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sunlightmurdock · 3 months

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AETERNA | Three

TWO | MASTERLIST

SYNOPSIS: Jake and Bradley start to settle into their new home — you’re back.

WARNINGS : smoking; the fic takes place in the 70s and so 70s era things will happen; this fic has mature themes and is intended for adults, minors pls dni. spooky stuff; nudity; making out. word count: 6k

…

Orange tinged, the sunlight streams in through the window of his trailer, baking his bedsheets in the perfect kind of warm right before it gets to be too hot. That means it’s still early. Too early.

Hair tousled, shoulders relaxed, Jake sighs a little, his breath fanning out against his checkered pillow case as he shifts to stick a hand between his hips and the sheets, adjusting himself. His dick hasn’t even gotten the memo that it’s morning yet

And still, Rooster’s singing the whole camp awake. That’s what they call their little pitched set-up on borrowed land. ‘Camp’ comes across better after Manson tainted the word commune. Commune would also imply that they’re here for free.

Either way, it’s Sunday fucking morning. That time used to be sacred. As it turns out, no day is safe from Rooster, and there ain’t much left around here that’s sacred either.

It’s a far-away memory, the days that Jake would wake up to the smell of cooking bacon and magnolias. It feels much closer than it was. He was smaller then, he’d been tucked in the nights before, he had matching pyjamas with footballs on them.

Now, his feet push past the edge of the bed as he stretches, nuzzling his cheek into his pillow and remembering what it was like to savour those last moments before his mother called him to start getting ready for church.

His mother isn’t coming for him now; just the mother-hen that has been up since the crack of dawn. Here he comes, singing some Buddy-fucking-Holly.

Jeans clinging to almost-dry thighs, his shirt slung over his shoulder, his feet bare in the grass. He’s coming straight from the showers, before that he had been up by the farmhouse. He trails between trailers and tents and caravans, making a beeline for the one person he knows damn well doesn’t want to be disturbed.

The grass bristles underfoot, the Redbirds join Rooster in his morning fanfare and Jake’s day is already headed south.

“Day of rest my fuckin’ ass…” He mutters out, shifting on his stomach and planting his face into the cloud-like softness of his slept-in bed. It’s only a couple of hours since he tumbled into it, last night’s clothes discarded on the floor with the crisp bills tucked neatly into his wallet.

Rooster cocks his head. With confirmation of Jake’s consciousness, the handle twists and even more sunlight streams in. Rooster ducks to dodge the short, curved doorway and peers around as he steps in.

It’s clean in here. Aside from Jake’s clothes, stepped out of and discarded in place, the place is spotless. Jake’s trailer smells of pine and sugar, the curtains all drawn back and capturing the morning glow.

At the far end, Jake’s laying on his front. Tangled in sheets, naked as the day he was born, now holding his pillow over his ears. Rooster considers finishing his song, making Jake really squirm. Jake’s not much of a morning person. He’s not much of a Rooster person, either.

Rooster only comes knocking this early in the morning when he wants something.

“Hey, Hangman,” Rooster says, his tone mighty calm for someone who just uttered a cuss word like that. Jake lifts his head and turns to look over his shoulder, stone-faced and arming his sharp tongue for an early-morning argument. Rooster’s face slips into something friendly, a cool smile tugging at his lips. “Feel like makin’ some money?”

Disarmed, Jake doesn’t say what he was thinking. He doesn’t stoop to Rooster’s level. Instead, he huffs out a full-chested sigh and rolls onto his back.

The covers spill back and twist with his body, freeing his legs and catching a bit on his hips. The sun smothers his naked form eagerly, bathing him in morning light.

Rooster looks swiftly away, at the chunk missing in the ceiling, shaped around the spray of buckshot that had hit it years before.

Jake rubs childishly at his sleep-weighted eyes. Then, he tucks one taughtly-muscled arm behind his head and studies Rooster with pursed lips. The morning tobacco craving starts to itch at him, before he even thinks of breakfast. That’s something new too. “Doin’ what?”

“Mending fences.”

The farm-boy Jake once was shrinks away from the idea. He’s got vivid, wide-stretching, muscle-aching memories of spending summers in sprawling fields, wrapping barbed wire around raw planks of hardwood.

He wets his lips with his tongue and sighs, scratching at his bare chest. It’s his turn to take a shot at Rooster now.

“Little early for you to be shacking up with the farmer’s wife, isn’t it?” He teases, peering at Rooster through heavy-lidded eyes.

Spring green gaze, there’s always something taunting in the way Jake watches people. Doesn’t matter what comes out of his mouth when he looks at people the way he does. Usually, it’s just that what comes out of his mouth makes that look a whole lot more grating.

Rooster spoke with the wife for a short time yesterday. Leaning up against the green pickup, she’d been practically drooling on him. Rooster doesn’t play around much these days, but when he does it’s with women with more to risk than he has.

Rooster digs a hand into the pocket of his jeans and retrieves a half-crumpled pack of cigarettes, then checks to see if it’s empty. He rolls his eyes at the insinuation that he’d go for Mrs. O’Malley, but doesn’t shy from it. He lights up and sets his lighter down on the workbench. Silver, engraved with his initials.

He braces a palm beside it and finally looks back to Jake, keeping his eyes strictly above Jake’s shoulders. “Y’think I’d ask you along if that’s what this was?”

No, Rooster doesn’t like to share.

Jake shifts his hips and half pulls the sheets across his waist, the temptation to slip back into the dream he’d just been broken out of starting to gnaw at him. “How much?”

“Two-fifty an hour, bonus if we get it done before lunch.”

Jake groans. Extra couple of bucks would get him out of here for a night — even in the middle of nowhere, there’s got to be somewhere with live music and beer.

“Alright,” He rubs his palms along his face, scratching at the growing stubble on his jaw. Finally, he pushes himself up and nods his head. “Fuck it, fine. Let’s go.”

Rooster could have taken on the trouble for himself. Taken the payout for himself, too. Would’ve been quieter, but as much as he begrudges the work, Jake knows a thing or two about cattle. He steps outside to finish his cigarette while Jake gets dressed.

Jake’s front stoop faces the hill that the farmhouse sits on. Rooster watches Maggie O’Malley stroll through the grass in nothing but her robe, taking note of the fact that Gus’ truck is still missing. Must get pretty lonely sitting on all these acres with a husband who spends more time at the bar than at home.

Their lease stretches into September. Jake’s right, it is a little soon to get tangled up in something like this.

Still, Rooster greets her with a nod as she gets close enough.

“So? — You boys up to the job or do I need to call my nephew?” She hugs the robe closer to her body, chilled by the breeze, regretting her decision. Rooster takes the shirt from over his shoulder and holds his cigarette in one hand as he slips it on.

There’s a stumbling sound and a thud from behind him as Jake struggles into his jeans.

“Jake’s just getting himself decent,” Rooster explains, stretching his shirt down over his stomach, tucking it neatly into his jeans. She looks him over, already thinking to herself that there’s not one thing halfway decent about these boys. “We’ll have it done by this afternoon.”

“The deal was noon.” She reminds him.

He squints one eye at her through the morning sun, his lips tugging at a soft smile. “Was it?”

She looks him over, playing unimpressed while she studies the trail of hair from his bellybutton to the leather of his belt. “Don’t go helping yourself to nothin’ in the shed, alright? — You take what’s on that list and nothin’ else.”

Rooster smoothes his shirt down and she looks him in the eye again.

“Sure thing, Mrs. O’Malley.” Like I’ve been itching to dig through your rusty saw blades and prehistoric shotgun shells anyways. He says it with a cool smile, polite in a way that’s reminiscent of who he was before. She’s not buying it for one minute; she knows troublesome boys when she sees them. Her problem is that she likes them, too.

The door to the trailer swings open and Jake steps down. Maggie catches the way he does a double-take at her spilling out of her robe, and tightens the belt a smidge. He looks across at Rooster and raises his eyebrows. Rooster’s cooler about it.

They watch her as she dips her red, manicured nails into the pocket of the silk robe, daring the clumsily tied belt to break free. Rooster stubs his cigarette out on the tin shell of Jake’s trailer and rests the butt of it on the flower box by the window. He’s polite enough not to flick the butt into her grass in front of her.

She holds her hand out towards him — it would seem that Jake is suddenly invisible. “Here’s the key.”

The fences in the West pasture are in a sorry state, almost as neglected as Mrs. O’Malley herself. Still, for two guys with nothing better to do and a stretching scheme of experience, it’s not hard work. It’s a mild morning, blue-skied and clear. It’d be nicer if they were further out from the cow shit, and if Rooster didn’t keep catching himself on the barbs, but beggars can’t be choosers and such.

Doesn’t help that the O’Malley tool collection is rust-littered and worn smooth from years of use.

Conversation stunted, they work on opposite sides of the barbed wire divide, faces etched with determination, ticking down the time until noon hits. A stretch of old, sagging fence sits to their left — shoddy looking in comparison to their new work.

With all the time they spend together, there isn’t much left to gossip about. Jake has heard all the stories that Rooster has been willing to tell already. The rhythmic thud of the hammer fills the sound just fine, better than listening to Rooster’s sighs of exertion as he rips the nails from the old fence posts, anyway.

Just as Jake is starting to think about spending today’s extra funds on a transistor radio, he glances up. Something tells him that Maggie will have himself and Rooster doing plenty of odd jobs around here this summer. She watches them from her porch, sipping on a mug of coffee. It’s a perfect view from where that house on the hill sits, she can keep an eye on them from all angles.

Rooster’s nose wrinkles at the echoing sound as he hammers a nail into the post they had just replaced. Thud, thud, thud. It’s sadistic, to be making such a racket this early in the morning. Jake’s head turns, twisting towards the main road over his right shoulder.

“Stop,” Jake breathes out, sitting back on his ankles, loosening his hold on the fence post. The thudding slows to a stop. “You hear that?”

Cruel joke, Rooster thinks to himself. He hears it. Worn down wheels on hastily patched up country road. Dusty Springfield warbling through old radio speakers.

His gaze flickers up to Jake’s face with a beat. Jake looks back at him with that taunting, spring-green gaze and raises his eyebrows.

With the windows on the old station wagon rolled all the way down, he can smell you too. Skin salted but not yet dampened with sweat like theirs is, a fresh soap smell tinged with girly daisy-like perfume. The wind catches at your neck and bristles your hair back, and he can really smell every drop.

It sits just above your pulse points, the spray fanned out and dusting your surrounding skin.

Your fingers support Dusty through the bridge of the song, drumming into the faded leather of the steering wheel. Rooster curls his hands around the wood post and looks past Jake, down the hill and toward the driveway.

Camp is slow to rise on Sundays. Other people get the luxury of sleeping in when Rooster doesn’t need them for something. Or when Maverick lets them. You’ll probably struggle to find someone awake. They have the thought at the same time, and drop their positions.

Jake shakes his gloves off and leaves them in the dirt. He wipes the sweat from his palms onto his jeans, and the sweat from his forehead onto the back of his forearm.

“The hell does she want?”

“You.” Jake answers with a chuckle, leaving his shirt strewn against the fence as he turns away, heading right for you. “For now.”

If there’s one way to ruffle that guy’s feathers, it’s to challenge him. Jake knows it well. Like the gloves, he leaves Rooster there in the dirt and heads for the sound of Dusty Springfield spilling into a Cass Elliott track.

Call it a moral compass; call it having a stick in your ass. Jake finds little distinction between the two when it comes to the way Rooster thinks. Jake plays the hand he’s dealt — and Rooster, well, Rooster doesn’t play anymore.

Rooster grabs onto the wooden support beam and hauls his legs over, landing steadily on Jake’s side. He’s not just going to let Jake smooth-talk you, and he’s not going to run the risk of someone else around here finding you first.

The grounds are practically unrecognizable in the daytime. It’s stark, dry grass and dirt ground, stiffened and still fairground rides and deserted posts. This is the closest you’ve ever gotten to wandering through a ghost town.

The station wagon’s still cooling off in the same place you had parked it the night before, while you’re wandering cautiously through the dead-empty open space. It’s almost polite, the way you’re so reluctant to just walk right in and take what you’re here for. Jake thinks so anyway.

Your fingers brush at the weathered canvas of the big tent, glancing around you before you take the dive and peer toward the darkness inside.

“You look lost.” His voice carries. As intended, it spooks you. You jump in your boots and whip around to face him, eyes wide and stricken with fear.

Jake. He looks different in the daylight too.

Jake’s coming from the West, around the abandoned Hall of Mirrors and smiling at you. You have yet to see him wearing a shirt, as he strolls towards you in stiff denim and brown leather Wrangler boots.

The fear dissipates, you become glad to see him. Practically pinching yourself at your luck, like that’s got anything to do with you seeing him on three occasions now.

“Oh. Hi!” Your heartbeat picks up, kicking like a snare drum as you turn and hit him with that megawatt smile he’d seen back on the road. It tugs at your lips and spreads across your face like fever — your nerves do too. “Sorry, I was just looking—“

“Mornin’,” Jake leans his shoulders back and juts his hips out when he walks, sauntering over there like he’s John Wayne. Rooster rolls his eyes as he walks behind. “What brings you all the way out here?”

“I left my bag.” You tell him, jutting a thumb towards the tent behind you. He cocks his head. You don’t dare take a second look into the empty, dark space over your shoulder. Maybe it isn��t just Georgie who is a little afraid. “Think it ought to be in there.”

Jake’s grin stretches wide and dimples. There’s that look Rooster hates so much too, that bright green glint in his eyes. He shakes his head, still headed right for you.

“Can’t have that, can we?” He’s close enough now that he doesn’t have to talk loud, and close enough that you finally notice who is trailing him. Your smile falters a bit as you spot Rooster, frowning at you as he follows behind. “Sit tight, I’ll get the lights.”

Even with the early morning sun, the canvas is thick and the space inside just seems all consuming — like it swallows the sunlight right up.

Jake pulls back the canvas and ducks inside, headed right for the back. Wearing a ringer tee and looser jeans than Jake, Rooster keeps walking towards you.

“Good morning,” You try, cocking your head and crossing your ankles, shifting sheepishly on your weight. “Sorry if I woke you, or… whatever.”

“You didn’t,” His voice is softer than it was last night. Maybe he’s not in such a bad mood today. He pushes his hands into the pockets of his jeans, pausing by the entrance. Thirty yards between the two of you, Mrs. O’Malley watching from her perch on the hill. “Long way to come for a purse, isn’t it?”

You purse your lips and shrug, that feverish smile spreading across your cheeks once again. “My mom’s. Didn’t want her to know I’d lost it.”

His brows draw together, offering you a sympathetic nod. The generators kick in, whirring to life. The lights come with soft thuds, illuminating the tent. Rooster listens for the sounds of stirring. Hushed conversations and doors starting to open, showers beginning or radio playing. Camp starts to come to life, too.

“I don’t see any bag in here,” Jake’s voice snaps him out of it and he finally stops looking through you. Rooster blinks a few times and reminds himself to move, his shoes kicking through the dirt as he walks into the tent. You assume that you’re supposed to follow. “You were sitting around here, right?”

If you thought outside was unrecognizable in the daylight, the Big Top really takes the cake. Dirt dusting the floor, the arena looks smaller when it’s not circled by a packed out crowd. The stalls look smaller when they’re all empty.

Sure enough, Jake’s facing the right section, bent at the knees to peer under the benches.

“Fuck me.” You groan, walking ahead to join Jake in his search. Rooster hangs back and finds a spot to rest up against one of the support beams. As he watches you lean forwards and bend at the waist in your Daisy Dukes — he considers checking if that was a legitimate offer.

The second that the thought crosses his mind, Jake’s looking at him again. Green eyes flicker between Rooster and your ass, a grin stretching across his pink lips.

“Man alive, she’s going to serve me for dinner.”

Wouldn’t that be something. Jake turns his head and smiles at you, then peers back over his shoulder at Rooster.

“Well, hang on. We’ve kinda got a lost n’ found.” Kinda, because it’s all stuff that just hasn’t been claimed yet. If you hadn’t come by so early, it would’ve been someone else’s pretty fast.

Jake straightens up and turns around, slow, jutting his hips out as he reaches into his pocket for the bait tin he keeps his roll ups in. “Rooster, you don’t mind, do you?”

Rooster. It’s the first time you’re hearing any kind of name for him. Mr. Movie Star. Peace-Sign guy. Smart-mouth who completely blew you off the night before. Rooster. Like the bird?

Whoever he is, he smiles like he knows what Jake’s up to. You’re privy to that much too. Jake’s trying to get you alone, and he’s not exactly shy about the way he’s drawing your attention to the big ol’ belt buckle sitting low on his hips.

Rooster turns dutifully, and heads back out into the open. Jake’s got you all alone.

“So, were you ever gonna tell me your name?” Jake asks, popping open the tin. He takes out one of the carefully rolled tobacco mixes and sets it between his lips. You narrowly miss out on being caught checking him out, covering yourself with a shrug.

“You didn’t ask me.”

“Bossy thing like you, didn’t think I’d have to.”

“You don’t know if I’m bossy.” You tell him. Hands sitting on your hips, face creased into a soft frown. Jake’s far more shameless in the way he looks you over.

“Just a hunch I’ve got.” Jake answers. He cocks a brow. “So, you have a name?”

His lighter clicks and ignites, he puffs at the cigarette. Even with your hands on your hips like you’re about to tell him where to shove it, all you tell him is the truth. He hums around it.

“Cute,” Jake approves. “You smoke?”

Sometimes. Menthols, though. Greener things, too. Not whatever’s wrapped up in those papers. Olive would say yes. She’d stand here and smoke with him — and maybe blow him behind the bleachers.

“Menthols, now and again.”

His lips stretch around it, dimpling slightly. “Cute.” He repeats.

“This is what we’ve got from last night.” Rooster is back, holding a wooden apple crate. His arms flex against the t-shirt as he hoists it up and leans down to set it at your feet.

There’s a jacket on top, a rogue shoe in there, couple of bracelets and an earring. You crouch down to peel the jacket back. Rooster watches your eyes go round as your fingers curl around the leather strap, and you spring back up like a little rabbit.

“Yes! This is it!”

Rooster smiles. Exactly like he had back on the road, a just-can’t-help-it kind of grin that makes you start to think he might actually like you. You look up at him, glowing with eyes full of mischief. You lick your lips and look between the two of them.

“Thanks, guys,” you huff out a breathless giggle, so calm in these foreign surroundings. Like a little bunny, for sure. Couldn’t spot trouble for the life of you. “You just really saved my skin.”

“No sweat.” Rooster answers coolly. “We’ve got some work to get back to -- you get home safe, kid.”

Your mouth flattens. There’s a sizeable difference in the years you were born, you’d guess. Rooster’s bigger, and wiser if you ask him, with crinkles around his mouth and a tan-line between his perpetually furrowed brows. But you’re all grown, and you have been for a while now. ‘Kid’ isn’t exactly what you had in mind when it came to what you had wanted him to call you.

“Hey, honey,” That tracks better. Your full attention is Jake’s, and Rooster doesn’t like that. Jake flicks ash from his cigarette onto the dirt floor, cocking his head at you. “Don’t suppose you’d know of a good place to get a drink around here?”

There we go. That’s what you’ve been waiting for. It’s as close as you’re going to get to an invitation, and it’s good enough for now. Your excitement is palpable, it buzzes around you like the morning breeze.

“There’s a bar by the firehouse that’s okay,” you tell him. Jake nods with you, quirking an eyebrow, leaving you to fill the silence with more information. “Music and pool. Cheap beer.”

Jake looks at Rooster. He isn’t asking for permission, there’s something more daring in his look. He puffs at his cigarette, then looks at you. It’s unspoken between them — Jake’s only finishing those fences if they go to this bar.

“And you’ll be there, right?” He prompts you.

Rooster looks at Jake. The camp is really starting to move now. He shifts on his feet as tin trailer doors rattle and creak. You should really get going.

You look between them. “Tonight?”

You’re due back at the Pines first thing in the morning, but it wouldn’t be the first time that you’ve turned up a little ‘under the weather’. Conrad tends to take pity on you if you look really sad.

Though, if tonight goes the way you’re planning, it’s going to be pretty hard to keep that smile off of your face tomorrow morning.

“Sure. I could stop by.”

And just like that, it’s settled. Jake gets what he wants in the form of you, him and some cheap beer. Rooster gets what he wants in the form of your car finally pulling off of the grounds and back onto the main road.

Jake heads back up to the West pasture to get Rooster his bonus. Rooster watches until that station wagon is back on the road before he turns to join him. Camp livens, the bustle growing, almost everyone awake. The smell of burning pancakes fills his nose as he crosses the fields. That means Natasha’s up.

Olive doesn’t believe you. One minute you’re grinning as you’re telling her, twisting the phone cord around your finger from your perch on the window in your room, and the next she’s picking you up in her white ‘71 Firebird. Her eighteenth birthday present was a hell of a lot cooler than yours.

“So, which one is yours?” She asks, smacking her lips in the rearview mirror as you zip up your boots in the passenger seat. Warm-skinned and dark-haired, Olive knows that yellow is her colour and she glows in it.

“Haven’t decided yet,” you tell her. It’s your secret that one of them has barely shot a nice look in your direction since you first saw him on the road — she’s like a shark in the water when it comes to screwing guys you could have liked. It’s a small pond; half the fish didn’t come back from the wrong side of the Pacific.

“Roger that,” she answers, her headlights illuminating the dark stretch behind Church Street. No streetlights this way, even this close to town. “Both it is.”

Your mouth stretches, silent appreciation coating your face as she turns right and Dutch’s — Atwood’s answer to dive bars — comes in to view. Olive’s the one who introduced you to this place. She’s well-known here.

They’re here. The faded green pick-up that Jake had rolled into town in the bed of is parked at the far end of the lot. It could be just Jake, he could’ve come alone, but you know he didn’t. There’s just a feeling you have that both of them are here, together.

It’s something between triumph and turned-on, buzzing and fluttery in your stomach. This feels kinda like a date. That feeling is kind of like butterflies in your tummy, but better.

Dutch’s is always filled with a cloud of smoke and gas station men’s cologne, bathed in the glow of the neon signs. It’s gritty, and fun — certainly no place for two young ladies, which is why the patrons like it so much when you two show up. Cheap beer and old wood, raucous sounds of laughter and pool balls clacking into one another. That’s where you find them.

Jake, for once, is dressed. He’s wearing a pale blue button-up and a less faded pair of jeans, leaning against his pool cue, watching the door close behind the two of you.

Your heeled boots are lost in the sound, tapping across the sticky, scuffed-wood floor. Olive is welcomed loudly from all angles, guys calling her name and reaching for her hand. She squeezes your fingers and keeps with you, her giggle music to your ears. The weathered regulars aren’t what she’s here for tonight.

The ivory balls clack together and rattle, one goes flying into the far right stomach that now sits right in front of your thighs. Rooster admires his successful shot, his gaze darting up to meet yours before he stands up straight again.

There’s no point in pretending you aren’t nice to look at. His eyes trail your middle. Real slow, taking his time. Dimly lit, smoke-hazed, neon-flushed room, his cheeks are reddish and tanned, his eyes are dark. He has shaved since this morning, so he can’t pretend he didn’t make the effort for you. His jaw is bare, and above his lip is a neatly-trimmed brown ‘stache. Shoulders wide and squared, his worn hands wrapped around the cue.

He examines you like you’re a centrefold — except one that he wouldn’t be embarrassed to be looking at in public — searching your skin, from where those tight jeans sit just below your navel to where the blouse is tied between your tits. He finds freckles, and gold rings on your fingers, smooth skin on your stomach. The softest curve to your breasts, sitting free under the cover of that thin red fabric.

Then, Rooster smiles, almost polite, as he finally finds your face, knowing damn well you saw him looking. More than looking. Studying.

He reaches wordlessly for his Coors, and takes a drink. Shameless.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Jake catches your attention. His broad shoulders stretch at the blue of that shirt as he rounds the table towards you. “Must be my lucky day, huh?”

“Sure looks like it.” With Olive here, your confidence surges. She always knows what to say and when she’s around, you do too. “Almost didn’t recognise you with your clothes on, you know.”

His gaze lingers, smirk toying at his lips. Just watching. Then, he looks towards Olive. Passing his cue into his other hand, he extends his right towards her. “Jake, that’s Rooster.”

“Rooster?” She challenges, her hand shaking limply at Jake’s as she turns to stare at the quiet guy behind the table. “Like the bird?”

“Uh-huh. Government official, and everything.” He answers her, sarcasm dripping from his tone as he gulps back another mouthful and sets the empty bottle down against the wood. Olive doesn’t like that. They aren’t going to get along.

“This is Olive.” You try to leave the bird comment behind.

“Like the fruit?” Rooster intercepts.

She quirks an eyebrow at him, that was a point in his favour.

You don’t even realise she isn’t shaking Jake’s hand anymore until his thumb strokes at your knuckles. He’s up close, and he smells like a man. He raises his eyebrows at your, linking his index finger around yours.

“What are you girls drinking?”

“Beer’s fine.” Olive answers for you. In a place like Dutch’s, you don’t really sip on Cosmos or Martinis.

As she reaches for it, Jake passes his pool cue compliantly into her hand without once taking his eyes off of your face. There’s something mesmerizing about the way he tracks you.

You glance downward at his finger linked against yours, resting against the denim of his thigh.

“Beer it is. Lead the way, Bunny.” His thumb trails the bumps in your knuckles once again, he lifts his arm and turns you the other way like you’re dancing. With him following close behind, you happily lead him to the bar with the barely-there grip you’ve got on him.

Your front presses to the bar, Jake presses against your backside. He smells like pine, but sweeter. His hand comes to rest on your middle, halfway curved around your hip.

“So, you’re local?” Jake asks.

“Mhm, my parents have a place just a little ways past the laundromat.”

Jake leans past you and flashes four of his fingers to Jimmy, the bartender that you made out with last New Years’. You wince a bit, then shake it off. Jimmy sleeps with almost every girl that enters this place, and you had narrowly dodged that bullet. That’s a feat in itself.

“And you’re what— in college?” He asks.

“Oh, no. I work at the old folks’ home. We both do.” You gesture back across the bar to Olive. Both of you catch the moment she glares at the back of Rooster’s head as he sinks another ball.

Old folks. That’s new.

“… On purpose?” He asks.

Your mouth gapes dramatically, elbow pushing back into his ribs as Jimmy sets down four cold beers in front of you. No, not on purpose. It’s not like the Pines had ever been in your plan.

“Says the Carnie?”

“Oh, ouch,” Jake chuckles, grabbing three of the bottles in one hand. He holds a hand over his heart with the one that he’s got free. “Brutal, baby.”

So, neither of you are here by choice. Jake finds that less funny than his casual grin would have you believe.

Once reunited, Olive takes her beer from your hand and leans in to tell you exactly what she thinks of Jake’s friend. Leaning against his pool cue, Rooster listens as the expletives roll off of her tongue, unfazed. He doesn’t like her much either. He’s not as good at making friends as he used to be.

You get familiar with the worn felt and chipped edges of the table, giggling beer after beer with your newfound friend. Jake, not Rooster, who seems to prefer to just look.

Occasionally, the conversation will be broken by the thunderous clap of Rooster splitting the balls in a fresh game. His competitive streak is not a hit with Olive; you seem to have already made up your mind about fucking Jake.

Now, it’s out of his hands.

Amidst not-so-good-natured taunts and jibes, Olive introduces a round of tequila shots.

Jake complies, so you comply. Rooster has decided by this point to pick his battles, and doesn’t argue as Jake passes him and overfilled shot glass. Without salt or a lime, Rooster sinks the liquid and picks up the chalk to dust off his pool cue.

Salt on your tongue, perched on the edge of the pool table, Jake’s green eyes glisten with oppportunity as you swallow back the warm drink, your nose wrinkling at the taste. Jake lifts the lime wedge, pleased as you open your mouth. You meet his gaze and suddenly all the patrons start to fall quiet at once.

It’s headache-inducing for Rooster, listening to all those butterflies in your stomach. You sink your teeth into the fruit and the burning sensation from the shot starts to subside, leaving you just with the same feeling but this time from Jake.

It isn’t really quiet. Really, Olive swears at Rooster again, a glass smashes somewhere to your left and the band starts to play an original song.

But it all feels quiet.

It feels all-encompassing, and intimate, and hot.

Jake takes the lime away from your mouth, the corner of his mouth twitching. Rooster was right about you. His eyes glint in the neon as your tongue swipes a droplet of stray lime juice from your bottom lip.

“You wanna get some fresh air?” he whispers, dropping the lime onto the window ledge beside him so that he can grab two handfuls of your hips.

Rooster watches you nod giddily at Jake. A pang of jealousy plucks at him; he feels green all over, sick with envy as the two of you slip out of the side exit.

If he’d smiled at you the night before or even if he had just been half as friendly as Jake had, he knows it would be him. He would happily take Jake’s spot, in another life. Not this one.

Instead, he pockets the final ball of the game and stands up straight. Sinking the shot that Rooster had declined, she takes one look at the guy she has now been left alone with and shakes her head.

The premise of fresh air was gone as soon as it was promised. The two of you had knowingly beelined it for his truck before the back door to Dutch’s had even closed behind you.

It’s no surprise to either one of you when you’re huddling into the cab of Jake’s truck at the far end of the lot. He’s kissing you. He has been kissing you the entire time he was backing you over, his hands in your hair and on your waist and squeezing at your ass— everywhere. You gasp as he falls forwards, both of you spilling across the leather seats.

He’s between your legs, pawing at your ass and grinding his belt buckle into your stomach, his hips spreading your thighs wide.

There’s nothing new about this — about a quick fuck in a truck, or about not really knowing the guy you’re kissing all too well, but this isn’t a guy you kind of know. It’s a stranger. A complete stranger, with no last name and no home and no real job. You don’t even know enough about him to ward off the questions your parents would ask.

But you moan against his mouth when he kisses you. You welcome him hungrily, twisting your fingers in his soft, sandy hair and reveling in the feeling of his rough hands exploring your skin.

You’re warm all over, hugged by this new tequila-fuelled confidence. His mouth is a welcome heat, all over and feeling so good. Somewhere between rushed, panting kisses, your shirt goes flying and his goes falling and your bare chest is smushed flat against his. His hips roll languidly into yours, denim on denim and excitement pooling in your panties.

His cool breath makes you squirm against the brown leather of the seat, lips parted and panting. Jake licks a hot stripe along the column of your neck, the tip of his nose bristling against the gold of your hoop earring. He inhales slowly, savouring the daisies and the sweat, the humanity of this closeness. Your heart thuds in your chest. His fingers dig into the flesh of your thighs, hard.

Rooster grimaces from inside, and not just because by this point Olive has ditched him to joke around with some guys beside the bar.

Jake sits back for a moment. Heat flushed through your skin, your teeth pressed into the pillow of your bottom lip, your legs spread for him to fit between. Your shirt sits in the footwell and Jake, for the first time, gets unadulterated access to the beauty of your naked chest.

He blinks, feeling you reach for him. Your fingers follow the trail of soft, blond hair, all the way down the taut planes of his stomach. Your touch is gentle, slowly headed right for his belt buckle. Your eyes catch on a glint of gold.

His cross necklace sparkles under the glow of the streetlight behind the truck. You study the tattoo under it, the crucifix shape hidden by the necklace, right between his collarbones. There’s something off about it. Not just the morals of it. You know plenty of god-fearing boys that would be pretty willing to fuck you in this truck without knowing so much as your last name.

The skin is raised and unsteady. At first you think that maybe it’s a war tat; tons of guys got bad ink while they were overseas. But you haven’t seen it like this.

It’s jagged and scarred, the ink bleeds out over where the tissue is raised. Your first-aid knowledge is limited despite the nurses uniform you spend most of your days in, but you recognise this. The crucifix is a scar, it’s burned into his skin, like a brand.

Your gaze shifts back up to his with a beat, he’s already watching your face. The look on his face is different, suddenly calm and eerily still. He tips his head just slightly to the right, the movement jerky and stiff.

His palms weigh your hips down into the worn leather, feeling heavier than they had before. The back lot of Dutch’s feels darker than it ever has before. You feel a lot further from the safety of its smoky embrace, and a lot further from the one person who knows where you are tonight.

Rooster sinks his beer and watches Olive giggling, obliviously, by the bar.

He can hear you panicking. The sudden spike in your heartbeat and the shallow sound of your soft breaths. Maybe you’re smarter than he gave you credit for.

He thinks that Jake’s going to give you the same line he gives all the girls he fucks who are smart enough to notice the scar. Lost a bet, baby, don’t you worry about it.

Jake, instead, studies the look on your face. He looks down at your fingers still resting on his belt buckle, frozen stiff. His lips quirk at the corners. Your move.

NEXT CHAPTER

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