I open the browser on my phone and Google her name and click on the first image of her I see. The ink black hair I used to run my fingers through is glossy and done up like a movie star. Her familiar locks are styled in loose waves that hang just beyond her shoulders. She’s at some event of some sort and she’s dressed like a celebrity, every delicious looking curve molding the sapphire blue velvet dress to her body. Her lips are rose red and her eyes are the same vivid blue I’ve seen in my dreams countless times.
“Fuck me,” I groan, pressing my palm to my chest hating that she’s so damn gorgeous, hating that she has such an effect on me. Even after everything. Even after a decade.
And she’s supposed to be mine, but she isn’t.
It makes the ache from her absence that much more acute. Unfortunately her rumored shitty personality does little to turn me off. Rae has always readily bared her teeth with me. If there is anyone on the planet immune to her sass and vacant threats, it’s me.
She’s back.
The breathtaking woman I swore I would marry one day is back in town, and I am itching to be the first person she sees bright and early in the morning. She ripped my fucking heart out and I’ve been hung up on her for the last decade. She’s going to hate life in the morning if I have any say about it. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer person,” I deadpan, talking to myself as stare at the picture of her on the screen of my cell phone.
Chapter 5
Raegan
There are a few certainties about hanging out with Chick that I had totally forgotten. One, he’s a lady’s man. Two, he loves beer. Three, he also loves tequila. Four, he’s great at pressuring his peers into doing dumb things they really should refrain from. Five, he’s a lot of fun to spend time with.
But lying here now in a T-shirt belonging to Chick that I vaguely recall tugging on after texting my mom to tell her I was too inebriated to drive home and would be staying at Chick’s house, none of the fun from last night matters. This brand of hangover is never worth the fun that precipitated it. As the blackness of sleep slips away, the headache and nausea edge in. Somehow, the scent of coffee snakes through the tequila vapors and coils around my sloshed brain. I moan, squeezing my eyes tighter shut while pressing my fingers to my temple. Chick’s couch is comfy enough but no amount of anything good could have prevented the raging hangover I earned with every shot we consumed at the bowling alley bar last night.
Was it four shots or five?
The eerie sensation of eyes on me has me forgetting all about my throbbing head and roiling gut. My pulse quickens and I do a mental inventory of my body. I’m still in the tee shirt Chick tossed at me last night as I stumbled to his bathroom cellphone in hand. The fleece blanket I only half unfolded across my legs is still where I left it, its slight weight a reassurance that nothing unseemly took place last night. Anxiety is pacing the room in my head.
With careful precision I crack open one eye just a sliver then in an instant my heart slams to a violent, jolting halt.
“Happy twenty-eighth birthday, Rae. Ready to be a woman of your word and make good on our deal?” Familiar chocolate eyes twinkle with amusement as a store bought carrot cake is pushed toward me on Chicken Nugget’s coffee table.
Sylas Broussard.
I don’t move a muscle—and scarcely draw breath with my eyes still cracked open only a tiny bit. Sylas fishes a cigarette lighter from his shirt pocket and leans his bulky frame forward, then lights a single white candle on top my favorite cake which he did on purpose no doubt. Of course he’d remember a detail like my favorite cake.
Just like I know he too loves carrot cake with Chantilly cream icing.
The orange flame flickers and dances in the stillness between us. He on one side of the coffee table and me sprawled, hung over and significantly worse for the wear on the other. Oh how flattering this scene is.
“Make a wish, Rae,” he murmurs and something mischievous lurks behind his all American smile. I turn my attention to Chick who is by the entrance to his kitchen, apparently freshly showered as evidenced by his wet mop of dark blonde hair. He’s got a mug in one hand and an apologetic smile on his face.
“No thanks,” I snap at Sylas, hauling myself off the couch. I turn and face Chick. “There for your friends, huh?” I growl at him. He grimaces and clicks his tongue.
“Never said which friend,” he smiles stiffly.
“Asshole,” I mouth.
“Sorry,” he says back. I snag the candle from the cake and turn it over, jamming the wick end down into the creamy icing. My eyes find Sy’s and I feel homicidal seeing his mouth twitch in amusement. I don’t know where my car is, but walking back to my parent’s house in the Louisiana humidity is far more appealing than sitting here in Chicken Nugget’s living room with Sylas for a moment longer.
I locate my Converse—one by the front door and another closer to the couch I slept on. I jam my feet down into them, not bothering with tying the laces. I grab my small pile of things off the coffee table and make my hasty exit all with Sylas Broussard’s arrogant smirk crawling over my skin. The bastard! And Chick… I can’t sufficiently begin to describe the tongue-lashing he has earned himself. Seeing Sylas in the same room, breathing the same air, feeling the energy rolling off him in waves… it’s all too familiar, too powerful, too much. But, of course, he always was too much. Even back then. Even now, years later.
Chapter 6
Sylas
Tenth grade…
Tenth grade is going to be a complete snooze-fest with exception to pestering the hell out of Rae for a date. I can tell already and it’s only been two weeks since the first day of our sophomore year. Rae will be a good distraction though. I’ve known the girl most of my life—hell—since fifth grade when Northlawn Elementary and Bayou Elementary merged. I saw her in the cafeteria the very first day of fifth grade and I’ve been her shadow ever since. She hates me for it but something about her fight, her stubborn attitude makes me come back for more. It’s a bit of a hobby.
My mom and her mom both work for the school district so them becoming friends when we were in elementary school was just a coincidence—a convenient one for me and a shitastic one for Rae. I enjoyed pestering her through middle school just for the hell of it but it wasn’t until Chick mentioned asking her to our eighth grade prom that my guard went up and something changed. My hobby of teasing her became more of a mission than anything else.
I asked her to our junior high prom in eighth grade and she laughed hysterically then walloped me right in the shoulder. She thought I was kidding until I started asking her once a week, then once a day then every time I saw her until the prom came and went. That was the year I got my laptop and could finally load more music onto the iPod. I put a playlist on the thing called PromWithRae. She countered with her own playlist titled HitTheRoadJack. It had one song on it. Safe to guess which one. She went with someone else to prom and so did I—Brooklyn who gifted me with my first real kiss that night. I liked Brook okay, and she was fun to hang out with but she wasn’t Rae—still isn’t.
After that junior high prom… well… I don’t exactly know why but I had grown accustomed to seeing that pink flush creep over Rae’s skin when I teased her and I started craving it—needing her blush, her embarrassed expression. Knowing that I was the only person capable of getting her so riled up kinda made me obsess over her. Even pissing her off excites me.