"I came with your brother, Ben," I said, simply.
"So? You don't owe him anything, Kayla. He doesn't own you," came his reply.
"I still couldn't do that to him," I answered.
"Grandma over there is in no condition to drive," he said. Jack had been pounding the beers pretty hard since Ben and I had started, whatever it was we were doing. Curiously, Ben, who was a much bigger drinker, hadn't touched a drop all night.
"Plus, he looks pretty well entertained. He won't need you to pity-kiss him anymore," Ben added, and I looked up to see Jack majorly sucking face with this girl Amber, who had been in our math class last year. We'd spent the majority of the class making fun of her bubblehead and matching bubble-butt, the latter of which Jack seemed to be appreciating quite a bit now. My guess was she'd finally grown some bubble boobs, too.
"I don't care who kisses your brother," I said, which was true. I didn't care and it had nothing to do with my decision to leave with Ben. I was just cold and uncomfortable and I wanted a nice, hot shower. I dropped whoevers towel it was on the ground and headed for Ben's truck, my purse and his keys in hand.
"Then he shouldn't mind who you kiss," said Ben, catching up to me. In one fluid, and probably well practiced, move, he lifted me onto the hood of the truck and tilted my chin up towards his 6'2 self. And then he kissed me.
While I may not be as into Ben as most of the girls at my school are, I couldn't deny he was a good kisser- a really good kisser. No offense to Jack or anything, but kissing one Hunter brother was nothing like kissing the other. Okay, sure, Jack had been caught off guard when I'd kissed him on the way over here, and I know Spin the Bottle is hardly a measure of expertise, but I had to give the older brother credit- he definitely knew what he was doing.
I'm going to go ahead and blame what happened next on the half a beer I drank, because I was pretty into it. I wrapped my legs around his waist for better leverage- he was so tall!- and we were making out pretty heavily when I actually heard some girl say my name. Which is, you know, hugely embarrassing. I knew we were making a spectacle of ourselves, and I guess Ben heard too, because all of the sudden he picked me up and moved me to the back of his truck, and had me laid out across the flatbed. It was actually kind of sweet of him to make an effort to hide us better, I obviously had more to lose blatantly hooking up with him after showing up with his brother and all that.
Focusing on Ben instead of thinking of Jack, I took note of his especially well toned arms, which were holding his body off mine and braced on either side of me- forearm veins popping. Boys my age definitely did not have muscles there, and I felt a moment of understanding for those stupid, desperate girls who spent the summer mooning over Ben as he lifted buckets of worms and stuff at the bait shop- he was pretty nice to look at.
"Ben," I said suddenly, gasping as his hand grabbed under my top. Boys usually don't go for my less than generous chest, but apparently Ben is none too particular about this sort of thing. The tank top I had worn did not call for a bra, and his hands were cold and calloused on my skin.
"Yeah babe?" he asked, breathing heavily. It was nice to know I had that kind of an effect on the untouchable, and oh so very experienced Ben Hunter. I almost didn't want to stop.
"I- I don't want to do this," I said slowly, pulling away from him. He stopped kissing my neck and I immediately wanted to take the words back.
"What?" he asked, and he looked genuinely confused, if not a bit disappointed. Clearly the guy was not used to hearing the word no.
"It's not you, and it's not this," I rushed to clarify, gesturing at the two of us sprawled out like a Maxim spread, "I'm definitely, really enjoying this, its just- well, you know as well as I do how jack feels about me. And you two are so screwed up already, I don't want to be the reason your relationship gets worse."
"You mean you don't want to hook up with me because it'll hurt Baby Brother's feelings?" he asked, looking at me incredulously.
"Well, yeah," I said, "And because- oh, it's stupid."
"What?" he asked eagerly, before assuring me, "you can tell me."
"I can't shake the feeling that you're only doing this to hurt his feelings," I said, and then he backed off me. I took this opportunity to hop from the bed of his truck, and head around the front seat, "I'm just not that kind of girl."
He followed my lead and climbed into the truck, and turned on the ignition.
After an excruciating minute of silence, he finally responded to my accusation, simply saying, "I can see why you'd think that, Kay, but for what it's worth, you're wrong."
Then, for the second time that night, I rode in silence with a Hunter brother.