We have lunch at Rusty’s before leaving for the road. It’s Megan and Alex, Beth and Travis, and lastly Cole and me squeezed into a rounded booth. Since my brother isn’t coming with us, I’m subjected to watching him and Beth stare at each other longingly, and you can clearly see that they’d rather be somewhere else, doing something that would traumatize me for life.
No, thank you.
Cole has been strategically sitting next to me, and I can feel the heat of his thigh, searing into mine even though he isn’t touching me. He’s leaning forward in his seat, joking with Alex about something, but what that does is give me a first-row kind of view of his lips. Darn it; he really is testing my patience. But I’m glad that he’s out and about, that he no longer looks like death and reeks of a bottle of Jack. If him being happy and well means that I’ll have to stab myself in the eye to avoid molesting him, then so be it.
I’m jerked back into reality when I see that everyone’s finished their food and that Beth is leaving with Alex and Megan. Wait a second; someone needs to hit pause right now.
“I thought you were driving up with me?” And then my heart sinks because I know that look in her eye. It’s also not that difficult to figure out what she’s up to when my brother starts glaring at her.
She’s playing cupid.
“Oh, I thought I’d drive with these two.” She points toward the sheepish-looking couple standing near the exit to the diner. “No offense, but that monster Jeep of yours scares me.”
She loves my car. She named my car Joplin, for crying out loud.
“But you can’t leave me alone!”
I can feel Cole’s stare, and I don’t want to hurt his feelings by saying that I don’t want to be alone with him. But that’s the truth; I can’t handle three hours in an enclosed space with him. But apparently everyone else has made up their minds.
“Look, if it’s a problem, then I’ll go home…you don’t have to do this, Tessie.” Cole gets up from the table and stands in front of me, blocking everyone else from view. His shoulders have sagged and he looks dejected; the hurt in his eyes is back. I’ve done it again, and it makes me feel two feet tall.
“No…I’m sorry. That didn’t come out right. Don’t go.”
“Are you sure? If you’re not comfortable…”
“I’m sure,” I interject quickly, “I want you to come with me.”
That’s the most honest I’ve been with myself for a long time.
Once the tension has melted away, we all get in our cars to leave. Travis hugs me and gives me “the talk.” The embarrassing moments in my life seem to be never-ending, and by the end of our conversation, I’m left like I’m having sunstroke, well, at least my face does. Honestly, no girl should have to listen to her brother talk about protection and unplanned pregnancies. Now I can’t even look at Cole without…without picturing what Travis just put inside my head. He also warns me that he may check in unannounced if I don’t call him twice a day and that he “knows people,” so he will find out if I participate in my own version of girls gone wild.
Super, now I have to worry about him being in the mafia.
It’s around two in the afternoon by the time Alex’s car with Megan and Beth in it drives away and I’m left in my own Jeep with shaking hands clasped on the steering wheel. Suddenly, I’m all nerves and can’t even look at the guy sitting next to me, let alone drive. This is such an awkward situation, and the way I’m handling it is even worse.
“Do you want me to drive?” Cole asks softly, and no sooner has he said the words than I get rid of my seat belt and jump out of the car, answering his question. If I were to drive in the state I’m in, I’m sure we’d end up wrapped around a tree. That’s how shaken I am, but it’s not that unusual. You put Cole anywhere near me and I’ll be reduced to a quivering mess, and that still hasn’t changed.
After the initial awkwardness wears off and we pull out of the town limits, Cole and I fall into a companionable silence. Everything’s going absolutely okay, until the radio decides that the universe cannot possibly be happy with things being relatively normal for me. As the notes of Edwin McCain’s “I’ll Be” start, we both tense. He doesn’t change the station or turn the radio off, and nor do I.
We listen to the song play on and on.
It’s kind of masochistic of us, really, but who cares.
“Do you remember how nervous you were that day?” he asks, chuckling.
“I had every right to be! You and I dancing would’ve normally meant me landing flat on my butt and you laughing at me.”
“It was a good day,” he says softly and then looks at me with sadness in his eyes.
Of course it was. It was the best day ever, not because I won a stupid tiara but because the next day everything changed.
“It was,” I agree and then return to looking out the window.
But now I can’t get the stupid song out of my head. I can’t get rid of the memories of that day, the image of us dancing, and all the feelings and emotions that swirled inside me that day, the day that made me see how this boy was changing my life as I knew it.
And look at us now. It crushes me to see how different we are now than we were then.
He must have been having the same thoughts since he says, “You know I want you back, right?” His voice is gruff; his fingers clutch the steering wheel tightly. “Maybe Travis is right; maybe this is a pity trip for you, but for me, it’s another chance. I intend do to whatever it takes.”
My breath catches. His intensity is so overwhelming, and sometimes it’s so easy to forget everything, to forget the reasons behind why we’re here right now. Because all I want to do in this very moment is to crawl toward his lap and kiss the life out of him.
When I finally find my voice, I tell him, “It’s not a pity trip, and I’d appreciate it if you would tell me about these talks that you seem to have with Travis all the time. Maybe then…maybe if you told me more than just assuming things, we wouldn’t be in this position.”
He sighs, and then after a few long moments, I distinctly hear him say “fuck it.”
“I told you before that I came to see you before I left for military school, right?”
I nod and he takes a deep breath. “I also told you that Travis and I had some words; he didn’t let me see you, but he told me he’d tell you that I’d been there. He told me that he would tell you how sorry I was about everything.”
But Travis hadn’t done that.
Before I’d disregarded it because of what had happened with Travis later on, but the issues with school and Jenny took place nearly two years later, and I could no longer use that as a reasonable excuse. The truth is that my brother did a shitty thing; now it’s just time to know why.
“Before I left, I was into some pretty bad stuff. I’m not that person anymore, but back then, it wasn’t so simple. You hated me; I had started to hate my brother and my dad…let’s just say he didn’t like me much, either. So, I got involved with things that I should’ve stayed miles away from.”
“What…what things?”
He takes another deep breath. “There was a lot, but the worst part was the drugs. You saw me these last few weeks, right? You saw how bad it got? It was so much worse back then, and I was barely fourteen.”
Fourteen…just a kid. What the hell had he been into, and who would give drugs to someone his age?
“One of Travis’s friends from the baseball team sold the drugs to me and a bunch of other kids. Travis found me one day with a needle in my arm.”
I gasp, and Cole cringes at my reaction. “I nearly OD’ed that day; there were too many things in my system, but he…he took care of it. I couldn’t go to the hospital because Cassandra would find out, and Travis had the kind of pull that would get a nursing student to pump my stomach or whatever. I don’t remember a lot of it, but when it was over, I knew I had to go away and get clean.”
“Military school,” I whisper.
“Yeah, I told my dad parts of th
e story I just told you but not everything. He made the decision, and I didn’t fight him on it. But I wanted to do one last thing before leaving. I guess your brother didn’t want someone like me to be part of your life back then…maybe even now.”
I have no idea what to say to him, nothing at all. It’s a lot to take in, but what I feel the most strongly is sadness for the lost boy he used to be. He’d been in pain, and he’d turned to the wrong source to help fix that. I had a big part to play in that, even though the idea seemed laughable to me. An overweight, awkward girl with absolutely no social skills or a social life was the reason why the most loved bad boy of the town nearly took his own life. A few months ago and I would not have believed that, but now I do.
“Say something, Tessie…anything. I know you won’t look at me like you used to. Maybe you’re disgusted by me; maybe you hate me. Tell me what you’re feeling,” he rasps.
“I could never hate you or be disgusted by you; that’s not possible, not for me. What am I thinking? I’m thinking about how we manage to hurt each other so much without knowing that we’re doing it. I mean for two people who claim to love each other, we sure do enough damage, don’t we?”
He smiles sadly. “Who said love was easy?”
“Don’t go all cliché on me now, Stone, not now.” I shake my head.
It’s a lot to take in, and the conversation we just had isn’t really the road trip kind, but if it takes being in the middle of nowhere with a two-hour drive in front of us to get us to spill our guts, then I’ll take it. There’s so much more I want to know, so much that I want to ask, but this confession is enough for now. I’m done trying to make him miserable and in turn making myself feel miserable. We deserve a break.
“So, college, huh? Are we really doing this?”
He grins and shakes his head at my not-so-subtle change of subject. “If you’ll have me, then I’ll follow you anywhere,” he declares theatrically, and I slap his arm.
“You’ll follow me, and those sorority girls will put a price on my head. Shouldn’t you try to sow your wild oats in college?” I say playfully but realize that I’ve said the wrong thing when his expression hardens.
“I have tunnel vision when it comes to you, so no, I don’t care about anyone else.”
“So, you want to go to college…”
“With a girlfriend, yeah, that’s what I want. Do you want to be single?”
His eyes bore into mine, and I’m half afraid that he’ll crash into something, but the road’s mostly empty with only a few cars lagging far behind.
“We still have so much to talk about…you can’t ask me that now.” My voice comes out all breathy and ruins the impact I was going for, one where I actually have a stance.
“It’s a simple question. Do you want to date other people, Tessie?”
“No,” I say softly, feeling my cheeks flush.
He uses his free hand to tip my chin up so that I’m looking at him. “Good, because I really wouldn’t like getting in too many fights my freshman year.”
“And about what you said before, us talking. Well, I plan to do that. I’m not hiding anything from you now. If it helps us get back to what we were, then you can ask me whatever the hell you want, baby.”
***
It’s not long before we enter New York City and a kind of excited energy thrums through me. I’m here, and now I’m in a good place with Cole. A weight has been lifted off my shoulders, and there are things I’m fairly certain of. I still am madly in love with him, more so than ever. He needs me to take away his past and his insecurities as much as I needed him to do the same for me in the past. I also know that we have problems, a certain redhead being the biggest of them all. But he said we’ll talk, and I know he won’t lie to me. He didn’t lie when he first told me about what had happened with him and Erica, even when he wasn’t sure of it himself, so my trust in him is now unwavering.
But I’m still cautious; we still can’t jump headfirst into a relationship. Baby steps, that’s what we need, because the wounds are still fresh, and we’re both a bit fragile right now.
“Hey,” Cole says, bringing me out of my thoughts. “How about we get some ice cream before we join the others?” He grins, and I can’t help myself.
Screw lemon sherbet; ice cream is the magic word.
I remove the seat belt and watch as his eyes widen when I lean toward him and kiss his cheek. He breathes raggedly when I move back and wink at him.
“That would be perfect.”
And when we walk into Serendipity later, I try not to overanalyze the workings of the universe.
But sometimes the universe does tend to throw some love my way, and when Cole gently brushes his hand against mine as we walk together, I beg the very same universe for some courage and then take his hand in mine.
The smile that then comes on his face weakens my knees, and I know that this boy will be my undoing. I welcome it, of course, because I know there’s no one else for me.
Chapter Five: My Life, A Congregation of Life’s Cruelest Clichés
My eyes take in the gleaming surfaces of the penthouse, and I think that this definitely isn’t your typical rite-of-passage road trip. We’re supposed to be staying in dingy motels, driving for days, and staying alive on dubious roadside diner food. If you ask me, that’s what I would have preferred, but instead I find myself in an apartment that takes up the entire fifteenth floor of the impressive and opulent building on the Upper West Side. It figures, though, that this is where my friends and I’ll be staying for a couple of days since my dad took it upon himself to make the arrangements. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find more destitute surroundings on our next stop.
“Whose place did you say this was?” Cole asks as he takes a look around.
“Whoever’s it is, I’m sending them a thank-you basket. Have you guys seen the size of the hot tub?” Beth walks out of the room she and I will be sharing, grinning like an idiot. She’s been dying to get me alone ever since Cole and I got here, which would be about an hour later than them, because we stayed out and just walked around the city before driving back to the apartment.
“He’s a friend of my dad’s, and he and his family are touring Europe, so they won’t be back for a while.” I answer Cole’s question and then narrow my eyes at my best friend, who’s still looking at me smugly. Maybe it’s because Cole’s standing so close to me and I’m not running away from him a mile a minute.
“Dude, have you checked out—”
Alex and Megan walk out from their shared room and Cole dryly completes his sentence. “—the hot tub? I already heard.”
I wonder why everyone’s so excited about a hot tub in the middle of summer. It’s a hot tub, ergo, meant for the colder months. If I didn’t know any better…
“We’ve got to try it tonight; don’t worry, Tessa, I packed your bikini,” Beth says in a singsong voice before disappearing into our room. Lucky for her, I don’t instantly go after her with a butcher knife, because Cole started choking the minute she said bikini. She couldn’t be more obvious about what she’s trying to do if she held out the wedding rings right this moment. We need to have a talk; I glare at her retreating back.
“So,” I enthusiastically clasp my hands together facing Cole, who seems to have calmed down a bit. “What do you guys want to do first?” I start rattling off a bunch of options, but everyone’s in the mood to shower, eat, and then go out. So, we agree and retreat to our rooms. Beth’s on the phone with Travis and lost in her own world. Thinking about Travis confuses me, especially after the revelation in the car. I don’t know if I should be angry at him for hiding something so important, or grateful that he saved Cole’s life. Whichever it is, I’ll need to talk to him soon.
***
Showering helps put my feelings into perspective. The car ride helped us make progress and cleared a lot of misunderstandings but we’re still so uncertain. Sometimes when you have a history of the most important people in your life backstabbing you,
trust becomes a novelty. I know that I need to man up and deal with the fact that Cole made a mistake. Something may or may not have happened with Erica, but he did put himself in a compromising position, and he’s sorry enough about that. I’ve been as cruel as I could and did my best to resist what we have, but sometimes you can’t fight enough.
The girls and I help each other find outfits since it’s going to get dark outside soon, and everyone plans on finding a club where they’ll believe that I’m twenty-one. I’m guessing it’ll be easier to find Ryan Gosling wandering the streets shirtless, looking for a rebound. Though you never can tell with this city; anything’s possible.
This might explain why Megan and Beth are trying to stuff my body into a handkerchief; at least that’s what I think it is by the look of it. They like to call it a little black dress; I agreed to disagree. If it takes me dressing like a hooker to finally get my friends to have some fun, then so be it. God knows, I’ve done nothing but be a depressed and emotional time bomb the last month and a half. My skin is buffed, polished, and plucked. Fake tanners and my legs have come to be on a first-name basis, along with our new best friend, the bronzer. Beth does my makeup eerily similar to her own, going heavy on the eyeliner and eye shadow. My hair is curled and left in big, bouncy waves, falling over my shoulders. I’ve managed to stuff my feet into a pair of Beth’s spiky black high heels and begin to wobble around the room.
Standing in front of a full-length mirror, I acknowledge the effort my friends have made. Cliché as it sounds, I hardly recognize the girl staring back at me. She looks…different, to say the least, prettier. Vain as it sounds, I like the way I look after being tweaked. There’s a certain kind of confidence that comes with this look. I’ve always been someone who’s never quite been comfortable in her own skin, but the material changes finally make me feel like I could be someone who a guy like Cole could be with for the long haul.
And someone who doesn’t lose out to people like Erica.
The Bad Boy’s Heart Page 6
