon's fire-engine-red face the next morning was almost as good as having the posters back up.
He used to be my father's right-hand man. His confidant. Now he's just an asshole.
"Shhhh!" I hiss, taking a deep breath. "You're going to get us both in trouble."
Leah gives me her best motherly glare.
She looks so much like Mom, it's spooky. I don't remember Mom that well, but from what I do, and from the scrapbook pictures I've worn out over the years, it's like looking right at her face.
"No,you'rethe one who's going to get in trouble." She lowers her voice to an agitated whisper and inches her wheelchair forward.
It doesn't work. I'm determined.
"No one is coming to check on us. They're out for the night."
You'd think I'd mind that my fiancé is out almost every night without me. I don't. Ours is not a match made in any sort of heaven. Plus, he's the son of our guardian, who hasn't exactly been a nurturing soul the last twelve years. The weirdness factor is off the charts.
"This will never work." Leah presses her palms down and rubs the tops of her thighs with a wince. They get sore during the day, and by evening, she's in the chair, which I know she loathes.
"It will work." I slip my feet into a pair of sparkly pink and purple patent leather ballet flats. I grab my favorite sweater, picked out just for tonight. "It might work."
"You are not wearing that." Leah groans.
"What? I love this sweater." I pick up the lime green polka-dot cardigan and hold it out. "It's fun."
