Free Kate Sherwood - Dark Horse 1.2 - Rough Broke by Kate Sherwood

Rough Broke | Kate Sherwood
    first time. Or maybe boy isn't the right word, because he's quite a bit older, out of high school already, although it's not clear whether he graduated or just left. Still, for a freshman like you, it seems pretty old. You're not sure if it was the weed or something else that makes you so bold, but when he pushes you up against the side of the Carter's garden shed and says that you've been watching him all night, you realize that it's true, you have been watching him. His puka shell necklace is white against his golden neck, and you've been almost hypnotized by the contrast, not just the colors but the texture, rough shells against smooth skin, and when he shoves you again you think he's going to hit you, but then his mouth is on yours, his tongue pushing in, and you're stoned and confused, but you could resist, you could fight it. You don't, and when his thigh comes up between your legs, you're hard. He smirks when he feels it, but then there's a sound, someone walking towards the shed, and he rips himself away from you to return to the party. When you try to go with him, he pushes you back. "Stop staring at me, fag."
***
    You're more careful after that, at least for a while. Your mom gets sick, and that takes a lot of your energy, but it also leaves you needing a release. Pot is good, but when you're stoned your inhibitions are lowered, and it's hard to keep yourself on track, remember who it's okay to fool around with. You lose your virginity to a girl named Sherri, both so stoned it's almost surreal, slow-motion movements that seem to take forever, and you don't come until you look across the room and see Dylan Scott watching you.
    You're sitting outside with Dylan later that same night, watching the stars and wishing something would happen to break the heat, and you're not quite as stoned anymore but you still don't even think to object when he takes your hand and puts it in his lap, and a few minutes later when he squirms a bit and undoes his fly, you let him wrap your hand around his

Rough Broke | Kate Sherwood
    dick like it's no big deal, and a few minutes later when he groans and spurts all over your hand, it's not shocking. It feels familiar, somehow. The next day at school he won't look at you or talk to you, and that feels familiar too.
    When your mom gets too sick to take care of you, there's no family, no friends willing to step in, so you and your sister get put into foster care. It's just temporary, they tell you, but when they take you to visit your mom, she really doesn't look too good. You and your sister get put in the same foster home at first, but they get sick of you coming home stoned and giving them attitude; they say they'll keep Krista, but you have to go. The next two places last even less time, and when you get busted for possession your family doesn't have money for a real lawyer and you get sentenced to probation and community service. Your community service is picking up garbage on the roadside; the rich kid you got busted with gets no probation, and his community service is coaching basketball for underprivileged kids.
    Your case worker tells you that nobody wants to take in a three-time loser and you're probably heading for a group home. But there's one more chance, one more family that might be willing to let you in. When you walk in the door of the fourth place and see the huge cross on the wall of the foyer, you wonder if you could set some sort of record for quick rejections.
    But it turns out they're the good kind of Christians, loving and gentle instead of judgmental, and they have horses. The first time you touch one, an old black Percheron the family keeps mostly as a pet, there's an honestto-God shock that tingles up your arm, and maybe it's just all the religious talk you've been hearing from the family, but you wonder if it might have been a message from above. But a few days later you get almost the same sensation when Soren Rathgard gives you a hand