When he reaches the threshold, he turns. “You should come to our house Friday night. Rebel is coming. It’ll be fun,” he says, but something tells me that he has extended the invitation because he is trying to appease Wolfe by becoming friends with me.
“I’ll try. Thanks for the invite,” I say.
“Sure. And thanks again, Holland.” He leans in and gives me a soft peck on my cheek and my whole body heats from his touch. I try to think back to the hookup I had months ago with a guy from the football team and his touch didn’t set me on fire the way Cole’s does.
“Bye, Cole,” I say, and he looks at me again. I wonder what he’s thinking. Maybe that I have a black heart. Who knows? I don’t have time to care. I start my internship with Dr. Tahir in just over a week and nothing is going to sidetrack me.
“Bye, Holland,” he says as he heads out to his SUV.
I try not to stare at his glorious ass as he gets into his car, but it’s hard not to. I close the front door and let out a breath.
Mary is waiting off to the side and she sees my reaction.
“Ah! Finally,” she sighs.
“What?” I ask, as if I don’t know what she is insinuating.
“Don’t fight it,” she advises.
But she’s wrong. I have to fight it. Getting mixed up with Cole is an awful idea. His reputation and my drive are basically negative ions repelling each other. I need to focus on med school. Not the hottest player on Westfall’s hockey team.
Three
Cole
I pull up the drive of the home I grew up in. I used to love coming home. That all changed when Dad married Amber. A twentysomething who clearly married him for his bank account. Now I avoid this place like the plague. Problem is, most of what I own is still in my old bedroom. I like keeping it this way for sentimental reasons, it’s the way Mom designed it, the furniture she wanted for me. That’s hard to let go of. Besides my room back at school is too small to hold all my belongings.
I turn the key in the front door lock and head in the door. I peek inside.
Coast is clear.
It’s the middle of the day on a Thursday and Dad is at work. I don’t know what Amber is up to and I don’t really care. I just need to pack for my annual summer vacay with Granny Mae. My flight leaves early Sunday and tomorrow night we’re partying it up. I didn’t really want to bump into Dad anyway.
I walk briskly across the marble floors and take the steps two at a time. There is staff that works in the house and know me, but they aren’t the same people I grew up with so I don’t really feel the need to say hi. My nanny, Bertha, and her husband, Edward, our butler left the day I moved out and started at Westfall.
My heart aches as I make it to the top of the steps and walk past the room that used to belong to my parents. A part of me doesn’t understand how Dad could bring Amber into that room. It makes me feel upset and angry. His lack of loyalty to Mom. I hadn’t expected him to remain celibate. I just. . .I don’t know. Maybe I expected him to be hurting more, like me.
I head into my room and walk directly into my walk-in closet. I pick up my two suitcases and walk them over to the bed where I splay them open side by side.
“Hi there,” Amber says. “I didn’t hear you come in.” I turn to see that she’s wearing a sport bra and short shorts. Her skin looks moist like she’s been working out or something and her smile is. . .flirtatious?
“Hi,” I answer curtly.
She saunters into my room. “Here, let me help you pack. Your dad said you were heading to Georgia. Maybe you could come over Saturday and have dinner with us. I’m sure it would mean a lot to your dad,” she says, and she takes a pile of shirts I placed on my bed and neatly places it in my suitcase.
“I didn’t ask for help,” I say to her.
“Come on, Cole.” Her bottom lip pushes out and she places her hand on my shoulder, then moves to caress me.
“Dammit, Amber, get your paws off me,” I bark.
“It’s so boring around here. Your dad gets home from work late and goes into the office early,” she complains, her voice whiny. Then it looks like a light goes off in her head and I fear what will come out of that mouth of hers next. “Aren’t you having any college parties this weekend? Oh, that could be so much fun.” She waves her hands in the air dramatically and when she stops her hands land on each of my shoulders. She gives me seductive eyes and I feel vomit crawl up my throat. Not because she isn’t hot, because Amber is stunning, but because she is my fucking stepmother. I’ve never put hands on a woman before but I physically remove her hands off me.
“That is a terrible idea. Do you even hear yourself? You’re married to my father. You’re not supposed to invite yourself to his son’s parties,” I scold, taking a large step away from her.
“But we’re friends, aren’t we?” she asks, and there is a part of me that believes her sincerity and wants to not think of her as a lying cheating. . .
“We are in fact not friends,” I clarify, placing each of my hands at my waist.
“In that case,” she says taking a few steps toward me. She pushes me in the middle of the chest and I must not be expecting it because I lose my balance and fall back on my bed. Amber pounces on top of me.
I grab her by the hands. “Let me say this in the simplest way I can. You and I are never going to happen. Get the fuck off me and don’t come near me ever again,” I grumble.
Tears prick her eyes and her lower lip trembles. She does in fact climb off me. When she is upright, I sit myself up. She adjusts her sports bra and her eyes narrow to slits. Then she huffs at me, turns on her heel, and leaves my room. This time I get off the bed quickly and lock my bedroom door.
I pace my room for a few minutes, trying to calm the fuck down. My heart beats fast and a sheen of sweat breaks out over my body. It makes me sick that my father married her only a year after Mom passed. Mom was this amazing classy woman; she was an attorney and did philanthropical work. How dad went from Mom to Amber boggles my mind. It makes me never want to settle down because, what is the point? Loved ones don’t stick around and they can clearly be replaced with basically anyone.
I continue to pack my things then grab my suitcases and head down the stairs. Truth is I am parched, but I don’t want to risk stopping for a glass of water in the kitchen and being accosted by Amber again, so I head straight out the front door without even stopping to lock it.
When I get in the car my cell rings. It’s Granny Mae.
“Hi, how are you?” I ask.
“Great. Because I’m waiting for you to come. I’ve been baking up a storm. Started freezing things because I’ve made so much,” she says, her voice warm and loving.
“I can’t wait,” I answer.
“What’s wrong, Cole?” she asks with that concerned but stern tone of hers.
I laugh. “How can you tell something is wrong?” I ask as I back out of the driveway and head onto the street.
“I can just tell. Now spit it out,” she orders.
“I was at the house picking up my suitcase and ran into Amber,” I begin. Granny Mae knows about the numerous times she’s hit on me. It started when I turned eighteen. Before that she would just try to flirt with me. I hate sharing these details with Granny Mae, but she pulled these secrets out of me a long time ago and has always insisted that I tell her everything.