The Hating Season

by Linde, K. A.

“To be honest, it was not easy to find.”

  “How?” I muttered. “How did this even happen?”

  “Taylor actually. She gave me her number when we were at Oktoberfest. I was supposed to send her book recommendations. Instead, she helped me get to you.”

  “Little weasel,” I muttered under my breath.

  “So… beach?”

  I nodded. “All right, but I need to change first.”

  “No problem. I’ll wait here. Your stepmom was just regaling me with stories of your childhood.”

  I groaned. “Great.”

  I hastened upstairs and changed into jean shorts and a tank top, pulled my hair up into a high pony, and added a coat of pink lipstick just because. Why the hell not? I took a deep breath and then went back downstairs.

  Court was still standing in my dad’s living room. It was utterly surreal.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  “Sure.”

  We walked back out to my Mercedes. He didn’t offer to drive, which I thought was a relief. A lot of men got weird about that sort of thing. But I definitely had more driving experience than Court… and it was my city.

  We drove away. I turned on the radio and let the Top 100 station drown out the silence on the drive down to Santa Monica. Parking was as awful as ever. Maybe worse because it was so beautiful out today, but I finally nabbed a spot not too far away from the pier.

  We stepped out of the car and headed toward the pier. I didn’t know what to say. I’d left him behind in New York. I hadn’t even had enough time to think about what the fuck I wanted to do. If I could forgive and forget him lying to me. Or why he’d done it in the first place. It all just hung between us as we walked.

  “Sooo…” I prompted a few minutes later.

  “Yeah, so…” he said. He glanced up at me. “I missed you.”

  I swallowed. “I missed you, too.”

  “It’s been almost two weeks. It felt like a fucking lifetime.”

  “God, two weeks already?”

  “Close to it,” he said. “Taylor seems to be in better spirits.”

  “I don’t know. That smile she gave me was the first one I’d seen since she woke up from the sedative.”

  “She’ll get there.”

  I nodded. “I hope so.”

  We were nearly to the pier by that point, and Court pulled me off of the path, grinding us to a halt.

  “I just… I know you saw Josh this weekend,” he said with his hand still on my arm.

  “I did,” I said in confusion. “How do you know that?”

  “I’m guessing that you’re not following your own celebrity status right now?”

  I groaned. “Oh god, what happened?”

  He pulled out his phone and then passed it to me. I cringed before I even read the headline. Then, I cringed some more.

  “Fuck,” I groaned. “Jesus, fucking fuck.”

  I skimmed the article. I hated tabloids. I hated tabloids and paparazzi and these fake fucking journalists. The lies they spun like spiderwebs. It was just drama. Pure, unfiltered cotton-candy-spun drama. And not a lick of it was the truth.

  “That is not what it looks like,” I told Court.

  “It looks like you were hugging.”

  “We… were,” I said. “I told him about Taylor, and I just lost it. I started sobbing, and he consoled me.”

  “Okay,” he said. “That seems… reasonable. I suppose.”

  “You know I told you not to believe everything you see in tabloids. They’re all lies.”

  “I did tell Katherine that when she showed me the pictures. But you know… just in case.”

  I looked at him in confusion. “In case what?”

  “You really were reconciling, English. I couldn’t have that.” He reached out and took my hand. “There was no way I was going to stand back and let Josh weasel his way back in. I had to come out here even though your dad told me to give you more time. There was no more time. There was just now.”

  “Court…”

  “I didn’t know if you were going to talk to him again. But it was a good enough reason to come see you and bring you home.”

  I swallowed. “I’m not home now?”

  “Nope.”

  “And where is home if not LA?”

  “With me.”

  I laughed at his utter confidence. “That’s pretty presumptuous, considering how we last left off.”

  “I know,” he said smoothly. “I know that you’re probably still mad at me. That you want to throat-punch me for ruining everything. But I want to bring you home with me anyway.”

  “You think I’ll just come back to New York with you?” I asked, humoring him at this point.

  He laughed. “Hardly. I think you’ll kick and scream the whole way.”

  “Well, at least you know me.”

  He stepped forward, cupping my face in his strong hands. He tilted my head up until I was looking into his eyes. He was so sincere. So sure of himself.

  “Anna English, you can kick and scream as much as you want. You can call me names and fight me on every little thing. I don’t care about any of that,” he told me. “I still want you with me because I love you.”

  I gasped at the words. They rang with truth. “You… do?”

  “Yes, I do. And that’s the real reason that I went to see Jane,” he admitted. “I didn’t realize that at first. I was just having… I don’t know… all of these confusing feelings. I’d never felt this way before. I’d thought that I loved Jane. I’d thought that she was the one for me. I’d dated her for two years. And then you happened.”

  I swallowed. “Me?”

  “Yes, you, Anna. You changed it all. Made me see that I hadn’t loved Jane. Not really. And it wasn’t until I saw her and talked to her that I realized the truth.”

  “And what’s that?” I whispered hoarsely.

  “I never even knew what love was before you.”

  A tear trickled down my cheek. “Court.”

  “I’m sorry that I lied,” he said. “It was wrong and stupid. And it won’t happen again. I’m a hundred percent yours, Anna. I want to be with you and only you. If you’ll have me?”

  I stared up into his baby-blue eyes reflecting the bright California sun. I’d been dreaming about him since I got here. Wishing that Josh were actually Court when I had seen him. Thinking about how I could go on without New York in my life. Without Court Kensington.

  I’d thought just today that I needed to give my dad some more slack for the slights I’d imagined as a kid. It seemed maybe… I needed to offer Court that same slack. He’d flown all the way out here. And… he loved me.

  “Anna?” he asked cautiously.

  I nodded once then. “I love you, too.”

  “Right answer,” he said, making me laugh.

  He dipped down low and captured my lips against his own.

  40

  English

  I felt guilty for leaving Taylor behind. But my dad had already told me it was past time for me to go back to my life, and I found he was right. Taylor didn’t even mind. We just promised we’d be better sisters, even from thousands of miles away.

  We’d hugged until neither of us could breathe. Then, I’d done the same with Ashley and my dad before departing with Court to the airport.

  Winnie had been the most put out. She’d been looking forward to opening the agency in LA and having me around all the time. But I’d promised her that the agency was still on. We would just have two offices, like we’d had the last six months. It had worked out pretty well. I had a feeling it would work out long-term, too.

  Court and I stepped out of LaGuardia the next day to his car service waiting to pick us up and take us back to his apartment.

  “I haven’t slept since Halloween,” I said, snuggling against his side as we drove through the darkened city.

  “Well, I hate to break it to you, but you’re not sleeping tonight either.”

  I tilted my head up to look at him. “Is t
hat so?”

  He smirked at me, capturing my lips again in a heart-thumping kiss. “It is.”

  “And why is that?”

  He leaned down so that he breathed against the shell of my ear. “Because I’m going to fuck you all night.”

  I giggled a little deliriously, but my body pulsed in response. “If you’re lucky.”

  His hand slipped up my inner thigh. “I am.”

  We barely made it back upstairs to his apartment before tearing each other’s clothes off. I was tired, but I wasn’t that tired.

  I staggered back against Court’s bed as he hustled out of his slacks. I scurried backward toward the pillows, and when his boxers fell to his feet, he crawled after me, pinning me to the bed.

  His fingers hooked into the hem of my thong before quickly dragging it down my legs. He threw it over the side of the bed and then crushed his lips down to meet mine.

  I wrapped my legs around him, and he obliged me by shifting us closer together but not quite. Not where I needed him.

  I moaned deep in the back of my throat as he brushed across my clit. “Court.”

  He chuckled at my begging. “Tell me you love me.”

  I opened my eyes and gazed up at him. “I love you.”

  “And that you’re mine.”

  “I’m all yours,” I assured him.

  Then, he smiled and slid inside of me. I tipped my head back and groaned. He wasn’t gentle with me, but it wasn’t exactly like before. This was… more. Somehow so much more. Our sex had been great before, and I had a feeling that intense fucking wasn’t going anywhere. But right now, in this moment, I just wanted him to claim me. Take me as his own. And he did.

  When we climaxed together, I cried out and then lay back, panting. He just stared down at me as if I was the most precious thing on the planet, stroking my blonde hair back against the pillow.

  I fell asleep like that and woke sometime later, alone.

  I groggily stood up and padded to the bathroom before going in search of Court.

  He was seated in the living room with a book laid out before him. So deeply engrossed that he didn’t even look up when I entered. I wrapped my arms around him from behind and kissed his neck.

  “Good book?” I whispered.

  He leaned back and kissed me. “Very. I thought you’d sleep all day and night.”

  I yawned. “I thought I would, too. But I’m a shit sleeper.”

  I stepped around to the other side of the couch and curled up next to him.

  “Lark kept calling,” he said, sliding a bookmark into his book. “I told her you were going to sleep all night. But the gang is back together. She said they’d be at Sparks if we wanted to join.”

  “Do you want to go?”

  He shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind a repeat of earlier.”

  I drew him in for a long kiss. “I think we’re going to have many, many repeats. Let’s go out.”

  “You’re sure? You still look tired.”

  I huffed. “Thanks,” I said sarcastically.

  “Not like that.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I waved my hand at him. “But I still think it’ll be fun.”

  He nodded. “As long as you’re coming back with me tonight.”

  I grinned. “Every night.”

  * * *

  We arrived at Sparks at midnight. I didn’t have much of anything at Court’s house and had scrounged up a black dress that I must have left there on another occasion. But I didn’t even care. It didn’t matter what I wore when I was with Court and surrounded by my friends.

  Lark threw her arms around me. “I thought you had gone back to LA forever.”

  I laughed and squeezed her tight. “Court convinced me to come back.”

  “To come home,” he corrected.

  “Well, whatever he did, I’m glad he did it,” she said, releasing me. “I missed you like crazy.”

  “You finally aren’t working insane hours.”

  “Still pretty crazy hours,” she confessed. “But nothing like campaign hours. I’m settling back into City Hall.”

  Whitley nearly attacked me then. “You’re back. I told Lark and Katherine not to worry.”

  I raised an eyebrow at Katherine. “You were worried?”

  “Well, you’re one of us now, aren’t you?” Katherine said primly.

  I bit my lip and nodded, wrapping my arms around her before she could protest. Katherine just shook her head and patted my shoulder.

  “There, there,” she said gently. “Someone has to manage Court Kensington. We all know that he can’t do it alone.”

  My eyes flicked back to Court’s, and he shrugged. “Not wrong.”

  “I think you handled the end of the campaign well enough,” I admitted.

  He winked at me. “I thought it’d be a disaster, but apparently, the funding has doubled for the lacrosse program almost overnight. And a few of my buddies that I played with growing up and at Harvard have offered to coach other teams.”

  My jaw dropped. “That’s incredible.”

  “Yeah, I thought it was the end of my time in the program. But it turned out to be the best thing that I could do for it.”

  “I love that.”

  “So,” Lark jumped in, “do you have holiday plans?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing but work. You?”

  “I was thinking… maybe we could all get away for a week. Go to one of my parents’ resorts in the Caribbean.”

  “You would go to a St. Vincent’s Resort?” I asked, flabbergasted.

  Lark’s relationship with her parents was shoddy at best. They’d relented on her job and Sam, but I couldn’t imagine her relenting on the company.

  “Okay. I might have said that I’d have time to go down there and check things out. It’s a brand-new resort, and they want eyes on the ground before it officially opens. But you know… I could probably swing us all suites,” she said with a laugh. “Since you know… I own part of it.”

  “I’m in,” Court said at once. He slung an arm around my waist. “She’s in, too. We need to get away.”

  I laughed. “All right. Christmas at a St. Vincent’s Resort it is. Who else is coming?”

  “Well, I’ve invited Penn and Natalie, but I think they’re going to her parents’ for Christmas. Gavin and Whitley and Robert are for sure in.” Lark glanced over at Katherine, who raised her eyebrow. “Are you and Camden free? I know it’s so close to your anniversary. I didn’t know if you’d have plans.”

  Katherine looked to Camden, who had just entered the conversation.

  He just stared back at her. “Do we have plans, Katherine?”

  She swallowed and went pale, averting her gaze. “We could meet you after our anniversary.”

  Lark grinned broadly. “That’d be great!”

  But I was still frowning with interest at Katherine’s response. Why the hell had she gotten so pale? What was going to happen over their anniversary? Sometimes, I just did not get them at all.

  I shook it off and decided Katherine and Camden might always remain a mystery.

  “Dance with me?” I asked Court.

  He pulled me close on the dance floor, and I leaned back against him. We danced and danced and danced some more. I was glad that we’d left the house. Even though I would have just as much enjoyed staying in. But I loved our friend group. It felt so real. So… personal. Like we’d entered a new phase of our friendship. No longer just the start of something, but that something had solidified.

  We stepped back off of the dance floor, and I checked my phone reflexively. I’d started looking at it all the time after Taylor. And to my surprise, I’d missed a text from Winnie.

  Holy shit! Look at what just came out about Margery!

  I clicked the link, and my eyes widened in shock. Court read over my shoulder as it was revealed that Margery had been part of some ring that put young girls with old male directors. Video footage had been leaked of her involvement, and already, three of her highest-billed
clients had left. One of them being Josh Hutch.

  I gaped. “Holy fucking shit!”

  Court swore, “What the fuck?”

  “How could anyone even get this footage? This is insane. It’s going to close the whole agency around the scandal.”

  Court glanced up and away, toward Camden, and then back. “He wouldn’t.”

  “He? He who?”

  He shook his head. “It was Camden.”

  I raised an eyebrow in question. “What was Camden?”

  “He found and released the footage.”

  “But… how?”

  “He owns one of the biggest hotel chains in the world. You have a Percy Tower in LA, right?”

  I nodded slowly, realizing what he was insinuating. “But… but why would Camden do something like that? He hardly even knows Margery.”

  “He found out that Margery had me followed and then released the pictures of me and Jane.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Fuck! Of course she did.”

  “And if Camden knew that… that she’d hurt me and hurt you… he’d stop at nothing.”

  “But he doesn’t even seem to care. He doesn’t even talk to me. Actually, he’s really kind of scary when I’ve been alone with him.”

  “I don’t know. Camden is a man of action, not words. He protects his own. I’ve seen it before.”

  My head spun. “Wow. Should I… should I thank him?”

  Court laughed. “If he wanted credit, I think he would have told us he did it.”

  “But this is going to solve all my problems. He made it so that she’s going to have no way of coming after my business with Winnie.”

  “Exactly,” Court said. “Victory enough.”

  I shook my head, deeply confused. Camden Percy was both utterly terrifying and somehow incredible. Or maybe just incredibly powerful… which maybe made him more terrifying. As long as you stayed on his good side, everything would be fine.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Court said, rubbing away the furrow in my brow. “Go dance with your girls. Enjoy the evening.”

  I stood up on my tiptoes and kissed him full on the mouth. “You’re the best train wreck to ever cross my path.”

  He laughed. “You’re the best fixer I could have ever asked for.”