Can't Bucking Wait

Prologue

Two Years Earlier

Our yard was full of people, but I stood alone at the edge of it all, watching on. 

At the center, Callie hollered the lyrics to a country song, waving her arms in the air, surrounded by friends. She moved her hips, swaying them to the beat, effortlessly seductive.

If I’d tried that, I would have looked as attractive as a drunk squirrel. Apart from my lab partner and a girl I tutored who I’d invited personally, Callie was the only reason anyone from school was even here at all. She was the outgoing twin, while I didn’t really have friends at all. My sole focus had been my grades and getting into Harvard on a full academic scholarship. It had meant years of sacrificing parties and football games in favor of studying.

But I didn’t regret my lack of friendships or social life. Because it had all paid off.

I smiled, thinking about the thick white paper and embossed Harvard logo on my acceptance letter. It was tucked away in my drawer right now, but I’d read it over and over again for the past few months. So many times I’d learned it by heart.

I’d be on my way in a matter of hours. I’d already said goodbye to everyone I needed to, except for one person.

Butterflies lit up inside me as I chanced a glance over at him, standing with some of my father’s other trainees. He laughed at something one of them said, his wide, white-toothed smile melting my insides even from a distance.

His eye caught mine, and he tipped his head in my direction. “Having fun?” he mouthed.

I’d watched his mouth so intently for years that I knew exactly what he was saying, despite the music being too loud for me to hear.

I nodded happily.

He went back to his conversation, while I replayed the whole thing over in my head, examining it from every angle.

It gave me too much time to notice I wasn’t the only one paying attention to him. While I tried to keep my crush quiet, Callie’s was widely known.

I hated it with every bone in my body.

“Lennon!” Georgia, my lab partner, gripped my arm while she squealed. “Who is that, and why is he smiling at you?”

I glanced over at her. “Preston. He works and trains here. I’ve known him since I was a kid.”

I was eighteen now. Technically an adult. But I didn’t exactly feel like one.

“Why have you never said anything about him? Is he a good kisser?”

I blinked. “What? How would I know that?”

She frowned. “Aren’t you two…together?”

“No!”

“Oh. It’s just the way he looked at you…”

I glanced over at him again. He’d moved to the center of the dance floor and was surrounded by Callie’s friends. “No, he’s just friendly.”

Georgia shook her head. “If I were you, I’d be jumping on him and riding him like he was a stallion.”

“Oh my God. You did not just say that.”

She raised one eyebrow. “I just know I wouldn’t want to be going off to college still a virgin.”

Embarrassment prickled at the back of my neck. “What does that matter?”

Georgia shrugged. “Everyone at college is older. And probably not from dinky little towns like this. I didn’t want to be the only one still holding on to her V-card.”

I groaned. I was so sick of this sort of talk. It was all I heard in the corridors at school, and from Callie. Who was dating who. Who was sleeping together. And now Georgia, too? I hadn’t seen that one coming. She was as dedicated to her studies as I was, or so I’d thought.

I’d had my head down studying for so many years that I’d barely been kissed, let alone dated anyone. Preston was the only person I was interested in. “He doesn’t know I’m alive.”

“That look he gave you…I beg to differ. Shoot your shot, Lennon. What have you got to lose? If he says no, you’re on a plane tomorrow anyway.”

Warmth spread through me, and when Georgia wandered off, I stayed where I was, watching Preston from afar like I always did, and feeling completely inexperienced and lame.

And turned on.

God, he was gorgeous. He was always smiling, always had a kind word for anyone he met. Including me. I’d stashed away all those little innocent comments in my memory and replayed them in my head on a regular basis. His wide-brimmed hat hid mid-length hair I’d dreamed about running my fingers through. And beneath his shirt, his chest and arms and abs were all tight and perfect, deeply tanned from hours of working in the sun.

I wasn’t completely naïve. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with him.

I’d just never had the courage to put it out there on display.

The party dragged on, and eventually people hugged my sister and waved goodbye. The trainees all went back to their cabins, and I watched Preston until he disappeared into the darkness, his smile for me fading into black.

I didn’t want to be the timid little thing I’d been all my life. I was eighteen. A woman. About to leave home, move my life a thousand miles away, and leave everything I knew behind.

I could tell a man I liked him.

I could even ask him for sex.

I didn’t have to wait for him to come to me.

But I also couldn’t leave my parents with all the mess. This was a joint party for me and my twin, but of course, she’d scampered off somewhere as soon as the trash bags were brought out, ready for cleanup.

I grabbed one from my mother and got to work, ignoring her chitchat, because my brain was too focused on the idea of going to Preston’s cabin.

My heart thumped, and even once the mess was tidied, I still stalled. I decided I needed a shower. I needed to smell amazing, put on fresh makeup, shave my legs…shave everything actually.

By the time I was done, my parents had gone to bed, and the house was quiet. Callie’s bedroom door was closed, as was my older sister, Summer’s, though she might have been at her boyfriend’s cabin. Even still, I tiptoed past their bedrooms, slightly panicked because I’d never snuck out of the house before.

But nothing happened. Nobody came out to tell me off. I made it outside, running across the field toward the trainees’ cabins because if I didn’t run, I would likely crawl back to my bed, the idea abandoned.

I didn’t stop until I got to Preston’s cabin. But then, I stared up at it, my breath coming too fast. I was both terrified and excited. I wanted to rush the stairs and turn around and run home. A soft light glowed in the window, so he was probably still awake.

I forced my feet up the stairs, one at a time. Just keep moving…

His door was slightly ajar. I sucked in a deep breath, remembering Georgia’s reassurances. I practiced my speech in my head. “Hi, Preston. I know this is going to be a little out of the blue, but can I come in?”

Once I was in, I was going to have to wing it because my brain had become paralyzed by trying to think up a way to actually say the words, “I don’t want to go to college a virgin, and I want to have sex with you.”

I made myself knock before I chickened out.

In my adrenaline-filled state, I knocked a little too hard.

The door swung open.

A feminine yelp from the bed, visible through his open bedroom door, was my first indication that this had been a very bad idea. Steam billowed through a slightly ajar bathroom door, and the woman scrambled to cover her naked body with a sheet.

My heart wrenched with the knowledge I’d been too late.

He’d found someone else.

“Lennon? What are you doing here?” Callie pulled the sheet tight around her breasts, her cheeks pink.

I stared dumbly at my sister, horrified and motionless all at the same time.

Her hair was tousled. Messed up from having his fingers running through it.

My gaze fell to an open condom packet on the floor. She followed my line of sight and bent to snatch it up.

Not that there’d been any question of what they’d been doing.

The exact same thing I’d come here for.

I turned and fled into the darkness, locking myself in my bedroom, drowning in shame and embarrassment.

The next day, I got on a plane, leaving both Callie and Preston behind without saying a word.