Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
DANE
M y dad throws his arm around me. "There's my boy. Dane, this is Mr. Langer and Mr. Dorsey."
I shake each of their hands. "Nice to meet you."
"Do you play craps?" Mr. Dorsey asks.
"No, sir."
He lets out a hearty laugh. "It's better if you don't. The game can take thousands from you in no time."
All three of them have stacks of one-hundred-dollar chips in front of them.
"Greathouse, you roll and if we win, your dad wins this as a contribution," Mr. Langer tells me and gets the okay from the pit boss.
It's not my money, but what if I lose and my dad gets nothing ?
I roll a pair of sixes, and the table erupts in cheers. "That's my son," my dad cheers. Then the dealer pays out fifteen thousand dollars.
My dad's friends insist I keep rolling. I have to admit it's fun when you're winning. I rolled for over an hour, winning close to one-hundred-thousand dollars that they would donate to my dad's campaign.
There's no doubt my family is wealthy, and my dad could finance his whole campaign, but that's not how politics works. Donors do for you, and, down the road, you do for them.
They cash in their chips and then suggest we go to the sauna and back to the room to confront Lettie, but after twenty minutes waiting for her to return from the spa, my dad calls, "Get your ass down here."
"On my way."
The men want to know how the basketball team is looking. Are we gelling together? Do we have a chance to win it all?
I answer each question. "It's early, but everyone was here for summer workouts, and we played a lot of pick-up games. If we continue to grow, we have a chance to win the national championship. We just went to Timber Thrills together, and we had fun."
Mr. Langer coughs. "Fun? I heard someone got kicked out."
"Nope. We all came and left together." I'm not lying, Nick was escorted out, not kicked out. "Where did you hear that?"
"Son, we 're big-time donors. We know everything, but it's good that you're shielding your teammate from the prying eyes of Stallion Nation," Mr. Dorsey says.
"A natural-born leader," my dad beams.
They chat about Stallion's basketball, while I think of the awkwardness between Lettie and me. She's quite the dichotomy. On one hand, she's one of the most disciplined persons I know. Lettie has never gotten a grade below an A,and she's a math wizard.
And on the other, she's spontaneous, and people gravitate to her fun-loving personality. She parties Thursday through Saturday. Lettie enjoys pushing boundaries and if you ask her to jump out of a plane, she will. No questions asked. The only thing she's scared of is being trapped. Hide and seek was easy with her because she never hid under a bed or in a closet, preferring to duck behind a bush or behind a door.
I've asked if anything ever happened to her, but she doesn't remember.
One time at a high school party, when we were in tenth grade, Sasha Houp's parents were out of town. The party started out eating pizza and watching movies, but it ended with playing Seven Minutes in Heaven. My hope was for my and Lettie's name to be drawn together, but as luck would have it, the first names called were Dane and Angela. We went into the closet. We talked about what she wanted me to do, and to my surprise, she said, "Whatever you want, and I do mean whatever."
By this time, I already knew my feelings for Lettie were changing, but I kissed Angela for a full seven minutes, and I didn't say no when she jerked me off. Seven minutes seemed like forever, but it wasn't long enough for me to climax by her hand. When they let us out, there were lots of cheers as I was still stuffing myself back into my pants. That night, my reputation developed.
Next, Kent and Lettie's names were drawn out of the hat. Kent played football and was a nice-looking dude with plenty of girlfriends. I knew Lettie thought he was cute. She hopped up, ready and willing to go into the closet with Kent. My lungs burned because she wanted his lips on hers. But Lettie was my best friend and if Kent made her happy, I would stand aside. Only two minutes had passed when Lettie yelled, "Let me out."
I raced to the door and unlocked the hinge. "Are you okay?" Lettie tucked her head into my chest, and I saw red, glaring at Kent. "What the fuck did you do?"
"Nothing, I promise." I put my arms around her to you know, go in for a kiss, and she started heaving, and then you heard the screams.
Kent was a good guy. His ex-girlfriends never said anything derogatory about him. I narrowed my eyes. "All right, I'm taking Lettie home."
Luckily, I'm one of the few who had my driver's license. Lettie didn't speak on the way to my house where we ended up watching Heartland in the basement. There's a moment I thought about kissing her, but I didn't want the night to end with her having another moment.
"Dane."
I forget where I am, shaking my head. "Oh, sorry… what?"
"He must be thinking about a girl," Mr. Langer says.
Mr. Dorsey chuckles. "It's always a girl."
Their words seem like they're miles away when the timer beeps, and the men slowly rise from their benches. They're wrong. I'm not thinking about a girl; I'm thinking about how I might destroy the best friendship I've ever had.
My dad says, "Dane, I had Carl hang your tuxedo in your suite. Tame your hair."
"Yes, sir. I'll be down in an hour."
My legs feel like noodles, but I make it to my room, and Lettie's still gone. Her dress and my tuxedo are in the bedroom.
Unsure if I'm supposed to take a hot or cold shower after the sauna, I settle on hot to keep my muscles relaxed. I lather my hair and then soap up my hands and wash although there can't be a toxin left in my body. I soap up my dick, and it gets hard as I think about Lettie and those damn painted toes. I lean my hand and head against the wall as I slide up and down my shaft.
"Lettie," I rasp, again and again.