Page 125 of Lilah

Oh, I'm so going to do that more often.

"You liked that way too much," he shakes his head, turning around to look at me.

"It turned me on, bro," I say deeply.

"Don't call me bro."

"Dude," I try and his eyes narrow.

"Dawg," I smirk.

"Fella," I love that one. A dish rag gets thrown in my face, my neck gets kissed, and my butt cheek is slapped off.

It stings like amotherfreaker. It hurt like a buttcheek on a stick.

"I didn't hit you that hard!" I remove the rag from my face, wincing at the pain in my butt.

"I didn't hit you that hard," he rolls his eyes playfully.

I twist my torso, lifting my shorts up. I look at the huge five-star on my butt.

I'm hitting him as hard as I can next time.

"I have a five-star!" I exclaim. Not realizing what I'm doing, I turn around and show him the mark on my cheek.

"I can't see all of it. You should take off your pants so I can," He offers and I consider it before realizing he's teasing.

And I'm wearing a pair of one of a kind peach-colored underwear that tends to ride up my butt. So he'sdefinitelymissing out.

"Did you go to college?" I question, changing the subject as my cheeks tinge.

"I got my associates in high school," he grumbles.

Jake was doing that too.

"My parents-well, my dad didn't let me do that. He said...never mind," I decide against telling him what Dad told me.

His eyes fall into a scowl and I wince. I turn around and go back to my seat at the table, shoving my face with pancakes.

"What'd he say to you?" He questions, his voice serious.

"It doesn't matter," I smile, pretending what he said didn't affect me.

"Azalea," he says harshly and I sigh.

"He said I should leave the success to Jake and that I'd never do good in college anyway."

The worst part about it: I believed him.

If no one liked me in high school and even strangers don't, college would be no different plus hard schoolwork.

But I wanted to go.

After the accident, I missed the last part of my school year and even a quarter of the next one, too busy trying to heal everything and going to PT.

I spent the rest of my high school year, including the summer, catching up and getting everything I needed to graduate and maintain a good GPA to get into college.

And then Dad told me I wasn't allowed to go.