Wanting It All: A Naked Men Novel

Wanting It All
is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A Loveswept Ebook Original

Copyright © 2016 by Christi Barth

Excerpt from
Giving It All
by Christi Barth copyright © 2016 by Christi Barth

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

L
OVESWEPT
is a registered trademark and the
LOVESWEPT
colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book
Giving It All
by Christi Barth. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

ebook ISBN 9781101965214

Cover design: Diane Lugar

Cover photograph: © pio3/Dollar Photo Club

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v4.1

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T
EN
Y
EARS
A
GO…

The letter awarding Knox Davies a full scholarship to Roosevelt Prep promised him that his years there would open doors to experiences he’d never imagined. Ironic how on the money that turned out to be—because he sure as heck never imagined he’d be stranded in the Italian Alps. In a March snowstorm. Without a coat or food or any shelter besides a cave that smelled like bear shit. Hoping, along with his three best friends, that they hadn’t used up all their good luck escaping from a fiery bus crash. Oh, yeah. Definitely an experience and then some.

Knox kept a list of everything new he did. His mom got him in the habit when he was little and they were dirt poor. She wanted to emphasize experiences over material things, seeing as how they had a whopping less-than-squat, squared. He’d cataloged the
second
time the elementary school made him take an IQ test because the results came back so off-the-charts high the
first
time. The day he was put—against his will and all good judgment—on the Roosevelt Prep soccer team. And that same day, when Roger Weller tried to stuff him in a gym locker, and all the guys freezing to death in this cave with him came to his defense.

“Damn it, Knox, stop moving,” ordered Josh. At least, he recognized Josh’s
voice.
He sure couldn’t see him in the pitch dark of the cave. Not that Knox could see much now, even if a Search and Rescue spotlight hit him right between the eyes.

His glasses got knocked off when Griffin yanked him out of the way-too-small bus window. Maybe one of the guys stepped on them. Maybe they got destroyed when the bus went from smoking to fiery inferno in one big whoosh. All Knox knew was that he couldn’t see anything but blurry shapes. It twisted his stomach into a giant knot. Bleeding, no food, lost, no way to get help—all that was bad enough. But doing it half-blind was a whole other level of panic.

So he snapped back with over-the-top pissiness, “We’re not freaking sharing a waterbed. What do you care how much I move, Hardwick?”

“I can’t sleep with you rustling and crunching over there. Leaves and pine needles and dirt make noise when you roll around on them.”

“My leg hurts.” Knox immediately realized that made him sound like a whiny baby. Already the skinny nerd with glasses—usually—of the group, he did his best to not show weakness. They were all injured. The night pretty much sucked equally for all four of them. So he fell back on his usual routine: poking right back at Josh. “And I’m cold. Maybe I should come over there and spoon you to get warm and quiet?”

“Do that and I’ll go find a metal shard and stick it through your other leg.”

“You know what makes even more noise? The two of you talking,” complained Griffin. “None of us can sleep through that.”

Knox shifted again. It dug the knot from where he’d tied his shirtsleeve as a makeshift bandage right into the deep puncture wound in his left calf. He swallowed down the moan from the pain. Channeled it into snark instead. “Because you were catching such righteous zzzs two minutes ago, Montgomery?”

Then there was a crumpling noise, like someone fisted a handful of dried leaves into dust. Griffin coughed. “What the hell?”

Riley said, “You’re not supposed to sleep.” He gulped in some air. They were pretty sure Ry had a broken rib. Or three. On top of the dislocated shoulder Griffin had shoved back into place a few hours ago. Riley’d blacked out at the end of it. Knox wished he had too, to avoid hearing Riley’s scream and the gross scrape and pop of the bone moving. “You’ve got a concussion.” Another shallow gasp. “Don’t we have to wake you up every fifteen minutes?”

“You making a grab for my title of official first aid rock star?”

“Your morning breath’s bad enough on a normal day, Griff.” A wheezy gasp this time. “I don’t want to know what it’d be like if you don’t make it through the night.”

It was weird, joking about dying. Sure, they joked about everything big and bad in their lives. Griff’s mom and her third husband, this one with some made-up European title. Josh’s dyslexia diagnosis last year that got him extra time on tests—which in no way made up for all the years he’d felt stupid. Riley’s nutso parents who pushed him. Logan and his mom, who treated him like the crap on her shoe. How Knox wore hand-me-downs from all of them. Nothing was off-limits. Joking took the sting out of the hard stuff. Stuff out of their control. The only rule was that nobody
else
got to make fun of the five of them.

But dying? That was a whole new level of hard stuff. Thing was, it might not be a joke. Their odds were…Knox could turn it into an algebraic equation. Assign values to the lack of food, the freezing temperature, their injuries, how their coats and phones had been left behind in the burning bus, and said bus had slid down a steep ravine so it wouldn’t even be noticeable if anyone came looking for them. Yeah, Knox could do that math with his eyes closed. He’d spent all of this first day of being stranded
not
letting himself do it. Coming up with a number, as much as it usually soothed him, would just jack up his freak-out level. Even without doing the math, it was obvious that their odds of surviving were just plain shitty.

Math problems, the harder the better, did make him happy. So he’d come up with a different one to solve. One to distract the whole group. “You know how Principal Vazquez raises my scholarship each year to match the tuition hikes? I think I should ask him to tack on a pain-and-suffering settlement.”

“It’s a full ride based on your big brain. Since you’re the only one of us without a head injury, pretty sure your scholarship isn’t affected.” Josh reached over to flick him on his ear.

The guy had an uncanny ability to aim for things, apparently even in the dark. It’s what made him such a great goalie. He’d see the ball coming and throw his body into its trajectory. Although he’d probably make fun of Knox for using the word
trajectory,
even encapsulated as it was in a compliment.

“No, hear me out. They do this in accident settlements all the time. Assign dollar amounts to the emotional toll a victim suffers.”

“Can we all get in on this gravy train?”

“Not the scholarship part. Not with your abysmal grades. Did you even bring your textbooks along on this trip?”

Josh snorted. “God, you’re worse than Coach Robertson. Why the hell would I have done that?”

“Because spring break ends eventually. And when it does, you’ll have to face that D you’re barely holding on to in American History.”

More rustling in the dirt, like Josh had to turn over to make his point, even though they couldn’t see each other. “We’re in Italy. On a once-in-a-lifetime trip to play in the La Sfida Internazionale soccer tournament. There have been nonstop quarterfinals and semifinals for a week—all of which we won. Girls from all over Europe to seduce. There was no time to study up on the cotton vodka.”

Despite himself, Knox laughed. And hoped like hell Josh made the mistake as a joke. “It’s a cotton
gin,
you idiot.”

“There. I learned something. We can cross that off of the to-do list for today.”

“Guess we can also cross off playing in the finals tomorrow.” Even though they’d earned one of only five spots from the United States and already won five rounds. If a miracle happened and they were found? None of them were in any shape to play.

Josh sighed. “Yeah.”

In almost a whisper, Knox asked, “Think they’ll play without us?”

“Are you kidding?” Riley paused to suck in air. “We’ve got the captain, the goalie, the star striker, the playmaker, and the fastest wingman in all of Delmarva.”

Knox pictured all of them, in their jerseys, holding one another up as they laughed and whooped after winning the semifinal. And he realized what was wrong with that picture. “Maybe only the four of us are missing.”

The
five
of them had taken what was supposed to be just a fun overnight trip on their rest day to go skiing. Drink some beer while their driver/chaperone, Santo, looked the other way. And yeah, flirt with the foreign hotties. It had been great.

Until the bus crashed.

Flipped.

Slid down the mountain.

Burst into flames. Until they weren’t sure they could get out of the twisted mass of metal in time. Until they had to leave Santo behind in the burning bus, because it was obvious he was already dead. Somehow drag themselves, bleeding and broken, up the side of a mountain. And not a mountain like they had back home in western Maryland, but the freaking Alps.

Knox’s teeth started to chatter again, and he knew it wasn’t from the cold. Reliving the morning made his chest heave. His throat closed up. His stomach knotted. He’d waited his whole, lonely, geek-tastic life to finally have friends like this, to have the camaraderie, the feeling of belonging. To have guys to sit with at lunch and watch crappy horror movies with during blizzards. For a boy who’d spent his whole life with only books and computers for company, it was
everything.

No. He couldn’t believe it was over. If for no other reason than if they were gonna die, it’d have to be the five of them. Together.

Knox pushed himself up to lean against the cave wall. Because this was important. Major. Huge. “We don’t know where Logan is,” he said, voice rising in excitement. “All we know is that he didn’t get on the bus with us this morning.”

“Of course we know where he is. The guy got lucky with that
signorina
all of us hit on at the
trattoria
.” Griff sighed, probably remembering her big boobs—and lack of a bra. She’d flirted like crazy with all of them, but Logan had reeled her in, fair and square.

“He probably spent the night with her, sure. But when he woke up this morning and realized Santos made us leave without him? Logan would’ve scrambled his ass to get back.”

“Get to the point,” Riley ordered weakly.

“Logan’s our best chance at getting rescued.” The free day on the schedule meant their coach wouldn’t look for them until tomorrow. But their friend would. “I’m sure he raised the alarm as soon as he got back to the dorm.”

There was silence while everyone thought about it. Then Josh said, “What if he kept quiet? You know, to not get us in trouble?”

Griffin’s voice came from up higher, like he’d sat up, too. “He’d cover for us. But Santo was hired to drive us, to get us there and back safe and sound. When Logan realized he’s missing, too? Hell, he probably got all the teams in the tournament to pitch in and scour the mountainside.”

“I dunno, G-man.” Josh scraped along the ground, moving closer. “Even those douche bags from Holland who soaked our sheets in cherry Gatorade?”

That got a chuckle out of their team captain. “Yeah. I bet even they’d help search for us.”

“Trouble is, they don’t know
where
to look.” That was Riley, dumping all over a perfectly good theory with a depressing fact. He did that all the time. Pointed out that a snow day didn’t mean they’d escape a history test.

Griffin slapped his hands together, like he was wiping off the dust of the cave. “That’s why we’re getting out of here tomorrow. Once the sun’s up.”

Knox didn’t like the cave. He wanted to get rescued, get food, get medical attention. But at least they were safe there. Traipsing off into the wilderness didn’t thrill him. He didn’t even like to hike in Rock Creek Park back home, twenty minutes from the White House. “We don’t know where to go. East. North. There are unscaleable Alps on every side of us.”

“Don’t be a quitter before we even get started. Remember when you wanted to quit soccer after the first practice?”

Crap. Griff had his team captain, morale-boosting voice going. The one that was pretty much impossible for any of them to ignore. But Knox tried. Because the frozen tundra outside scared him more right now than Griff did. “I took a header to my nose. Blood everywhere. Of course I wanted to quit.”

“But we wouldn’t let you. Look how that turned out.”

Knox reached down to tighten the bandage on his calf. Blinked back tears of pain—
thank God it was so darn dark in here!—
as the movement jostled his leg. “Yeah. Stranded in a frozen cave. Obviously I should’ve quit and joined the Ping-Pong team.”

Josh barked out a laugh. “ ’Cause that’ll get you all the girls. Hitting a ball you can move just by blowing on it.”

A whole new fear ripped through Knox. That plus the cold had his balls practically up to his belly button. “I’ve never had a blow job.”

“Uh, don’t think you’re getting one now, Davies.”

“It’s just…” Knox didn’t want to admit this. But he couldn’t keep it bottled up, either. “I don’t want to die a virgin.”

Josh punched him in the arm. “I knew it. I
knew
you lied about getting in Charissa Taylor’s pants.”

Of course he’d lied. Knox was the only one of them still a virgin. Along with being the skinniest, the youngest, the least athletic, and a charity case. A guy had his pride after all. He’d lied about his virginity for more than a year. “If we get out of here, I’m going to bang every girl who crosses my path.”

“Do the girls get a choice in the matter?” Riley asked.

Spoilsport. “I mean it. I’ve been a geek too long. Josh, you could train me in the weight room, right?”

“Yeah. Or we could start by just having you do bicep curls with, I dunno, a can of corn. That should wear you out.”

Logan usually came to Knox’s defense. Guess he had to do it himself. Geez, he missed the guy. It felt all kinds of weird not having the five of them going through this hell together. “I’ll get some contacts instead of these dorky glasses. And I’ll ask Tierra Washington if she wants to go parking behind the drive-in.”

“Tierra has slept with half the basketball team,” Griffin pointed out.

“I know. She’s got experience and enthusiasm. I’m hoping she’ll teach me everything I need to know about pleasuring a woman.”

“God almighty,” Josh swore. “First of all, start by never saying
pleasuring a woman
ever again.”

Whatever. Guess Tierra had more to teach him than Knox even realized. “I want to do everything. You know how I was too scared to skinny-dip when we went to the beach last summer? I’m going to do it. I’m going to skip Calculus, just to say that I did. I want to make enough money so my mom can stop working two jobs. I want to go to the air guitar championship in New York.”