Chapter 19

Rory came down in the morning and found Paula in the kitchen. He stretched, which caused him to wince, before sitting on one of the barstools.

“You hurt yourself?” Paula asked.

“It’s just growing pains. I’ll go stretch and work out after breakfast and be good as new.”

“I made peanut butter oatmeal.”

Paula made him a bowl and put it in front of Rory. He took a tentative taste and smiled. The peanut butter was subtle, with apples and cinnamon.

“I would never have thought of this. It’s quite good.”

“My mom made it for me as a kid. Of course, she’s the same woman who would eat bread with butter and sugar on it as a kid. She told me her grandmother would make both for her when she visited. Over the years, I added the apples to make it healthier, and I like cinnamon,” Paula shared.

“My mom was notorious for sneaking fruits and vegetables into stuff. She put apples into turkey burgers,” Rory said.

“Is it any good?”

“It’s not bad. It makes the turkey juicy.”

His throat suddenly felt painful and tight, and he could barely breathe. No amount of swallowing made the throbbing lump disappear. Rory could see his mother smiling as she revealed she’d snuck apples into his turkey burger.

He leaned his head back, and instantly the tears started welling up; no amount of blinking could stop them. He gave Paula an embarrassed look.

“Sorry,” he said as he wiped his eyes. “Sorry. My mother’s death is still a bit raw, and at random times it just hits me.”

“I don’t know what I would do if I lost my mom, and I’m twice your age.”

Rory had gotten himself back together when Crystal walked in.

“Are you free today?” she asked as she joined them.

“Nope. I got roped into helping set up at the country club for the Fourth of July extravaganza. If you need child labor, call Sarah in.”

“You keep it up, and she’ll be taking your job,” Crystal fired back with a smile.

“I’m not worried. Tyler would never fire me.”

Sophie came in and was about to make a smartass comment when Crystal’s eyes landed on her.

Rory chuckled when Sophie suddenly realized something was up.

“I think I found my child labor,” Crystal said. “We need to get all your paperwork done anyway. We might as well do it today.”

“How come Rory gets out of it?” Sophie whined.

“He’s volunteering his time to set up the party at the country club.”

“Mrs. Barton will be in charge,” Rory added.

“Yeah. I’ll go to work with my mom to avoid that,” Sophie decided.

Julie sighed and sat down on the grass. Alice followed suit, settling next to Summer and actually leaning into her, making Summer wonder what she’d done to deserve this encroachment upon her personal boundaries.

They’d grabbed sandwiches at the standup bar in the clubhouse. It was such a gorgeous day that they decided to eat outside before going to help Summer’s mom.

“So, fill it and spill it,” Julie said.

Summer glanced over at Alice to see if this was some new slang she hadn’t heard about or what. Alice looked as confused as she did.

“What are you trying to say?” Alice asked.

“I’ve been thinking,” Julie said.

“Dangerous. Don’t do it,” Summer said.

Julie gave her the bird and said, “We need to have new catchphrases for when we go back to school. ‘Fill it and spill it’ is one I came up with. I’ll message you the rest. That way, we can try them out and see which ones will catch on.”

“I don’t think that one works,” Summer said.

“That doesn’t mean her point isn’t valid. What happened on your date with The Walking Dildo? Did you lose your V-card?” Alice asked.

“Nothing like that occurred,” Summer said and then filled them in on what had transpired on her first date with Rory.

Julie jumped up and did a happy dance, wiggling her butt and moving her arms alternately in a pumping motion.

“That means that tonight, Rory’s mine,” Alice announced, which put an end to the dancing.

“I think I’ve gone crazy,” Julie admitted.

“No, you’ve been gone for a long time now. We just didn’t want you to know we knew,” Alice quipped.

“All I can think about is Rory. I even thought about sneaking over again to be with him,” Julie said.

“I’ve had similar thoughts,” Summer admitted.

Alice shook her head.

“This is a problem, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Either one of us or none of us needs to date him. Sharing isn’t going to work,” Julie declared.

Summer knew her BFF was right. The three of them had been friends since grade school. They each had different tastes in men. Well, Julie had never shown any interest until Rory appeared. Everything would have been fine if he hadn’t gone down on Julie and rocked her world.

Before that, they’d kept the sexual stuff to mainly the group hangs. Sean and Jace were harmless and would never pressure them to do more than they wanted. When they split up to make out, it usually ended with the boys receiving oral, and it didn’t mean anything.

Then Rory had offered to return the favor. While he never got his blow job, he did go down on Julie, who’d had the best orgasm of her life. She’d snuck back the next day and given him her virginity. Summer’s and Alice’s view of Rory turned from harmless blow jobs to much, much more.

“You’re right,” Summer said. “If he were Jace or Sean, it would be no big deal. But if we’re going to want to have full-on sex with someone, we’ll want that to be exclusive.”

“That’s true,” Alice admitted. “And if we all offer ourselves to him, he’ll never think much of us.”

“Do you think he thinks I’m a...?” Julie asked, looking like she might cry.

“No, honey. Rory isn’t like that,” Summer said.

“What are we going to do about tonight? We already told Sean and Jace that we would do a group hang. Kierra’s having a party after the fireworks that everyone’s going to. We can’t exclude Rory,” Alice said.

Both girls looked at Summer.

“I think we go with the original plan for tonight, where Alice gets her turn. We’ll sit down Sunday and figure out what’ll happen from there. We’ll need to decide before we go to Lake Mead, or I predict we’ll all be mad at each other. I don’t want a boy to come between us.”

The others agreed. Then Summer had a thought.

“What’s up with Sean?”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Julie said.

“I know that he and Jace hung out with Rory a few times this week, and he hasn’t said a peep about what they did,” Summer said.

Her two friends grasped what she was getting at. Sean told them EVERYTHING. He had almost no filter on his thoughts, and for him to go silent meant something. The problem was, Summer couldn’t figure out what that could be.

“I’ll ask Jace,” Alice said as she got out her phone and dialed his number.

“Where are you guys? You left us with Summer’s mother, and Sean’s about to have a meltdown,” Jace said as he answered.

“We’ll be there in a minute, but I have a question. What did you do with Rory this week?”

“We did guy stuff. Now, quit messing around and get over here before Sean needs his mommy,” Jace said and hung up.

“Guy stuff?” Julie asked.

“My mom has Sean off-balance. If we work together, he’ll crack,” Summer said.

Rory was on the verge of giving Mrs. Barton a piece of his mind when the girls arrived to distract her. He was sure Sean would need therapy after what she’d said to the poor guy. In fairness, Sean was almost useless. Rory and Jace had carried in all the tables and set them up while Sean yammered on about some new graphic novel he’d gotten.

While the girls worked with Mrs. Barton on picking out tablecloths, the guys took a break.

“How did your date with Summer go?” Jace asked.

“Why are you guys always asking me about my love life? Shouldn’t we be talking about yours, too?” Rory asked, a bit miffed.

“Girls haven’t discovered my hidden charms, and Jace is too nice a guy for any girl to want to go out with him. So, we have to live vicariously through your exploits,” Sean said.

Sean may have been mostly useless, but he was observant. If Rory had to peg why the two of them didn’t date, he’d have to go with Sean’s reasoning. That was why their hanging with the girls made sense. They were getting more action than he’d ever had until recently.

“The date was okay, as far as first dates go,” Rory said, then told them what had happened.

“You did at least make out, didn’t you?” Sean asked.

“Everything was very PG. It was the kind of first date I would’ve gone on if I were back home in Chicago,” Rory shared.

“Are you going to ask her out again?” Jace asked.

“I’ll see her tonight.”

“We’re doing a group hang. There’s no guarantee you’ll get Summer,” Sean said.

“Why not?” Rory asked.

“Because you’re not officially dating Summer, and the girls decide who to split off with,” Jace said.

“What if I don’t want to go make out with the other girls?” Rory asked.

“Then I guess you don’t get a blow job,” Sean said matter-of-factly.

Rory was still amazed at how casual their hookups were. Back home, he’d heard of girls giving guys head at parties, and it not meaning anything. For Rory, if a girl had done that back in Chicago, he would’ve been completely whipped and would’ve worked to get a repeat performance. Even if Rory would’ve looked like a total doormat, as Sophie had called him.

“I’m going to give you both your first lesson on women. For starters, you’re both ‘nice guys,’ and women put those types into the ‘friend zone’ and will never think of you as anything else,” Rory said. He could see the same confusion on their faces that he had when Sophie told him.

“I don’t mean you have to be jerks,” Rory continued. “But we’ll do just about anything to get a girl to touch our dicks. Am I right?”

“That sounds right,” Jace said.

“The problem is, girls know this, and it comes across as semi-creepy. You hope she’ll sleep with you if you do X, Y, or Z for her. Girls can sense it when you do that.”

“Like us helping set up for this party?” Sean asked.

Rory smiled. He’d forgotten he’d done it just last night to get out of the Barton house.

“That’s an excellent point, and I have a hard time breaking that habit. But if you don’t want to fall into the friend zone, you need to do two things. The first is to let the girl know you’re interested in being more than friends up front. That removes the creepy stalker vibe they get when you try to win them over with deeds.

“The second is, if they tell you they aren’t interested in more, then either decide to be their friend or walk away,” Rory said.

“So, we should’ve said ‘no’ to helping out today?” Sean asked.

“If you didn’t want to do it,” Rory said.

“Cool. I’m out of here,” Sean decided.

Rory shook his head.

“What did I say about being a jerk? Telling someone you’ll do something and then bailing isn’t the right answer. As guys, we need to learn to say ‘no’ up front. I’m afraid you’re stuck now that you’ve made the commitment,” Rory said.

“And don’t start complaining. It makes me want to punch you,” Jace said to Sean.

“What are you going to do about tonight if Summer doesn’t pick you?” Jace asked Rory.

’That’s a good question,’ Rory thought.

“I’ll be disappointed because I’ll know she doesn’t feel the same way about me as I do about her. But I get how the group works and don’t want to mess that up for you guys, so I’ll probably go along,” Rory decided.

“Will you do more like last time?” Sean asked.

’Another good question.’

“I think I’ll hold off until you guys are ready for more yourselves,” Rory said and could see Sean and Jace both looked relieved. “Speaking of which, have you found a girl willing to let you practice on her?”

They both looked away, telling Rory that they hadn’t.

“Ask around tonight. Girls want sex as much as we do. Someone will volunteer,” Rory encouraged.

“We were hoping...” Sean began.

“Nope, I’m not going to get someone for you. Asking a girl is part of the process. If you want it bad enough, you’ll figure it out,” Rory said.

He gave them a one-in-ten chance of finding a girl willing to be their demonstration dummy. If they struck out, he would see what he could do to help since he had the unfair advantage of being in an actual porn class.

“Incoming,” Jace warned right before Mrs. Barton came walking up.

Yep. Time to get back to work.

“Why do I have to go?” Sophie objected. “It’s just another excuse for everyone to dress up and show off.”

They were packed in the car and driving to the country club. Sophie knew it was too late to get out of it, but she wanted to lodge her complaint.

“Because we have to make more of an effort,” Crystal said.

“What’s wrong with dressing up?” Paige asked.

“Why are you going with us again?” Rory asked.

“I didn’t want to hang out with my parents. They’re in a snit about me buying an outfit for tonight.”