Reject Me (Kin #5)(19)
Author: Jennifer Foor

I watched as Ang gave Peyton a once over. She reacted by raising her brow and doing the same thing back. “Who are you?”

Ang, being the way she was, turned back to me and smiled. “Why don’t you ask your boyfriend.”

I couldn’t believe she was going to be a bitch the first five minutes of being around us. “Ang is Turk’s cousin. She’s just here visitin’.”

“Actually, I’m attending Salisbury University. You’re going to be seeing a lot more of me, Jamey. In fact I was thinking that maybe one night we could hang out like we used to.”

She was messing with Peyton on purpose, ruining my first day back together with her. “I don’t think so. As you can see, I’ve got a girlfriend.”

Ang started to walk away. “It never stopped you before.”

She was playing off my prior indiscretion and it was pissing me off, so much that I could have shoved her down on the ground, had I been willing to hit a girl.

“Like I said, no thanks.”

“Whatever.” Ang finally walked back to the front of her cousin’s truck. Knowing that I already had to get Peyton calmed down, I pulled my four-wheeler off the vehicle and started it up. While turning to wait for Peyton to jump on behind me I caught a glimpse of her displease with what had just transpired. Obviously she was curious, and I was going to have to come up with something creative if I wanted to end this day as a couple.

After Peyton finally got on, we sped away. I wasn’t about to wait for all of them to follow us. The trails that we rode on were so long with many different turns to take. I knew I could lose them without a real effort. Peyton clung to my back as I rode hard over the rough terrain, jumping over low spots and splashing through puddles. Once we’d been riding for a good half hour, I pulled off to a grassy area and turned off the engine. Peyton slipped down from the ATV and jumped right in my shit. “Who was that?”

“I told you about her a long time ago. She used to come ridin’ with us. It’s no big deal, baby.”

“I saw the way she looked at you, Jamey. That’s not what nothin’ looks like.”

I walked toward her, breaking the little distance between us. “I promise you that there’s nothin’ between that chick and me. She’s just bein’ a bitch because she don’t know you. Who am I here with, because I’m pretty damn sure it ain’t her.”

Peyton shook her head, second guessing herself. “Sorry. I guess it’s goin’ to take me a while to learn how to trust you. Can you forgive me?”

It made me feel guilty, but at the same time, I knew that in this case she was wrong. Ang was nothing to me. There wasn’t anything about her that even compared to my feelings for Peyton. “We’re cool. How about we sit over here and rest for a while.”

Peyton walked over to a grassy spot and plopped down on the ground. I swooped in behind her, pulling her back against my chest. “It’s pretty here.”

“Yeah. I seem to like it too. The stream over there is cool. Sometimes the deer come over to drink while I’m here chillin’. I don’t think anyone hunts this property, so it’s full of them. We used to come out here to drink after ridin’, but I don’t mess around with those jokers that much anymore. Today’s the first time in a while that I’ve even seen them.”

Peyton played with my fingers as she spoke to me. I appreciated her being with me, and valued whatever she had to say. “I used to wish you wouldn’t hang out with them anymore. They’ve been trouble since we were all in school.”

“Yeah, I know.” They were always trying to get me do shady things for fun. I got why Peyton disliked them so much.

“I wanted you to come with me today so you could see that when I went out I wasn’t doin’ nothin’ wrong. This is fun for me, ridin’ and sittin’ back enjoyin’ the sunshine.”

“You sound almost poetic,” she laughed as she spoke. “Did those weeks in jail change you?”

“They were enlightening indeed,” I replied. “Really it wasn’t so bad. Minimum security. We watched television, played basketball, lifted weights, and even had internet time. It was more like I was being punished in my room as a kid, just the food was shitty, and my mattress sucked.”

“Did you have a cellmate?”

“We weren’t really in cells. It was more like a large room with sectioned cubes. There were four beds in each part and the top was all open. The people I bunked with weren’t hard criminals. Most were in for drug possession, or petty crimes. Bein’ in there gave me time to think. It gave me a chance to realize what I’d been doin’ wrong.”

“Honestly, Jamey, bein’ away from you gave me time to think too. I started goin’ to college, and I really like it.”

“You also started datin’ someone.” I’d waited long enough to ask about it. The fact that there was another guy in her life, that she refused to talk about, bothered me. If he was just a friend she would have spoken about him by now, and she certainly hadn’t. “Tell me more about him. Did you let him into your pants?”

She pushed away from me and stood up, putting her hands on her hips as she spoke. “We said we were startin’ fresh. Besides, he’s more of a friend anyway. He’s helped me, and I enjoy spendin’ time with him and his daughter.”

“Daughter? Is he a professor?”

She shook her head. “No. Of course not. He’s a business owner who lost his wife tragically a while back. He’s raisin’ his little girl alone.”

“My hero,” I announced sarcastically.

“Shut up. You sound like you’re jealous. I thought that wasn’t possible.”

“It’s not,” I lied. “Just makin’ light of the situation. Obviously the guy uses his daughter to get pu**y. It’s the oldest trick in the book.”

Peyton pointed toward me. “You don’t know him. He’s nothin’ like that.”

“Whatever!” I threw up my hands realizing how pissed she was becoming. “Don’t get your panties all bunched up.”

“It’s not like you have any room to talk.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I questioned.

“You slept with her, didn’t you, Jamey?”

“With who?” I played dumb.

“Angie. That chick I just met. I could tell she was hot for you, and you were avoiding her like she had a disease. I’m not stupid.”