Boys Like You by Jaye Pratt
I pace the hall of Edgewater high. The principal and a couple of teachers are going over my tests. Everything seemed basic enough, but that’s what worries me. If I found it so easy, wouldn't that be an indication it went horribly wrong? Surely the tests couldn't have been easy; it’s year twelve not year two. Damn it, what was I thinking? We need to leave before I make a total fool of myself.
“Okay, let’s go,” I say, grabbing Rocky as he paces past me.
“Wait, why?” he asks, coming to a stop and causing my arm to outstretch and my body to slam back into his as he pulls me back towards him.
“Because, it was too basic, which means I failed terribly.” He walks me back over to the guys. They’re all talking between themselves, having tuned Rocky and I out.
“JD wants to leave,” he states.
“What?” Mercer says first. Turning to face us both.
“Tell us we heard wrong,” Rory says.
“Come here,” Levi says, though it comes across as a demand. I take a few steps to where he is seated. His long arms stretch out, grabbing my waist, and his legs slide open, again pulling me to step closer. I focus on my breathing. His green eyes with hues of yellow make me weak in the knees. “You’re perfect, JD, no matter what any tests say. We will figure it out, no matter what.” I nod, unable to form a sentence, mesmerised by how he manhandled me and subdued me at the same time. Someone clears their throat as Levi pulls me into his lap, and I manage to look around at all the guys, each staring at me.
“You good now?” I roll my eyes at Mercer’s question. “Don’t roll your eyes at me because you think you’re protected by Levi.” A smirk graces his lips.
“I don’t need Levi to protect me. I could kick your ass.” This causes all five of them to laugh.
“You’re like a bag-size Chihuahua; your bark would be worse than your bite.” I give Mercer the stink eye.
“Well maybe I could take on Maximus, he’s the smallest of you all.” Maximus smiles, picking up his phone.
Maximus: In your dreams
“You don’t want to see the dirty things I do in my dreams.” I wink and again they all stare at me. “What?”
“You can’t say shit like that,” Rocky states, his face serious.
“And why the hell not?” I throw back, waiting for one of them to explain it to me. “You all joke about your dicks, and I make one little sex dream joke—” I cut off mid-sentence, turning my head slightly to look at Levi. Either he has a gun in his pocket or he’s happy to see me.
“That is why you can’t talk like that,” he says with a wink. I jump from his lap in surprise.
“Seriously, have some control over that thing.” He adjusts himself while the others shake their heads.
“We’re teenage boys, they go up at the thought of sex,” Rory says.
“You can all keep your penises…penii, whatever the plural for all your dicks is, in your pants.”
My phone buzzes
Maximus: Penises
“Thank you, Maximus. Penises… Keep them in your pants.”
“I hope all you young men are keeping your appendages in your pants around this young woman.” We all turn to see Principal Turner standing at his office door.
“What do you imagine we do, sir? Stand around and whack her with our cocks all day?”
I glare at Rory. I know he and Mr Turner are not on good terms, but there is no need to be crude.
“You zip your lips and wait out here,” I snap. He looks at me apologetically, and I hear Rocky say ‘Burn’ under his breath.
“If you will come in, JD, the guys can wait outside,” Mr Turner says, gesturing into his office.
“Over my dead body is she going in there alone with her anxiety,” Mercer says, stepping up.
“Fine, one of them can come in with you,” he says resignedly.
“Maximus, let’s go. The rest of you talk too much.”
Maximus follows me into the room, taking a seat beside me when I sit.
“Maximus,” Mr Turner says, he gets a nod in response. “JD, I have looked over your tests, and it seems you still have all the knowledge locked away somewhere. You will fit into our classes here easily. I have read the requests from Marlene suggesting if possible, we pair you in as many of the boys’ classes as possible to help ease your anxiety. I promise to do my best.” I’m really glad I brought Maximus in with me, any of the other guys would have argued until he one hundred percent had me in all their classes. “As you know, none of the work you do will be able to go towards an ATAR since we have no records from your previous school.”
“That is totally fine, I can look at my options if my memory returns.”
“Good, now all I ask is if you can make sure the boys do not breathe a word of this to anyone.”
“They don’t strike me as the sharing type.” He stands from his chair, Maximus and I do the same.
“Follow me, I will take you all to the uniform shop. Rory requested we get everything you need today.”
He leads us from the room. When we exit, there are four guys looking at me with puppy dog eyes. “Turns out I’m not stupid. We can go get my uniform.” Rocky leaps from his chair, picks me up slowly and throws me over his shoulder with an oomph. Rocky takes off running with me over his shoulder.
“Mr Hunter, put her down and stop running in the hall.” It’s no use, Rocky doesn’t listen. He takes us to a set of glass doors and slides me off his shoulder.
After what feels like hours of trying on uniforms, we emerge with an armload of bags. There’s a formal uniform and a regular sports uniform that everyone can wear on fun Fridays, and then change into when you have P.E.
Rory packs all my bags into his four-wheel drive. “Who’s up for milkshakes?”
“Are you buying?” Rocky asks, jumping into the passenger seat of Levi’s Jeep.
“Fine, but JD rides with me.”
Maximus gets in with Mercer, and Rory has to help me into his. I notice his hands linger on my ass a little longer than needed before he pushes me up. My heart beats a little bit faster every time one of them touches me. I make a mental note to ask my therapist how to handle this.
After we drive for twenty minutes in the opposite direction, I wonder where we are actually going.
“Are we going to find cows in the middle of the bush and milk them ourselves?”
Rory laughs. “No, there’s a small ice cream place we found a couple of summers ago with Carson. It’s owned by an elderly couple who make the best milkshakes. Whenever one of us wins something or gets a good grade, we celebrate with milkshakes, making it worth the drive.”
After a small amount of time and barely any civilization, we come to a small town. Rory pulls into a small café on the main street. Aside from a post office, bottle shop, a small gift shop and a café, there doesn’t appear to be much else. Mercer and Levi’s cars are parked directly outside. I’m starting to wonder how fast they drive without me in the car, because I always seem to be the last to arrive.
Inside is pretty; old tables that look refurbished, small mason jars on the table with mini roses. The guys are sitting at a long, centre table, laughing at something an older woman is saying. Rory grabs my hand and leads me to join them.
“Hello, dear, you must be JD. I’m Mrs Watson. I was just telling the boys that Mr Watson is arm-deep in a cow’s anus right now.” She smiles, her white hair and wrinkled face welcoming.
“Poor cow,” I say, almost feeling my butt cheeks clench together.
“It’s over in a matter of seconds, dear, he is checking old man Connor’s cow for pregnancy.”
“I’m glad women don’t have to find out the same way.” She laughs at that and agrees.
“Now you’re all here, are you ready to order?” The guys call out their choices while I read the menu.
“They all sound really good. How do you just pick one?”
“How about I surprise you? These boys have been comin’ here for years and have tried everything on the menu. Is there anything you are allergic to?” I shake my head no, not that I know of anyway.
She walks back towards the kitchen, and five sets of eyes stare at me.
“What? Do I have something on my face?”
“No, we were just talking about what happened at school,” Mercer informs me.
“What happened at school?” I raise my brow at them. “Oh, you mean how you are all control freaks and I had to take Maximus in because I knew he wouldn’t argue, even though it probably killed him on the inside to sit back and just listen? It’s fine, guys. I will be in one of your classes at all times so my anxiety doesn’t freak anyone out.”
“No, we knew why you did that,” Levi says, playing with a napkin. Why the hell are they being weird?
“Because you’re hot and we all like to touch you,” Rocky blurts out. “We want to make sure we are not forcing that on you. We’ve never been “friends” with a girl before…” he says using air quotes when he says friends.
I cut him off. “Guys, it doesn’t make me uncomfortable at all. In fact, it’s the opposite actually; I feel safe. It’s not like you’re groping me.”
“I’m not opposed to groping.” I laugh and the guys tell Rocky to shut it.
“We just wanted to make sure after Levi couldn’t control his… You know. We didn’t want to cross any lines where you thought we were taking advantage of you or being inappropriate.” Mercer looks more uncomfortable than I do right now.
“Seriously, it’s fine, now how about we talk about something else?”
And we do. They tell me about their school and what subjects they all do. Maximus seems to have the biggest workload. His full scholarship depends on his grades, but he plays it off like it’s no big deal.
Mrs Watson brings the milkshakes out on a tray. They certainly weren’t joking; these are not regular milkshakes. These are in mason jars that look to be overflowing with toppings. She places the tray on the table next to ours and hands them out.
“I made you a cookies and cream milkshake.” My eyes go wide, there is a whole cookie on top of my milkshake.
“Wow, this looks amazing. Now I see why the guys come all this way for a milkshake.”
“Enjoy. Don’t forget to use your spoon this time.” She looks directly at Rocky and winks.
The drink is like heaven, just the right balance of chocolate and Oreos. You can’t complain about that.
After we finish up, the guys want to take me to see the rock pools below. It’s only a ten-minute drive from the café, most of which is one long dirt road off the highway. We seem to drive past a continual stream of trees until there is no more road left. Parking the cars, we climb out and look around.
“I don’t see any water. If this is just a ploy to finish me off, just whack me on the back of the head so I don’t see it coming.”
“Not funny,” Levi snaps at me.
“Well, I thought it was,” I add with a giggle.
“From here we walk.” Rocky can’t be serious; the trees look thick. “There’s a trail over there.” He points to a small clearing to our right.
“I love walking,” I say sarcastically.
“Here, get on.” Rocky squats down in front of me. I hop on his back wrapping my arms loosely around his neck while he wraps his arms in a loop around my legs.
“I’m excited I get to ride you.” Rocky goes still underneath me, and Rory snorts. “I’m sorry, it just came out wrong. Giddy up, let’s go.”
It doesn’t take long to break through into a clearing. There’s a small pool at the bottom, but it looks like if you walk up over the massive rocks there could be more. Rocky puts me down so I can look around. The guys follow me as I walk along the edge until I reach the massive rock on the far side. Levi, Rory, Maximus and Mercer all sit, and I watch as Rocky looks around, removes his shirt and walks to the edge.
“You will freeze.” He just looks at me and smiles.
“It’s a nice day, we didn’t even need to layer up and the sun is out.” He gestures up at the sun like just because the sun is out that is supposed to mean it is warm enough to swim. I look at him like he is insane. “And don’t forget I train all year round.” With that, he runs and bombs into the water. I wait for him to resurface and say how cold it is. When his head pushes through the water, he shakes his hair and smiles.
“You should get in, it’s nice.” He bats his eyelashes and smiles up at me, I’m considering it because he looks so damn adorable right now.
“I wouldn’t listen to him, he lies.”
“Mercer says you lie.”
Rocky laughs and swims closer to the edge of the rock. “I would never lie to you.”
I think about it for a second and think stuff it, you only live once. I step back from the edge and remove my shirt, glad I had the foresight to wear a black sports bra. It’s no more revealing than a bikini. I slide my three-quarter jeans down my legs and add them to the pile.
Rocky calls out to me, “JD, I changed my mind, it’s freezing in here.”
“Too late, my pants are off now. Move or I will land on you.”
He swims out far enough that I won’t land on him. I take a few steps back and make a run for it, leaping from the rock. I scream because it’s freeing, but when I hit the icy cold water, my lungs almost forget how to work and my bones feel like they want to break. I push myself to the surface, letting out a string of curse words.
“Are you okay?” Rocky asks, swimming towards me.
“No, I feel like the water is crushing me, it's that cold.” My teeth crash together as I try to talk.
I close my eyes and a memory hit me like a ton of bricks. “He’s dead.” I scream, I don’t see anything besides my own hands covered in his blood.
“Rocky get her out of the water now before she gets hypothermia.” I’m brought back to the present at the sound of Levi’s voice. All four of them are standing on the edge of the huge rock watching me.
“Get on my back, I’ll swim you in.” Rocky says and I use the closeness of his body to ease my anxiety. To tuck away the small part of my old life that has resurfaced. Did I kill someone? Is that how I ended up almost dead?
Mercer and Levi pull me up onto the rock. The breeze feels like it’s cutting into my skin like a knife, making me feel worse.
They all start fussing over me. Mercer removes his zip-up jacket to cover my half naked body.
“We need to take her wet clothes off first,” I hear Rocky say. The others almost chew him a new asshole for egging me on. While they argue, I turn my back, remove my bra and slip my shirt on. I do the same with my underwear.
“Sweet baby Jesus, JD, warn a guy before you strip,” Mercer says. When I button my pants up, I turn to see all five guys with their backs to me.
“It’s safe to turn around now, I’m dressed.” I laugh, pushing away all thoughts of dead bodies.
They all turn around, eyes wide. “Not safe, JD, not safe at all.” Rocky gestures to my chest where my nipples are rock hard and jutting out. Mercer passes me his jacket.
When Rocky is dressed we head back to the cars with me laughing all the way. I’m made to walk so it will raise my body temperature. They snap a few pics as I reach the top, triumphant. I almost don’t want school to start in a few days. I’m going to miss making new memories with these guys.