“You’re not fuckin’ her?” Tiny sounded confused.
Preacher glared up at the sky. “I’m not fuckin’ her,” he growled.
“You’re really not fuckin’ her?”
“I’m really not.”
“Are you sure you’re not—”
“I’m not fuckin’ her!” Preacher exploded, grabbing the attention of a passing group of campers. Shooting Preacher a disapproving look, an older woman covered a young girl’s ears and hurried off down the path.
Beside him, Tiny was chuckling. “Man, maybe you should be…”
“She’s sixteen,” Preacher muttered. Almost seventeen, he silent added.
Tiny didn’t appear concerned. “Ain’t sixteen legal… somewhere? Didn’t Fore-Face get hitched at sixteen?”
Fore-Face was the nickname given to a neighborhood girl whose forehead had been abnormally large. They’d all gone to school together, where she’d been picked on mercilessly. It was no wonder she’d spread her legs for the first piece of shit to come calling—a man twice her age.
“Fore-Face got knocked up and her parents made her marry the chump. And just ‘cause the only chicks you can talk into bed are too young to know better don’t make it right.”
“Didn’t realize you’d become such a fuckin’ pillar of righteousness, brother.”
Preacher opened his mouth to snap back, then quickly closed it. Just because he didn’t currently recognize himself or know what the fuck he was doing didn’t mean he should take any of it out on Tiny.
Fiddling with the straps on Debbie’s backpack, Preacher stared off across the park, thinking about… mother-fucking-Debbie. Why was that exactly?
Although very pretty, she was no great beauty.
Not that being beautiful had ever been a requirement Preacher had sought in a woman. He had his preferences in the looks department, but he’d never discriminated. A fuck was a fuck, usually made better if the girl knew what she was doing. If Preacher had enjoyed the fuck, that’s what brought him back for more, not her looks.
Yet Debbie? He hadn’t even fucked her and he was giving her lots of thought—all his goddamn thoughts, even.
Who the fuck are you? he wondered, flicking open the flap on her backpack and peering inside. Digging beneath his own belongings, he found hers. She didn’t have much—some clothing, toiletries, and a composition notebook. Pulling out the notebook, he flipped it open.
Well, shit. She wasn’t half bad. In fact, the sketch he was looking at was really very good. Preacher tilted his head, studying a drawing of a little girl seated on a man’s lap. Staring into the little girl’s doe eyes, he was reminded of Debbie.
Flipping to the next page, Preacher’s brow shot to the top of his forehead. She’d drawn Angel straddling Rocky in the grass, Angel’s back arched, her mouth open… and hot damn, the drawing did more for him than any Playboy spread ever had.
Itching to see what else she’d drawn, Preacher turned the page and… holy fucking shit.
She’d drawn him. Shirtless, stretched across the motel bed, Preacher’s arm was flung over his face, his mouth hanging slightly agape.
Did his arms really look that good? Preacher’s eyes flicked to his bicep and he flexed the muscle. Yep, not bad. Not bad at all.
The detail was incredible. Looking closer, he noticed every fold in the fabric, every scar and freckle on his skin. Where the light had hit him, highlighting him in places, shadowing others.
How long had this taken her? How long had she been staring at him? Most importantly, had she liked what she’d been drawing? Had it turned her on?
“What’s that?” Tiny leaned against him, craning his neck.
Preacher slammed the notebook closed and elbowed Tiny away from him. “None of your goddamn business.”
Shoving the notebook back inside the bag, Preacher quickly packed up his things and shot to his feet.
“I gotta get back,” he muttered and rushed off without waiting for his friend.
• • •
Arriving back at camp, Preacher found the crowd had considerably thinned.
Doc was in the process of building a bonfire, while June and Smokey chatted nearby. Around the picnic table sat Ginny, Joe, and Sylvia on one side, while Debbie and Max sat across from them. Half-eaten plates of food and bottles of beer were scattered across the table.
Someone had brought out the tape deck and Ginny was singing along to Billie Holiday. Eyes half-lidded, her chin resting in her hand, a clove cigarette smoking between her fingers, she swayed gently from side to side.
The Judge, thankfully, was nowhere in sight.
As Preacher drew closer to the picnic table, Ginny was the first to notice him. She smiled, and he felt that smile wrap around him like a warm blanket.
A flicker of light turned his attention to Max. His brother had lit a cigarette for Debbie and had used the opportunity to slide himself closer. Max, with his usual dopey-as-shit smile plastered across his face, leaned into Debbie and whispered something in her ear.
Preacher’s eyes narrowed into slits. That stupid little fucker likes her.
Although Max wasn’t quite so little anymore. It was yet another thing that had changed while he’d been locked up. Joe had married Sylvia, and Max had gone from a gangly fourteen-year-old obsessed with pinball and Planet of the Apes to a taller, thicker version of himself, and with a five o’clock shadow.
Max was nearly a man now, and it wouldn’t be all that much longer before The Judge patched him into the club.
Preacher frowned. Man or not, Max should know better than to encroach on his girl.
He paused, his forehead wrinkling. What the hell? Debbie wasn’t his girl. Debbie wasn’t his anything. But as he resumed his trek toward the picnic tables, watching Max continue to try and coax Debbie into conversation, he found himself growing more and more irritated.
So irritated in fact that, when he reached them, he hooked his arm around Max’s neck and forcefully dragged him, flailing and cursing, down the entire length of the bench and deposited him onto the ground. While Max continued to curse, Joe burst into a fit of laughter, pounding the table with his fist.
Preacher took Max’s seat beside Debbie and placed her backpack between them. “Whatever he was sayin’ about me, it ain’t true.”
She attempted a smile, but her eyes were shuttered as she looked up at him, and her bottom lip was wet and swollen as if she’d been chewing nervously on it the entire time he’d been gone.
Dropping an arm over her shoulders, he bowed his head to hers. “You okay?”
She faced him fully, bringing their faces nearly flush, and his gaze dropped again to her mouth. Man, this girl had some seriously great lips. Kissable lips. Lips that begged to be sucked on. Lips that he knew firsthand tasted both salty and sweet. Lips that he wanted to—
“Damon? Earth to Damon?”
Preacher’s eyes snapped to his mother. “What?”
“I was saying that I had Max set up your tent for Debbie—”
“Found a Playboy in it,” Max interrupted, and Preacher could hear the smirk on his little brother’s face. “December issue,” he continued. “Big ole titties and—”
Preacher reached behind him to where Max now sat, grabbed a fistful of his brother’s shirt, and shoved him off the bench. Max hit the ground with a loud “oomph,” and again Joe roared with laughter.
Stubbing out her cigarette, Ginny shot Preacher a look that made him feel like he was twelve years old again. “As I was saying,” she said pointedly, “I had Max set up your tent for Debbie, and you can share with Joe.”
Joe’s laughter abruptly cut off. Horror-stricken, he faced Ginny. “What? Mom, no!”
Preacher, feeling equally horrified, jerked his thumb at Sylvia. “What about Sylvie? Shouldn’t Joe be sleepin’ with his wife?”
Preacher had been forced to share a room with Joe until he’d moved out on his own and knew better than most that Joe snored at a decibel level very few could reach—a horrible combination of braying mule and table saw. Joe also came with his own unbearable stench, a cross between stale beer and dirty socks.