Label Me Proud Read online

  Label Me Proud

  Stephie Walls

  Edited by Josie Cruz

  Cover Design by Wicked By Design

  Photography & Model Nathan Hainline

  Copyright © 2018 by Stephie Walls

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  M…be proud of who you are and where you come from. Your roots are deep.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue—Masyn

  About the Author

  Also by Stephie Walls

  Prologue

  The captain of the football team pinned me with an arrogant stare, narrowed his gaze, and silently dared me to challenge him. “Lee, I see now why you’ve never bothered to nail Masyn.” Alex snickered and high-fived Mark Holloway, the guy sitting next to him. “You’d be better off with a warm apple pie. There’d be more participation from the filling.”

  He wasn’t really talking to me so much as running his mouth about my best friend. Alex had started dating Masyn at the end of our freshman year. They’d been hot and heavy all summer, and I’d listened to his shit in the locker room more times than I cared to admit, too afraid to speak up in her defense. Masyn Porter wasn’t the girl he made her out to be to his buddies…or anyone else who’d listen to the filth he shared after practice. But just like everyone else who heard his pornographic tales, I didn’t have the guts to call him out on any of it, even though I knew none of it had happened.

  Everything about high school was a popularity contest none of us wanted to enter, yet we all longed to win. Making the varsity football team my sophomore year had taken me one step closer to the coveted spots at the top of that totem pole. Unfortunately, it also put me in a position to hear things I previously hadn’t noticed.

  I was one of two underclassmen who practiced and played varsity, and the pressure to fit in and be a part of the team was worse than any temptation I’d had to try drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes. I’d spent the better part of two months biting my tongue and forcing my mouth shut, just to stay on the good side of people I didn’t really give a shit about but who could make or break me in the social hierarchy at Harden High. Something I had never thought I’d care about until I stood the chance of losing my footing on the popularity ladder.

  Alex Hartford ran the football team and the school. The star quarterback and All-American senior held the keys to everything good in high school. The teachers loved him, the girls all lusted after him, and every guy wanted to be him.

  Except me.

  I continued pushing food around on my cafeteria tray, hoping he’d shut up or move on to another topic. What I should have done was shove my fist into his mouth and then hand him his teeth and make him choke on them.

  “You couldn’t warm her up?” Mark hung onto Alex’s side and tried to lick his face while the rest of the table laughed at the show the two put on.

  I’d never prayed for lunch to end, but hearing that bell would put a cork in his mouth. I could have gotten up, I could have walked away, yet knowing how that would play into the drama already unfolding, I kept my head down and remained silent. Being on the receiving end of Alex’s hatred wasn’t a place any kid in this school hoped to land. We all kissed his ass so he’d keep from kicking ours—literally or metaphorically.

  “Dude, hell couldn’t warm that frigid pussy. It was like fucking an ice cube. I’m surprised my dick didn’t get hypothermia.” Alex’s voice carried through the double doors and up the empty hallway with each crass word he uttered. It wouldn’t surprise me if people in the next county overheard him. “She just laid there stiff as a board. If it weren’t for all the hair on her head, I might not have been able to tell the difference between the two. The girl doesn’t have a curve on her body.”

  “Maybe she hasn’t hit puberty, yet.” Someone farther down the table joined in with a chuckle. “At least you wouldn’t have to worry about knockin’ her up.”

  “I’m starting to wonder if she wasn’t one of those babies whose parents had to decide whether she was a boy or a girl, and they made the wrong choice. What are they called? Hermaphrophobes?”

  “Hermaphrodites, dumbass.” Chad Connor had no problem correcting the term, but he didn’t do anything more than I did to stop the conversation.

  Alex pointed at Chad like a lightbulb had gone off in his head just hearing the two words Chad had said. “That would explain how she ended up with a name like Masyn. Her parents thought she was a boy, and the doctors said they got to pick. Since they already had three sons, they decided on a daughter.”

  “You slept with a chick who has a penis and a vagina?” Mark put his fist in front of his mouth like he’d just burned the varsity QB at his own game. Fist bumps and high fives flew around the table.

  My jaw clenched, and I feared I might break a tooth.

  “Nah, dude. Other than her not having any hair between her legs and looking like she’s twelve, everything down there was normal. But most of you would fill out a bra better than she does.”

  “She must suck a mean dick for you to have spent six months chasing her around.”

  I no longer had a clue who said what, and I didn’t know why I still sat in this seat not defending Masyn. I could call Alex out. I could tell every guy on the team sitting at this table that he’d never gotten past feeling her up. She’d never laid eyes on his dick, and he’d certainly never spent any time between her legs. In fact, her refusal to do any of it was the sole cause of their breakup, followed by his retaliation. The big man on campus had been dumped by a tomboy in the tenth grade, and now he was trying to save face.

  “I’ll give her that. She took me and my cousin Tim right before school started.” Alex didn’t even have a cousin named Tim. His mother and father were the only children on both sides. “My parents weren’t home, and we rode the train all the way into town. She squealed like a pig. I’m surprised the neighbors didn’t call the cops the way she screamed our names.” They might have if it had actually happened.

  The laughter and jokes at our table got increasingly louder as the rest of the cafeteria quieted down. Alex wasn’t aware he had everyone’s attention when he jumped on Mark’s back and acted like he was fucking him from behind with his hand around the guy’s neck and the other pulling his hair. He called out Masyn’s name in the throes of his performance, and Mark took on her role in their acting duo, spouting every profanity he’d ever seen written on a bathroom stall.

  If Alex hadn’t been so caught up in making his teammates jealous by trying to make himself look good, he might have realized he had a captive audience. Every student with fifth-period lunch witnessed the act and knew who he mocked.

  “You should have brought her to practice and let us all take a turn.” The voices blended together with the hoots and hollers from the rest of the team.

  “Shit, when I found out how many dudes she’d been with, I cut that whore loose.”

  “She can suck m
y dick any day.”

  “Wrap it before you tap it.”

  “I’m sure if you want some action, she’d be happy to dish it out. Just be prepared to do all the work. And you might want to fuck her from behind.”

  “I don’t give a shit how flat-chested she is. If she wants some of Daddy, I’ll let her bounce on my pogo stick.”

  “Mr. Hartford!” Principal O’Malley hollered from across the room, and everyone at our table went silent until Alex faced the administrator.

  “Eww.” There was a chorus of hushed murmurs, the other students acting scared for Alex.

  “Yes, sir?” Alex returned with the voice he used to suck up to every adult in this school.

  “My office. Now.”

  He grabbed his backpack and threw his lunch in the trash, and the rest of the table watched him go. The other students in the room resumed their conversations, and I took the opportunity to escape. But the second I stood and turned around, I met the decimated stare of Masyn Porter.

  There, at a table that normally bustled with her friends, she sat with her hands in her lap, her shoulders rounded and her back curved in defeat, staring at me. Her eyes glittered with tears, and her cheeks were flushed with embarrassment. Masyn’s chin quivered as she fought against my betrayal.

  The moment I saw her expression I knew, right then and there, that I’d sealed my fate with my best friend. I loved her, and I hadn’t bothered to save her.

  Chapter One

  “I just walked out.” I answered my best friend’s call as I punched the clock, finishing another week at the grind. “I have to go home and shower. Try to get the grease off my hands and look presentable.”

  I couldn’t stop the laugh that rang through the phone. Beau didn’t give a shit if I had black outlines around my nails, but I knew his fiancée sure as hell did.

  “Are you going to make it to the church on time?” Beau’s apprehension could’ve been nerves or Felicity riding his ass.

  I’d never let him down and I wasn’t going to start today. “I’ll be there.”

  “Sounds good. See you in a couple of hours.”

  I ended the call as I continued through the parking lot of the machine shop I’d worked at since graduating from high school. Beau had gone off to college—where he’d met Felicity—but most of our graduating class had stayed in this one-horse town our parents brought us into.

  “Lee!” Masyn hollered from her car.

  I turned toward her and kept walking backward.

  “My car won’t start. Can you take me home and then pick me up for Beau’s rehearsal thing?”

  Masyn was like one of the guys, and she had been since we were kids. Her hands matched my own, and so did her work ethic—she hung with the toughest of men with grace. I didn’t have time to drop her off across town and then pick her up later. “I’ll take you home to grab your shit. You can shower and get ready at my house. I don’t have time to make two trips. Come on.”

  She huffed, resigned to my solution. “Fine.” Her head disappeared from sight when she ducked into her car and then quickly reappeared and shut the door.

  I turned toward my truck when I saw her jogging in my direction with her Dickie work shirt tied around her waist. Regardless of whether she was one of the guys, she was still a chick and deserved to be treated like a lady, so I opened her door and helped her into the truck, trying not to take notice of her ass in the process. She situated herself on the bench seat, and I paused, captivated by how small her hands looked while she buckled her seatbelt, and how dainty they appeared covered in grease. She was oblivious to my interest. It wasn’t until I realized she was staring at me the way I was staring at her fingers that I snapped out of my trance and closed her door. The instant I cranked the engine, Masyn had her hand on the dashboard, finger-fucking the radio.

  “Just because we live in Podunk, USA, doesn’t mean we have to listen to the same type of music.” Her smile melted hearts, even though she wouldn’t let anyone have hers.

  “There’s nothing wrong with country.”

  “There’s nothing right about it, either.” She slid her fingers into her hair and unwound the tie that had held it in a knot all day. When she let it down, an urge to reach over and grab hold of it swept through me, and damn, was that impulse ever a force to be reckoned with. I wanted nothing more than to sink my hands into those heavy strands and take control. It was the color of motor oil—black when you looked at it straight on—and streaked with golds and browns when the sun hit it, and when she let it down, it was my wet dream come true—long, thick, and perfect to grab on to.

  It was easier to let her have her way than to fight with her. She’d win regardless. Masyn Porter didn’t know it, but she’d owned me since tenth grade. Right about the same time that Alex Hartford had demolished her in front of the entire student body—that day, that very event, had cut her off to the male population. It hadn’t opened her up to female relationships, it just shut her out of relationships entirely.

  Six years hadn’t dulled that memory; I could recite every word that bastard spouted in the lunchroom about her body, and what he had claimed he’d done to it. She probably could, too. Every word had been lies. I knew it. Yet I hadn’t stood up for her. I sat there silently while Alex, the quarterback for our high school team—King Shit on Turd Hill—took her down because she’d refused him. When she’d put the brakes on, the rejection sent him to the top of his mountain to reclaim his manhood and destroy her in the process. Alex was a dick.

  Masyn forgave me, but she hadn’t dated since—not really. There’d been a handful of nights out here and there, just nothing that stuck. One bad apple had ruined her for the rest of us. And to my knowledge, she was still just as pure as the day he’d painted a scarlet A on her chest. She would have had to be super secretive to hook up with anyone for me not to know about it.

  After Beau left for school, the two of us remained and took jobs at Farley’s Machine Shop right after graduation. I think Old Man Farley gave her a job as a joke…turned out, the joke was on him. Masyn had three brothers who all tinkered with cars, and she had a mechanical mind. She took to machining like a fish to water. I’d give my left nut to be able to do what she could with a lathe or mill. I refused to admit the kind of hard-on I got watching her write programs for CNCs or turning a piece of metal.

  “Is that AC/DC?” I grimaced when we stopped at a light—one of four in town.

  She squinted and gave me a shit-eating grin. “I’m surprised you recognize it. You know, since it’s not Willy, Waylon, or Garth.” Her smug look only enticed me more.

  “Whatever makes you happy, sweetheart.”

  She punched me in the arm with brute force. Her pint size was deceiving. At five-foot-nothing and a crisp hundred-dollar bill soaking wet, she could still take me down even though I was a solid foot taller and had every bit of a hundred pounds on her. With one hand on the steering wheel, I used the other to rub the spot she’d nailed.

  “What the hell was that for?”

  She arched one brow with a curt stare. “Sweetheart?”

  I rolled my eyes. Masyn believed I called every female sweetheart, and it drove her insane to think she was one of the masses. But that wasn’t the case; I called every female darlin’ or hon—sweetheart was reserved solely for her.

  Thankfully, she didn’t live more than about five minutes from the shop—just in the opposite direction of the five minutes I lived. I hated the crap part of town she rented a house in—mill hill. When we were younger and the textile mills were still in full swing, this was a solid, working-class neighborhood. Those industries died out and the mills shut down; the people moved out and found work in other cities. Now they’re low rent and not terribly safe—I didn’t even want to speculate about the illegal activity that took place on the streets when the sun went down.

  I acted like Harden, Georgia, was a hotbed of drug smuggling and gun running. The reality was, the biggest scandal to take place in this town was the mayor�
�s wife being caught on the sidewalk with an open container…in broad daylight. Nothing bad happened in this nook of the world, mainly because no one knew it existed. Truth be told, I was overprotective and the idea of something happening to Masyn drove me batty.

  “Give me ten minutes.” She hopped out of the truck before it even stopped moving in her driveway.

  The moment the door closed, I changed the radio station back to something that didn’t make my ears bleed. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back on the seat to wait for her. Neither of us were terribly excited about the wedding of the year, much less participating in it.

  Beau Chastain came from old money, and he was marrying new money in Felicity Holstein. The difference was Beau didn’t give a shit about the number of dollars in a bank account—probably because he didn’t know what it was like not to have them.

  Those same dollars defined Felicity. This was where old money and new money differed. Old money had always been; for generations, these families were rooted in wealth, so no one alive knew what it was like not to have it. Whereas, new money typically came about with the dot-com era, and they flashed it as often as they did their business cards. And Felicity was definitely a flasher.

  Felicity Holstein was one of those girls who went to college to find a husband. And once they were married, she had their lives planned out. Not one minute of it would be spent in Harden, Georgia, either.

  Masyn and I begged Beau not to propose at Christmas, but the fool did it anyhow. They graduated from college two weeks ago, and she couldn’t wait to add her name to his trust fund. I swear, if their parents wouldn’t have gone ballistic, Felicity would have tried to get him to elope.