Maybe if I’d had an upbringing like that, I wouldn’t be as cold and callous as I am now. But I didn’t, and I think it’s foolish to give up what extra revenue and projects they could be bringing in if they worked like maniacs. Once I graduate, I plan to work myself into the ground trying to build an enterprise.
I was right. I did have to do ten over the speed limit in my white RAV4 just to make it to campus with barely any time left before my class. As I drag myself into the lecture hall where the course always is, I feel like I might pass out. All I’ve had today was a protein bar and a Pedialyte when what I really want are a nice, juicy burger and curly fries. My head is pounding, my feet kill from the shoes I danced in last night, and it’s so cold outside that my Texas bones are rattling.
“You feel like death, too?” Thea addresses me as I sit next to her in my usual seat, halfway up the stadium-style rows.
“Ugh, yes. And I had to go over to shoot a portion of the show this morning. Remind me never to go out on a Thursday again?”
“Oh, did you guys go to The Whiskey Room last night?” A petite blonde whose name I can’t remember interrupts our conversation.
I give her a look that could freeze fire. “Not like it’s any of your business, but we did.”
She turns immediately back around, but not before I see the hurt on her face.
“Down, girl. Don’t be such a bitch,” Thea scolds me.
Guilt and disappointment wash over me. I don’t mean to be so cold, but it’s my nature. I don’t know how to change it. I’ve tried meditation, therapy, kickboxing … none of it works. My outlook on the world is just negative, and I’m not sure how to undo the parts of my brain that are fucked-up.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.” I hope it’s loud enough for the blonde to hear, but she doesn’t turn back around.
My friend next to me has a concerned look on her face. “Hey, you want to play hooky?”
My hangover agrees immediately, but my inner-perfectionist revolts against the idea. “I don’t skip class.”
“Come on, you wouldn’t be a college student if you didn’t, at least once, skip a class. Live a little, Princess Perfect. You’re already an on-screen intern for the hottest design show on TV. I think you’re light-years ahead of everyone sitting in this lecture hall.” Thea rolls her eyes and flicks my arm.
“Ow.” I rub the spot, giving her my accurately practiced death stare.
She’s kind of right though. Missing this one lecture won’t hurt me. I know I was just bitching about how Ramona and James were soft on their hustle, but I was hungover and cranky. And the thought of sitting in Professor Sear’s class, listening to her drone on about patterns and swatches, has me grinding my teeth together.
“Fine,” I relent. “But we’re going for cheeseburgers because I said so.”
“Whatever you say, Queen Bee.”
Six
Boone
I only have an hour in between my workout and the film session that the hitting coaches want us to attend.
My entire schedule since moving to Austin has been busy as hell and completely out of whack. Between getting my class schedule figured out, sprinting across campus to get to the buildings, dealing with my moving company, figuring out where to park my car in front of my building, practicing with the Triple-A affiliate team I was drafted to and everything in between … I’m fucking wiped.
I’ve been scouted for the major leagues since my sophomore year of high school, so I thought I’d been semi-prepared for what was to come, but my mind feels like it has been put in a blender for the last two weeks. I had so not been prepared. It was as if I was hobbling around in the dark in my new reality, trying to grasp at things before they moved on me.
I needed to get it the fuck together. I am a professional now and having a career as a professional baseball player would only get harder from here.
From the few times I’d visited Austin for tournaments or the odd family trip, I remember we’d gone to Big Cheese’s Grill. They boasted the best burgers in town, and it was close enough to campus that the place was always packed with students and professors alike.
I open the door to the restaurant while glancing at my iWatch to check the calories versus fat burned during my workout.
And I slam right into a body.
I bounce back, shocked at the person who just rammed into me. I fumble to hold on to them, to keep our gravity from sending both of us flying. I fail, and the body falls backward, the door slamming into my back. I absorb that blow and keep upright, thank God, or I would have been sprawled flat on top of whoever just plowed into me.
“Seriously?! Watch where you’re going!” An angry, high-pitched tone fills my ears.
My head is down, trying to collect its scrambled thoughts, as I reach for whoever I just knocked to the ground. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize you were coming out—”
The air and words leave me as I pull her up. Her hand is still in mine as we stand face-to-face, my surprise mirrored back at me. Those lips, the lashes, the eyes a rich, deep, soul-searching brown. The freckles across the bridge of her nose that make her look more innocent than she actually is.
A current of tension radiates back and forth between our interlocked hands, and I can smell the glass of wine she must have just drunk on her breath. It’s sweet with a bite of alcohol, and my mouth waters for a drink. I haven’t thirsted for alcohol in five years, yet in one chance meeting, Annabelle has me reaching for a bottle. She’s poison to me, makes me want to do crazy things. I drop her hand as the thought crosses my mind, as if she’s burned me.
“You should really watch where you’re going. Or did you knock me down on purpose?” Annabelle sniffs.
I scoff, “Right, I often go around pushing women to the ground on purpose. I see the cold hard ice hasn’t melted off your personality, Annabelle.”
And a woman she is. So much more grown up than I remembered her. She’d always been beautiful but gone was the gangliness of teenage years. This is a woman who stands in front of me, curves abound and an unseen knowledge of the world to match. I couldn’t help but get that jab in there.
“And I see you’re just as focused on yourself as ever. You never did care what anyone else was doing, did you, Boone?” She folds her arms over her chest and my eyes stray to her boobs in a sizzle of heat between us.
We’re like a bunch of children fighting like cats and dogs out in the street. How can she still pull out every insecure and immature trait within me? My brain is moving seconds slower than it usually does, and I know I’m standing here staring too long. Even though I hate Annabelle Mills, I can’t help but memorize every detail about her for the first time I’ve seen her in about five years.
“Move.” Annabelle pushes past me, not using any manners, and starts to stalk down the sidewalk.
Talk about rude. She’d always been aggressive, harsh, and just a little bit more high-maintenance than any of the other girls. It’s what had drawn me to her. And then seeing those glimpses of vulnerability, that’s what had made me stay. It was addicting feeling like you were the only one who got to see the nice side of the mean girl.
I should walk into the restaurant. I should pick up my to-go order and drive back to my apartment where I’ll eat a quick lunch and change and go to the practice facility.
But a flash of Annabelle in the bar the other night dances through my head. And her callous words just now piss me off even more.
She always did have the perfect way of getting under my skin and driving me wild. When I’m around her, I forget who I am. I turn into some raging bull, with a fuse shorter than the bombs Itchy and Scratchy use on each other.
The stupidest thing I could do right now? Stomp after her, yelling, in the middle of a crowded downtown street.
So that’s exactly what I do.
“You really haven’t changed a bit!” Oh, fuck. What am I doing?
Annabelle rolls around, her eyes sparking with rage. “Nope, still the same c
old, heartless bitch you dumped.”
“Yeah, like I said, I can see that.” Lord, my mama would be so disappointed in me agreeing with a woman that she was a bitch.
“Well, no one said you had to be around it. You’re the one who moved to my city. You’re welcome to leave.” She waves around like I should just get out of here.
I fist my hands in my hair. Christ, she’s so aggravating. “No can do, I’m getting paid to be here.”
She rolls her eyes. “Like I’m not? Have you watched TV lately? Or did you take one too many fly balls to the head? I know there weren’t a lot of brain cells in there to start.”
Fuck her. Now it’s time to really piss her off, get under her skin like she’s under mine. “Oh, you mean that show you play house on or whatever? They’ll get bored of you when the next eye-candy pageant queen comes along.”
I swear Annabelle could spit nails at me if she willed it right now. “You’re an asshole, Boone Graham. You’ve only ever cared about yourself and where you want to be. It was silly of me to think you’d ever think of someone but yourself.”
I drop the anvil. “Says the girl who cheated on me. Who lost her virginity to another guy.”
People around us are starting to stare, to really look at the two people arguing openly on the street. It’s not a good idea for me to stick around any longer; people know who I am on a national level and being seen fighting with a girl, who someone will inevitably social media stalk and find out is my ex, is not good publicity.
Except I can’t stop staring into Annabelle’s eyes. They are furious, yes, but there is something more there. I’ve really … hurt her. I’m shocked, to be honest. I didn’t think I could remotely hurt this girl, who self-identifies as a cold, heartless bitch.
But there it is. The raw flash, miss-it-if-you-blink second of real pain that flickers through those mocha pools. I open my mouth to say something, to take it back, maybe apologize, but she speaks first.
“You have no idea.”
Her tone pulls at my heartstrings, it’s low and somber. And then she melts into the crowd, giving no explanation of what I have no idea about.
Seven
Annabelle
I remember that day on the front steps of the high school as if it just happened an hour ago.
My heart had been in my throat, ascending them that morning. I’d royally messed up the Saturday night before, and I knew that the rumor of Cain and I having sex was making its way around the student body.
Except, it wasn’t a rumor. It was true.
Boone had been away for a baseball tournament that weekend, and I hadn’t seen him since Friday when he’d kissed me goodbye in the exact same spot. I’d reveled in that kiss, his hand on the back of my neck, the passionate push of his tongue into my mouth. I’d beamed at the fact that a senior boy was kissing me, a sophomore girl, in front all the world to see. It felt exciting, I felt popular, but most of all … I just really loved kissing Boone.
But now, all I felt as I walked up to him on those steps Monday morning was sheer dread. Because after this conversation, he was not going to kiss me anymore. He wasn’t going to want anything to do with me.
He was going to hate me.
I remember him grabbing my elbow to pull me toward a quieter part of the stairs, but it didn’t matter. Everyone was watching us.
I remember how Boone was barely able to look at me. How he grunted out questions and made non-committal answers as I stared down at my shoes answering him, admitting to my mistake, as I tried not to cry.
I remember how, for the briefest of seconds, he looked like he might reach out and touch my cheek. How hope had sparked in my chest, like a small flame that grew higher as the moment stretched on, my teenage delusion leading me on.
And I remember the words that were seared into my memory when he spoke.
“You are a disgusting person. I want nothing to do with you. We are done.”
I was devastated. In myself. In him. In the whole situation.
That feeling, that raw ache, like the burn of acid reflux that never goes away, corrodes my chest even now. I sit in my car, trying to breathe in and out, after our confrontation on the street.
I wish that I’d just left with Thea. If I hadn’t stayed to use the bathroom, if I’d left the restaurant just three minutes earlier, I would have avoided running into Boone. I could have stayed blissfully ignorant about his presence in Austin.
But no, I’d run right into him. Literally, smack into that mass of muscles that had only gotten more manly and handsome since the last time I’d seen him. God, that body. Arms and legs like tree trunks, a torso molded of steel. That auburn hair, with a tinge of red, as if he was a Viking king.
It was the eyes, though. Always the eyes that got me. See, Boone was a quiet one. He was the type of guy who didn’t say much until you really got to know him. And so, his eyes said what his mouth didn’t.
Honey brown, almost caramel. They were seductive and piercing, with flecks of gold. God, I could get lost in those eyes. I used to get lost in those eyes.
Although, today, he’d seemed to have a lot to say. Clearly, he still hated me. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t expected that, but … God.
Boone was so angry. I could feel the rage boiling under his skin.
And I might have told him I was a heartless bitch, but that was obviously a lie. Or else I wouldn’t be crying in my car right now at his words that barbed my skin like the sharpest wire. He’d held up the mirror straight to my face and shown me just how ugly I was.
I haven’t had to deal much with what I did to him. In a matter of seconds, it had been over between us. Yes, I’d been upset and heartbroken, but I’d never had to unpack why I cheated or how it killed a small piece of my soul. And now, all these years later, all of that emotional baggage has been heaped upon me in the middle of downtown Austin.
He’d never understand why I had slept with Cain. He’d never seen me, he’d never expressed that I truly meant anything to him. I was fresh meat to whet his appetite, one who he could leave without a backward glance when he went off to college. Boone and I’s relationship had been spiraling by the time I’d gone into the woods with Cain at that bonfire party. Of course, alcohol was a big contributor to that night, but the same old insecurity that had always haunted me took hold as the night went on.
Boone went out of town for a tournament. He hadn’t texted or called me in approximately thirty-six hours, even though I’d been desperate and texted him three times in a row without a response. I was a girl who’d been left by the one person in my life who was supposed to love me unconditionally, so it wasn’t a mystery that I freaked out when I felt like someone was leaving me behind again. It didn’t help that in a matter of months, he actually would be leaving me behind. It also didn’t help that we’d been together for a few months and Boone had never once called me his girlfriend.
I didn’t matter to him. I was replaceable, easily forgettable.
So I did the most catastrophic thing I could to get attention. To hurt the way I was hurting. To make him angry enough to react.
That’s what I remembered most about our breakup on the school’s front steps.
He’d looked so angry, I could practically taste the fury coming off of him.
Eight
Boone
I wasn’t angry. I was hurt.
Devastated, actually.
Not only had she cheated on me, but she’d given her virginity to someone else. Not that we were anywhere near sex, we’d only be seeing each other for a couple of months, but it was the principle of it. To me, the fact that she was a virgin had been kind of sacred. Or as sacred as it could have been to a teenage boy.
I had already had sex, with two different girls. But I’d really liked Annabelle. I was half in love with her, again, in that teenage boy kind of way where love feels like it’s swallowing you whole.
That morning on the steps, I’d barely been able to speak for the fear of exploding on her. I wante
d to take my fist to Cain Kent’s face, I wanted to smash in Annabelle’s locker. I wanted to do anything to hurt her as badly as I was hurting at that moment.
I might not have shown it so much, I was quiet compared to my egotistical peers and so focused on baseball that maybe I let my feelings take a back seat … but I really liked Annabelle. It hadn’t just been the type of crush that a senior has on a younger girl simply because she was fresh meat. No, I’d genuinely liked her. We hung out alone together, I brought her to parties as my girl, we’d gone to homecoming together. She met my parents and I’d actually gone fishing with her dad one morning.
I probably should have moved quicker on the asking her to officially be my girlfriend front, but for all intents and purposes, we were already there.
And then she went and fucked it all up.
I remember getting the texts after I turned my phone back on. It died halfway through Saturday at the tournament and I’d forgotten a charger. Someone loaned me one on the bus on the way home, and my cell had lit up with dozens of messages.
A couple were from Annabelle, and they became angrier and more sloppy as I scrolled down. Shit, I was an idiot. I’d gone away and hadn’t once texted her. And now she was probably drunk, at the weekly bonfire. I texted her back before looking at any of the messages.
Boone: I’m sorry, babe. My phone died. I’m coming right to you the minute the bus gets back.
Which would probably be one a.m. Sunday morning, but I could always climb through her window. I’d done it before.
And then I opened the other messages.
You’re the One I Don’t Want Page 3
