Locked (PresLocke Series Book 2) (19 page)

“No, no, I got this. Two lies and a truth…okay, let me think.” Knowing this family, they’d have some wild shit up their sleeves, so I needed to bring it. My acting career depended on it, apparently. “Okay, here we go: number one, I got arrested for pranking our rival high school. Number two: I’ve visited all seven continents. Number three: I’m actually allergic to muscadines.”

Laughs broke out around the campfire, and Lennon said, “Oh shit, bro, I hope that last one isn’t true, but if it is, we’ll make you chug Benadryl after.”

“I’m gonna guess—” Dylan started, but Sunshine clamped a hand over his mouth.
 

“You can’t go first. You probably already know the answer.”

“I don’t, I swear,” Dylan said.

Sunshine shook her head. “No, sir. Now, I’m gonna say number two is true and the others are false.”

Ziggy raised an eyebrow at her. “You think he’s been to Antarctica?”

“He does have a private jet,” Dylan chimed in.

“So? No one in their right mind wants to go there,” Ziggy said.
 

Lennon sat up and pointed at me. “Hang on, man. Where’d you shoot that ice movie? You know, the one with the avalanche, what’s it called…”

“Uh,
Avalanche
?” Dylan said.

“Oh yeah. Yeah, that one. Where’d you shoot it, Hercules?”

I held up my hands. “Can’t tell you that.”

Lennon leaned over the arm of his chair and squinted at me, studying my face. “Hmm. I say…number one is the truth.”

Dylan snorted. “Yeah, right. If Ace had been arrested, I’d know about it.”

“Course you would, stalker bro,” Lennon replied. “So what’s the truth, then?”

“Easy. Number two,” Dylan said.

“Yeah, I agree.” Ziggy nodded. “Number two’s the truth.”

As I looked around the circle, I twisted my lips. “Seems like you all agree except for Lennon here. I can’t believe you think I’d do something so foolish. Breaking into another school and getting arrested for vandalizing their mascot? Yeah, that’s stupid. Too bad it’s true.” My gaze went over to Dylan, Ziggy, and Sunshine, and I smirked. “Looks like you three better drink up.”

“What! No way in hell,” Dylan protested, moving to the edge of his seat.
 

“Way, bro.” Lennon pointed at Dylan’s cup and mimicked throwing it back. “Cheers.”

Dylan eyed me over the flickering flames, and I dropped my eyes to the cup he held before pointing to his drink. “Hope you have a high tolerance, Daydream.”

Ziggy let out a bark of laughter. “Now there’s a good joke.”

“Ohhh,” I said, watching Dylan bring the cup to his lips. “This is something new. Are you saying he
can’t
handle his liquor?”

“Well, let’s just say Dylan’s been known to—”

“Hey, Zig. How about you don’t give away all my secrets so I have some left to dish out when it’s my turn?” Dylan said.

Ziggy made a show of zipping his lips shut, and then the three Prescotts sitting opposite myself and Lennon brought the cups to their lips and chugged back the first round of wine. Ziggy smacked his lips together and threw his cup to the ground, letting out a whoop, and then looked toward his wife.
 

“Ready over there, ’Shine?”

The mischievous grin that tugged at her lips made me chuckle as I settled back into my chair. I couldn’t remember a time where I’d felt so relaxed, and staring at the family across from me made me realize what an integral part of Dylan these people were. His easy laugh, his generous nature, it stemmed from these people who’d opened their arms to a complete stranger and were now sitting around a campfire shooting the shit with him.

“I’m ready,” Sunshine declared, and pushed a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear. “Number one: the tree that you and Lennon are sitting under over there…” She paused, as I turned my head to look up at the thick trunk of the tree behind us and then returned my attention to her. “That’s where Lennon was conceived and born. Number two: I was arrested after a peace protest in 1978
along with around sixty others, including Ziggy here. It’s how we met. And number three: my real name is Barbara.”

I scanned the grinning faces all aimed in my direction as I fingered the lip of the cup. Dylan was sitting back in his seat with his cup resting on his knee with a sly smile on his gorgeous face as he shook his head at me. He had to know I would remember our conversation of him having moved here when he was in college…
so yeah
, I was pretty confident I had this one.
 

“Okay,” I said, sitting up a little straighter in my seat. “Nice try with number one, Sunshine. And not that I don’t doubt you and Ziggy getting in touch with nature…I just have it on good authority that you moved here when Dylan was in college.”

Sunshine’s mouth fell open and she whipped her head around to pin Dylan with an accusatory glare. Dylan gave an
I’m sorry
shrug. “What? How was I supposed to know not to tell him stuff you could use against him later?”

I laughed at that, and Dylan’s eyes found mine. “Oh, don’t laugh too hard over there, Locke. You’re a dirty player. And dirty players
always
get what’s coming to them.”

I wasn’t sure Dylan realized the way his words sounded, or how the look he was aiming my way would affect me, but both went directly south and had me squirming in my chair.
 

“See?” the tease said, and added a wink.
Okay, yeah.
He knew exactly what he’d done.

“Oh, leave the poor man alone, Dylan. He’s trying to think about the answer, not what you want to do to him later,” Ziggy said, reminding me of just how open this family was about, well…everything. “So, okay. That still doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. So give us your best shot.”

I thought about the other two options. I could definitely see Ziggy and Sunshine meeting after being arrested, but I also had to wonder if Sunshine had been legally named
Sunshine
from birth. Dylan had been given the name Daydream when adopted into the family, so… “Okay. I think the
truth
is that your real name is Barbara.”

When my eyes landed on Sunshine’s, she pretended to ponder it for a second and then shook her head, laughing. “Sorry, Hercules…my parents were the original flower children. I’ve been Sunshine since the day my mother and father knew I was on the way.”

I caught Dylan’s cocky laugh, and when I looked at him he raised his glass in mock salute. “Bottoms up, big guy.”

Christ.
He was only one drink in and it was becoming more and more obvious that Dylan liquored up was going to be a handful. His flirtatious vibe—and the memory of my words to him at my birthday months ago—was not lost on me as I raised the cup and chugged down the wine.
Mmm, not bad. Pretty damn good, actually.
I’d never had muscadine before. The drink was sweet and tasted like grapes, but it had a kick to it for sure.
 

“You make this yourself?” I asked Ziggy, and he inclined his head before getting up to grab the container of wine.

“The stuff you get in the store may as well be called grape juice for babes. This stuff,” he said, going around to refill our cups, “will put some hair on your chest. Well, not you, ’Shine.”

Sunshine smiled at her husband, and then threw a marshmallow across the fire at Lennon, who caught it with his mouth.
 

“Guess I’m up, huh?” he said with his mouth full, and then he swallowed and kicked out his legs before crossing them at the ankles. Holding up three fingers, he proceeded to tick them off. “One: I once rode a cow naked on a dare and made it a good ten seconds before his ass bucked me off. Two: I poured detergent in every fountain downtown to make that shit bubble over, also on a dare. Three: I once climbed the water tower and pissed off the side when I saw my ex coming. Not a dare. Just for fun.”

We all stared at him with our mouths agape until Dylan busted out laughing.

“How have you never been arrested?” he said.
 

A Cheshire grin took over Lennon’s face. “Skills, man. Mad stealth skills.”

Ziggy held up his cup. “Cow is true.”

“Bubble fountains,” Sunshine said.

I mimicked Lennon’s pose from earlier and leaned over to squint at him. “Gotta be water tower pissing. Whaddya think over there, pretty boy?”

Dylan rubbed his hands over his face and leaned forward on his elbows. “Sweet Jesus, I almost don’t wanna know. But I’m gonna go with…naked cow ridin’.”

“And the winner is…” Lennon beat on his thighs like a drum before pointing at me.
 

“What! You gotta be kidding me,” Dylan said.

“You did not piss all over that nice girl from Elmhurst. No, you did not.” Sunshine tried to school her face into disapproval, but she couldn’t stop the laugh that emerged.
 

Lennon shrugged. “Dude, she always said she wanted a golden shower.”

“Way to give a girl what she wants
after
the fact,” Ziggy said. He held up his cup and then downed it in one long gulp.

Dylan stared into his drink and murmured, “I’m gonna be sooo drunk.”

“Now that’s something I can’t wait to see,” I said as he held up his middle finger and downed the fruity liquid.
 

* * *

THIS PLAN HAD monumentally backfired. Don’t ask me how it happened, but somewhere around the second round of two lies and a truth, I’d had to down three more cups of Ziggy’s wine while Ace sat across from me cradling his second
un
touched glass.

Who knew the lucky bastard would turn out to be so adept at reading people?
So good at it that he’d gotten more answers right about my own family than I had.

My head was buzzing, and my lips were finding it difficult to form full words with how numb they felt, and when Ziggy stood beside me to reach for Sunshine’s hand, I glanced across the fire to the man watching me with hooded eyes.
 

We’d decided around two glasses ago that we would spend the night here in the small wooden guest hut that Ziggy had built off the house a few years back. It was a bare-minimum-only cabin, which I’d been quick to point out to Ace, but he’d told me he was more than happy to stay. So there we were, and as the questions came to a close and Ziggy pulled Sunshine into a gentle sway around the campfire, Lennon downed what had to be his fourth or fifth glass and got to his feet.

“I’m totaled, guys,” he said, and hiccupped before he staggered slightly, which had me laughing uproariously. I was happy I wasn’t the only one impaired. “I’m just gonna…ya know…” he slurred, indicating with a wave of his hand to the Silver Streak Clipper that sat on the back of Ziggy and Sunshine’s property, “go and crash.”

Sunshine pulled out of Ziggy’s arms and moved over to kiss his cheek, and I was amazed, as always, by her tolerance to Ziggy’s house blend. The two of them blurred slightly in the haze of the flame and smoke, and then out of the corner of my eye I caught Ace getting to his feet. I blinked, trying to focus clearly on him, and as he got closer I trailed my gaze over his long legs and up to the sensual smile curving his luscious lips. That expression had me raising the half-empty cup up to my lips to finish the sweet summer wine in a final gulp as Ace stopped in front of me and extended his hand.

As I got to my feet, I was surprised I could stand, and the low chuckle that came from Ace’s throat had me edging closer to the solid wall of man opposite me.
 

“You okay there, Daydream?”

I raised my head and nipped at his chin. “I’m just
fiiine…
” I drawled, and raised a hand to stroke it down his chest. “And so are you.”

Ace planted a kiss on my forehead, and his warm lips had me humming and nestling into his broad chest.
 

“I think it’s time this one lies down before he falls down,” I heard Ace say over my head. I’m not sure what was said after that, but before I knew how, I was being led through my parents’ garden with my hand secure in the large one wrapped around it.

Lightheaded and more at ease than I had been in weeks, I practically skipped several steps ahead of Ace before I turned to face him, drawing him along with me.

“Ever had sex under the stars?” I asked him, gazing up at the glittering diamonds in the sky.
 

“You’re drunk, Mr. Prescott.”

“Am not.” I hiccuped and the rumbly laugh that left him again skated over my hypersensitive skin, making it break out in gooseflesh as he tugged me in so I was crushed up against him. He lowered his head and pressed a kiss to my temple.
 

“Mhmm. You are. Drunk, flirty, and really fucking cute.”

I pulled out of his arms and shook my head, and then grinned when one of Ace’s eyebrows winged up. “No? You don’t think you’re any of those things? Because as far as I can tell you’re trying your hardest to lure me into stripping you naked with your parents right over there.”

As I backed up, Ace followed my lead, his eyes never wavering from mine. “I would never do that.”

That had Ace nodding and contemplating me in a way that screamed one thing: bullshit.

“If I recall, it was your turn back there before it was declared your ass couldn’t handle another loss, Daydream. So how about it? One more round of questions for the night, but instead of loser drinks a glass of wine, the loser can—”

“Lie down naked and let the winner do whatever he wants with him?”

Ace tracked my steps until I stumbled, and clapped a hand over my mouth as I laughed, finding it difficult to locate my feet—and balance. Luckily for me, my back hit the solid surface of the guest cabin and Ace crowded in—you know, just to hold me upright.
 

“That sounds perfect,” he whispered, and swept his lips across mine. “Hmm, you taste like sweet,
sweet
wine.”

When he raised his head, his eyes collided with mine, and the intent in them was clear. As soon as we got inside this cabin… It. Was. On.

“One, I gave my partner multiple orgasms with
only
my mouth,” Ace said.

Was he kidding right now? Ace’s words in my ear were enough to make my knees shake, but imagining him with someone else was not high on my—