Page 43 of Seein’ Red

Here goes…

“These two were there, but we were really close growing up. All six of us were, but Nash and I had a bond. Something just clicked. We’ve always had a weird push and pull, but it worked. It was us against the world—that’s what he always used to say.”

“They were the outgoing ones,” Kenzie adds.

“We had this…agreement. Pact. Whatever you want to call it. That if we didn’t cash in our V-cards before college, then we’d be each other’s first. Somehow we’d gotten it into our heads that going off to college virgins would be the worst thing in the world. Who knows how—probably one of my brothers.”

I chuckle, wishing life were that simple again. That the worst of my problems was being a virgin.

“We did the whole prom thing—yes, as friends—but…I can’t deny I had a crush on him. Funny, goofy Nash? What girl wouldn’t?” Kenzie and Sylvie raise their hands, looking at me like duh! “You two don’t count.”

Bronwyn smiles, then joins them in raising her hand. I stand corrected.

“He didn’t want to do it that night. Said he didn’t want us to be a cliché,” I continue. “So, we waited ’til after graduation, when we knew we could actually get time alone. He planned this whole big thing—picnic in the peach grove, candles, all sorts of swoony shit like Dustin would pull. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he asked Dustin for advice, and he had a hand in it.”

Kenzie shakes her head, telling me she has no idea. It doesn’t really matter, but deep down I like thinking that maybe Nash really did do all of it himself.

“So, we did it and it was, well, it was a first time. The whole awkward, fumbling, where do I put my hands kind of thing. But, in my head, it was still magical.” I sigh, still feeling the butterflies of that night. “And after, we cuddled. Because Nash fucking Keller is a cuddler. To this day, he is a cuddler. And I was so, so sure that was the start of Willa and Nash, forever. But then he confessed.”

“Confessed what?” Kenzie asks, leaning forward.

Tears prick at the corner of my eyes. Forget the butterflies; all the hurt is back too. The same heart-ripping pain I felt when I was eighteen.

“He told me I wasn’t actually his first. That he’d slept with Kitty.”

“No!” Kenzie gasps, at the same time Sylvie explodes with “What?”

“Wait, Kitty as in the honey gal from the farmers’ market?” Bronwyn clarifies. “That doesn’t make sense. Noel told me she hit on him in high school.”

“What she actually did was offer to take him under the bleachers and show him how she purrs,” I say, the words sour in my mouth, tears still threatening to fall. “That’s her line. There’s a reason we call her the town bike, because everyone has been offered the chance to go for a ride. And I do mean everyone.”

Bronwyn takes a minute to digest the information, face scrunching in disgust as she works it out in her head. “So…Dustin, Camden?”

Kenzie and Sylvie nod in affirmation.

“I’m pretty sure it scarred Camden a little,” Sylvie says. “You think he’s shy now; he was even more so then. So Kitty making that offer…yeah…”

“Plenty of guys took Kitty up on it. I just didn’t think any of our guys were on that list,” Kenzie comments.

“Surprise,” I choke out.

A single tear escapes, slowly rolling down my cheek. The rest continue to threaten, the dam weaker now, my insides aching so badly that I feel as if I could melt on the spot. Dissolve into nothing but a puddle of hurt and anger.

“He wouldn’t,” Kenzie continues. “He knows that you two were rivals and all that. How much you disliked her, even then.”

“But he did, Kenz!” I cry, the rest of the tears breaking through. “For all his ‘it’s us against the world’ nonsense and everything I thought was between us, he did. Maybe it was me who was stupid here, thinking that we could be more and that we could rival the cuteness of you and Dustin. Be a Hickory Hills power couple—a Hayes and a Keller. Obviously, I didn’t mean as much to him as he did to me.”

I continue to cry, trying to look away from my friends, wanting to feel less on display. They aren’t having it though. Bronwyn and Sylvie each grab a hand, Kenzie popping out of her chair and rushing over to wrap me in a hug.

I don’t deserve these women. Their friendship is everything, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that I wouldn’t have survived any of this without them. Even if I did keep it a secret. The fact that none of them are chastising me for that is a miracle.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Sylvie asks.

“I was embarrassed. And I didn’t want to break up the group. We were all headed to Athens in a couple of months anyway, and I figured that it’d all work itself out. So I threw all my focus into my goal of being Miss Georgia and beating the ball gown right off Kitty. Which I did. I wiped the floor with her.”

Kenzie lets go, kissing me on top of the head, and slides back into her seat. “Now that the last decade of you two bickering and snarking at each other makes a little more sense, can you please explain to me the pregnant part?”

“You see, sometimes when a man and a woman want to feel good, the man will take his penis and⁠—”