Shame the Devil (Portland Devils #3) - Rosalind James Page 0,51

a two-sport star to working at the lumber mill. His pretty cheerleader girlfriend went to college and he didn’t, because no college made him an offer, and he hadn’t exactly developed his other talents. All he had was sports, and it wasn’t enough. Don’t you feel bad, ever, about all those young guys who focus too much on football and not enough on anything else, because they’ve heard too many motivational speeches about their destiny and how they create it? From their coaches, from the movies, from guys like you? How many of them even play college ball?”

“Not many,” Harlan said. “And that’s still no excuse.”

“You’re right,” Jennifer said. “He was wrong. But so was I. Not as wrong as he was, but I was wrong. And stupid, of course. Romantic. Fifteen. About to start high school, and looking for magic. My parents had been divorced a long time, and I didn’t see my dad much. I didn’t know what men … or what teenage boys …”

“How much they want sex,” Harlan said. “What some of them will say and do to get it.”

“And I had …” She took a breath, then addressed the next words to Dyma. “I developed breasts early. They were big, and I wasn’t, so they looked bigger. That got me a lot of attention, and I wasn’t used to it yet. People said all sorts of things. Water wings, and how I’d always float. Other things, too, that were worse. And guys assumed I was something I wasn’t.”

“I guess I inherited one thing from the rapist’s side,” Dyma said. “Lucky me. Smaller breasted,” she explained to Owen, in case he’d missed the point.

“He wasn’t a rapist,” Jennifer said again, because this was, yes, another thing she had to say. “I was willing. More than willing. It was so exciting. Forbidden.”

“Except, again, that you were fifteen,” Harlan said. “And he was what?” He didn’t look easygoing now, and when Jennifer glanced over, neither did Owen.

“Nineteen,” Jennifer said. “Which is statutory rape, which just means a person can’t legally consent, because they’re too young. That large of an age gap, especially with somebody under sixteen, especially if they haven’t been fifteen for very long—turns out it can send you to jail.”

“Except that nobody ever does anything about it,” Dyma said.

“You’re right,” Jennifer said. “Nobody other than Grandma. You bet she was doing something about it, once she found out. Not that I wanted her to. It was the very last thing in the world I wanted. I just wanted nobody to ever find out.”

That had happened in the winter of her freshman year. She hadn’t actively wondered about the periods she wasn’t having, had pushed the thought away when it intruded. Magical thinking, they called it, and the way teenagers did tend to think. That it couldn’t be true, so it wasn’t true. Her period had always been erratic, skipping a month as often as not, and anyway, it couldn’t be. It couldn’t. It had only been a few times.

His name was Danny Howard, and he’d been the star running back of the football team and catcher on the baseball team before he’d graduated. Nineteen and so good-looking, with his muscular, compact frame and blue eyes. He’d said “Hi” to her at the lake one Saturday, all broad chest and thighs and white smile, and she’d turned around to see who he’d been talking to and then realized, with a flush of mingled embarrassment and pleasure, that it was her. The next Saturday, he’d run past and told her, “Check this out,” then swum out and jackknifed off the diving platform, his tanned body cleaving the water so neatly. He’d come back after that and hung out with her for half an hour, laughing and talking and teasing in a way she couldn’t believe was happening, then suggested they meet at the picnic area that evening.

“We could go get an ice-cream cone or something,” he’d said, and his smile had made her fluttery inside.

It had felt so powerful, like love at first sight. It had been her first real crush on a boy—the first, at least, that had gone beyond her imagination. It had been so flattering. It had felt like destiny.

She’d told her mom about the date, and her mom had said, “Who? What year is he in school?” And when she’d told him Danny had graduated, had said, “Absolutely not. Have you lost your mind?” And Jennifer couldn’t budge her.

She’d sat on the fuzzy green