“Mmhmmm,” she says, picking up a piece of food and putting it in my mouth. It’s hot as fuck that she’s feeding me while sitting on me.

It takes everything in me not to devour her mouth.

“I actually knew you, I mean, before I knew you. Well, I knew of you.” She pauses as she chews her food. “Dad had mentioned you in conversation before, I knew your name, but not what you looked like. When I heard your full name it sounded familiar, but I didn’t connect the dots until your mom told me that you were kind of a ‘big deal’. Dad actually went to watch your high school games a few times. He said he wanted to watch ‘history in the making’. He begged me to go a couple of times but I was always busy with… you know…” she trails off. James.

“You shouldn’t tell him stuff like that, Micky. His head is big enough as it is,” Logan says, while throwing something at me.

“Yeah,” Heidi agrees. “Baseball and Casey, that’s enough to make his head explode.”

Chapter 17

*Mikayla*

I watch Jake stiffen and his face fall at the mention of her name. I try to stifle my laugh but it comes out anyway.

“Okay, someone has to tell me what the deal is with her… please?” I plead.

Jake starts to talk, but I cover his mouth with my hand, he continues to mumble into it.

“She’s a crazy stalker bitch,” Lucy adds, taking a sip of water. I guess she’s DD tonight.

“Like, how crazy are we talking here? Like, writing Mrs. Casey Andrews all over her books, crazy? Or like, Mrs. Heidi Bieber, crazy?” I ask. They laugh and I see Dylan's jaw tense. Funny.

Cam takes a huge swig of beer. “Like, hiding in the back of his truck after a game… naked, crazy!”

My eyes widen and snap to Jake. He looks down and shakes his head with laughter in his eyes. He removes my hand that was covering his mouth, entwines our fingers, and gives my wrist a chaste kiss before Logan adds to the story. “That’s not all that happened, tell her the rest, Jake.”

I look at him. Oh my god. He slept with her. “Oh my god, you slept with her?” I gasp out.

“NO!” he yells, and everyone cracks up. “NO! What? God… No!” he says again, shivering and making a disgusted face.

“Then what?” I ask.

He presses his lips together as if refusing to speak. I make an exasperated sound and turn to the rest of them, eyes wide, pleading someone to finish the story.

Heidi starts to giggle and everyone joins in.

“What?” I say… “WHAT HAPPENED?” I need to know.

Heidi calms herself down, “Homegirl had an engagement ring on the dash board, a male engagement ring. She proposed to him!” She’s struggling to keep talking through her laughter, “she proposed to him, naked, in the back seat of his truck, with people all around!!”

“NO!” I gasp looking at Jake, bewilderment clear in my voice. He just nods his head slowly, his thumb stroking my stomach.

“What did you do?” I ask him, but he just shakes his head. “What did he do?” I ask the others.

“This is the best part…” Cam continues. “He gets so freaked out, he jumps out of the car and starts to run home. It was an away game! It took him 5 hours to walk home. He left everything in his truck. His phone, wallet, gear bag, everything. He couldn’t call anyone. He was so freaked to go back to the truck in case she was still there waiting for him, or if the ring was still there… We didn’t drive out to pick it up until a week later. He went a week without a car because he was so freaked out.”

“That’s just one of the stories,” Dylan adds. “There’s like, a hundred more just as crazy.”

I’m laughing so hard now my sides hurt.

I’d almost forgotten what we’re all doing here.

And then I remember, and stop myself from laughing.

Because today is not a laughing day.

Jake brings his hand up to my face and kisses my temple. “You can laugh and be happy, Kayla. They would want you to be.” I smile and kiss him on the cheek.

Logan takes a huge gulp of his beer and then belches, fingers pointing between me and Jake. Heidi and Lucy groan in disgust.

“Im going to ignore this epic ovary explosive sexual tension thing you guys have going on and ask a question…” I stifle a laugh into Jake's neck, while he rolls his eyes at Logan.

“Ask your question, asshole,” he says as he rubs his nose against my jaw. God, that accent, and that voice.

My eyes close for a second. I think my ovaries will explode.

“Why does he call get to call you Kayla, and everyone else calls you Micky?”

I shrug, “Because my family called me Kayla”.

Chapter 18

*Jake*

It’s been a week since the funeral and Kayla has improved heaps. I don’t think she is over what’s happened, but I think she is dealing with it. She’s worked a couple of days with Dad and kept busy around the house to distract herself. She hasn’t been back to her school, she does’t need to. Obviously, they’ll still let her graduate.

My graduation is today, and hers is tomorrow.

I go to school only when absolutely necessary, just enough to keep Mom off my back, I don’t like being away from her, especially now.

Apparently Dad saw some termites or some shit in the garage and has workmen here fixing it. They need to fumigate the garage and the storage room above it, so we have to stay away. I’ve seen how some of the workers eye Kayla when she leaves in the morning to take Julie to school. One guy gawks so much, it takes everything in me to not punch him in the face. Asshole.