“You’d be a shit surfer,” Alec mutters, not for the first time.
“Yeah, I’m more of a sun guy. I’m a city guy, remember?”
“A city guy who regularly gets his ass handed to him by a small town girl.” He grins.
“Fuck off.” I laugh, standing up and wiping my face. The back doors open and I look up.
Jen comes flying through the door, runs across the garden, and launches herself at me. I stagger slightly, holding her ass in my hands as she jumps up, wrapping her legs around my waist. She grabs the back of my head and presses her lips against mine.
It’s a desperate kiss, one I’ve felt before. It’s the same kiss she’s given me each time since last weekend – but this one is tinged with determination.
Her tongue slides against mine, her fingers tightening in my hair, and I dig my fingers into her skin. Her legs grip me tighter, her body pushes against mine, and I almost forget we have an audience.
“Well, that’s the best hello I’ve had in a long f**king time,” I mutter, staring at her still closed eyes. They snap open, and I’m suddenly swimming in the blue of them.
“She can kiss my ass. She might be leaving, but she’s not f**king having you. I don’t care. The day she gets you is the day she climbs over my dead body to get to you. You’re my guy, and I don’t give up anything that’s mine.” Her eyes are full of steely resolve, as hard as ice. But… Heidi’s leaving?
“Heidi’s leaving?” I repeat out loud.
“That’s what Saph said,” Lexy says from behind Jen. “And she thinks she’s not done with you, thinks she’ll show up here or something in a last ditch attempt to get to you go back to Kent with her. It brought out Jen’s tiger.”
“I happen to like that tiger,” I mutter, feeling her thigh muscles clench. I lower us carefully to the ground, letting her sit in my lap, and wrap my arms around her back. I hold her tight to me, proving to her that the feeling is mutual. “I’m not going anywhere, babe. You know that. Me and you, remember?”
“I know,” she says in a quieter voice. “But she’s kept up this game because I’ve let her. I should have grabbed her bleach blonde extensions and flipped her over my shoulder onto her surgically enhanced chest the first time she tried it.” Her eyes flick away and back to me. “I’m not even letting her try, Sam. I don’t care anymore. I’m looking at everything I care about.”
I touch my lips to hers. “I love you,” I whisper. “And your tiger.”
She smiles against my mouth. “I love you, too, and so does my tiger.”
I smile, running my hands down her back.
“They make me feel slightly sick,” Lexy says deliberately loudly.
“Then I hope you never have to see you and Alec. I’ve ruined perfectly good toilet bowls over you two in the past.” Jen laughs, spinning so she’s sitting next to me.
Lexy pokes her tongue out and Jen does the same. I watch as Jen flicks her tongue across her bottom lip. I glance up and she’s looking at me from the side of her eye. Her lips creep up on one side.
“Stop teasing him, Jen. It’s not nice.” Lexy grins, glances at Alec, and bites her lip. His eyes double-take before the smile drops from his mouth. She slowly releases her lip, and Alec shakes his head. I look at him sympathetically. He shrugs.
“Fuckin’ girls,” he complains, dropping back to the grass himself.
“Do you think Heidi will come here?” I direct the question to Lexy.
She shrugs one shoulder. “I don’t know. Saph thought she might. I don’t know what she’d come here for, though. She hasn’t spoken to you in a week.”
“Does she know that her little plan didn’t work?”
“No idea. Saph didn’t mention it, and neither of us thought to ask. Funnily enough, we were preoccupied with the news of her leaving.”
“Why is she leaving?” Alec asks.
“She lost her job, thought she could live off Daddy, and he refused. She has to move back in with him and her mum,” Jen explains.
“And Saph knows this how?”
“One of Saph’s guy friends was pretending to seduce her and he was at Heidi’s when she spoke to her Dad.” Lexy pauses. “She’s kind of… influential.”
“She paid this guy?” Alec’s eyebrows raise.
I shake my head. “Saph wouldn’t have paid anyone. She’s… Shit. Well, she’s a bit of a tease. She’ll promise him something and not deliver, but she always gets what she wants. If you’re male, you’re capable of being wrapped around her little finger.”
“The only person resistant to her charms is sitting right in front of us,” Lexy says dryly.
I smirk, resting my head against Jen’s. “I’m only into blondes.”
“You’re only into one blonde,” she says.
“I’m only into one blonde,” I correct myself. I feel her nod her head.
“Sam?” Mum shouts from the back door.
“Mm?” I look up.
“Heidi’s at the door asking for you.”
Jen scrambles up and storms across the garden, followed by Lexy, before me and Alec even think about moving. We stare at each other for a second.
“Shit,” Alec mutters.
“Fuck shit ass**le is more like it,” I respond, jogging across the garden and into the house. We pass through the kitchen and into the hallway.
“No.” Jen shakes her head. “I don’t care if you’re here to see Sam, you can go and f**k yourself with a teaspoon for all I care. You’re not welcome anywhere on this property.”
“It’s not your house,” Heidi argues.
“No, but its mine,” Lexy interjects. “You have five seconds to explain why you’re standing on my doorstep before I let Jen remove you.”
Judging by her clenched fists, Jen would love to remove Heidi.
From more than this house.
“I want to see Bing.”
“Sam,” I correct her, leaning against the railing. “My name is Sam. Don’t forget that, Heidi.”
“Noble. You dropped your nickname.” Her voice is sweet despite the sneer on her face. “I was just bringing you a few things from our time-”
“Really? You have used condoms?” Jen puts a hand on her hip. “There’s a bin at the end of the drive. In fact, while you’re dropping them in there, just climb in yourself. That’s where trash belongs, after all.”