Reckless Heat: A Hostile Operations Team Prequel Read Online Free Page B

shrugs. “We’ll drop you back home first. No biggie.”
    I chew my lip. But how can I say no? It’s one more chance to be near Matt, one more chance to talk to him. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll get the courage to ask him to take me somewhere we can be alone.
    “Okay, I’ll go.”
    Julie bounces up and down. “Yay! Now come over to my house first. We’ll get dressed together. I’ll make sure you look your best. Matt won’t know what hit him.”

Chapter Seven
    MATT
----
    I wasn’t planning to go to the lake tonight, but the old man isn’t home and I don’t need to stay in that big lonely house and twiddle my thumbs while waiting for the next two weeks to go by.
    All I have to do is keep out of trouble, but partying at the lake isn’t going to be trouble. Yeah, there’s drinking and pot smoking, but drinking isn’t illegal—well, it is at my age but not as illegal as pot smoking, which I definitely won’t do. No way am I fucking around with my appointment to the military academy.
    I take my Vette and arrive around nine. The party is in the pavilion and the surrounding picnic areas. The Rochambeau PD can chase us out if there are complaints, but the park’s open after dark. So long as we don’t cause trouble, they won’t have any reason to intervene.
    The drinking is on the down low, of course. If the PD show up, they won’t find any obvious alcohol—no beer cans or bottles. If they start handing out Breathalyzers, however, a lot of people will be screwed.
    The trick is in not causing enough trouble to make that a reality.
    I get out of my Vette and lock it, then head up to the pavilion. Jeanine spots me and sashays over with a big smile.
    “Hey, Matt. Didn’t think you were coming.”
    “Yet here I am.”
    She slips an arm around my neck and arches herself into me. I should put a stop to her blatant show of possession, but I don’t much care at the moment. If she’s willing to put out, that’s good enough for me tonight.
    I give her a quick kiss and set her away from me as I continue over to where some of the guys are standing around, drinking from cups with lids and straws. They look like simple gas station or fast-food-restaurant drinks, but I know there’s whiskey mixed in there.
    “Need a drink, bud?” Jimmy Thibodeaux asks.
    Jimmy isn’t one of my favorite people, but he’s all right. Sort of cracked in the head sometimes, but still a good old boy.
    “Whatcha got?”
    “Old Charter and Coke.”
    “Sounds good to me.”
    Someone mixes a drink and hands it to me. I take a sip. Maybe I shouldn’t do this. Maybe, considering how fucked up my father is, I should learn a lesson about drinking. But I’m seventeen, in control of myself. My father is fifty-three and a drunk.
    I know the fancy word for it: dipsomania . So much more genteel than alcoholism . My father is a dipsomaniac, like a character in a William Faulkner novel. It fits, really, considering the house and the clichéd Southerness of my family.
    But that doesn’t mean I have a problem. I can sip this drink, get happy for a while, and then not worry about it again for a week. Next weekend is graduation, and I’m so getting trashed then. My last taste of freedom for a long time.
    “Holy shit, who is that?” Jimmy asks, and I swing my head to look as two girls join some others at the edge of the pavilion.
    I recognize Julie Breaux right away because she’s in profile to me. Beside her, a tall girl in a skintight denim mini, sandals, and a red tank top has her back to me. Her hair is down to her ass, thick, dark, and curled at the ends.
    Her ass looks amazing in that skirt, and her legs are so long they make my throat dry.
    “I don’t know,” I say, taking a sip of my drink and starting toward the girls who are standing together off to one side of the pavilion. There are four or five of them, but I want to know who the one with her back to me is.
    Julie nudges the girl as I approach, and she turns. I feel like someone