Hating Him Wanting Him : A Contemporary Romance Collection

by Summer Brooks

  “Yeah, no kidding,” Marvin said, tilting his head and grinning at me. “You’re a man child, Howard.”

  “Shut up, dude,” I said, my hands resting on his shoulders as I began to forcefully massage him. “Give me a break. Things were way easier back then.”

  “Yeah?”

  “At this point, any memory of high school might make me happy. I’m sick of being unhappy all the damn time.”

  I could see Marvin was readying some jerk-off retort to give me a hard time.

  “Yo,” he said, taking his time, savoring every word. “You and Samantha were in high school together. That’s a high school memory you can have.”

  I made a face, sighing. “You’re a dick, dude. You know what? Whatever. She doesn’t count.”

  3

  Mia

  The car finally stopped at the building that would be my home for at least this school year, and potentially much longer than that. I finally turned around to see Samantha, sitting in the driver’s seat next to me.

  “Thanks, Sam,” I smiled.

  The airport pickup had been so rushed — Sam had picked me up with her friend Tiffany, but because I was just one of what felt like thousands of new students showing up to start their new lives, we couldn’t get parking. Which meant that I had to somehow navigate around the crazy mess that was Miami’s airport.

  They’d been waiting for me impatiently by the time I found myself at the exit gate at the domestic terminal, surrounded by plenty of other confused freshmen.

  “So! We’re here, babe,” Sam said, matching my big smile. Taking our seatbelts off at the same time, we both leaned over to hug.

  It felt good seeing her, even if Sam did look like she had changed. I couldn’t figure it out, there was just something different about her now.

  “Glad you took this flight, not the later one,” her husky-voiced friend said. Tiffany Jobson was a petite black girl, the kind of girl who probably side-eyed everything anyone ever said. Probably the best sort of girl to have around you on a night out. “Traffic gets so crazy, girl.”

  “Tell me about it,” Sam laughed.

  There was a pause where we didn’t say anything, didn’t do anything. I let it pass before I motioned to exit the car. “Lend a hand with my bags?”

  “Of course, babe,” my best friend — former best friend? — quickly exclaimed, practically jumping out and rushing to the backseat, where some of my bags that couldn’t fit in the trunk had to share space with Tiffany.

  “When did you get a car, anyway?” I asked. “It’s nice.”

  For a car, this was a pretty ordinary blue Mazda, nothing flashy, functional. The exact kind of car you might want to have. Sam had a car back home, but as far as I knew she hadn’t sold it.

  My twinsie winced, bracing herself for a bad reaction from me. “My boyfriend bought it for me.”

  “Your boyfriend… Bryant.”

  She let his name, which I said with so much disdain, hang in the air for a second.

  Meanwhile, Tiffany got the hint. She went for my bags, giving us space.

  “How is he, by the way?” I asked, trying to sound more civil. It didn’t really work. I didn’t have anything but negativity filled in my heart for the guy.

  “He’s… okay. I don’t know if you keep up with life here, but he’s finally starting to make it big with his whole sports thing. Tiff and I were at the last game, he started and did well.”

  Sam was watching me carefully. I kept a polite smile up, trying to compose my exact words.

  My hesitation was enough for her to sigh. “You know, I was sure you were going to be disappointed. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

  “Well, we haven’t really had a chance to talk about it, have we? It’s like you started freezing me out of your life after you made that big Insta announcement. Cute couple photo of you two.”

  Sam rolled her eyes. “Babe, do we have to do this here? Like, I’m seriously excited you’re finally here, I’d hate for us to have to fight on your first day at college.”

  “I’d hate that too,” I said coolly. “This isn’t going to be the last time we have this talk, though. Just warning you.”

  “I get it,” Sam conceded, looking sad that we were starting out like this. We moved away from the car, relieving Tiffany of some of the bags.

  “It’s chill,” Tiffany laughed. “I do a lot of weight training. Gotta build that strength, you know?”

  “Damn, is that what I’m going to have to do to be a popular girl now? Go to the gym five times a week as well?” I cracked a joke. I glanced over at Samantha, hoping she wouldn’t take that as an attack. I knew that she loved working out the way I loved books and studying.

  The dark look on my reunited best friend’s face told me everything I needed to know.

  I mouthed an apology. She relaxed a little.

  Then I winked at her. “Don’t forget your boyfriend’s an asshole.”

  “Hey…” Sam said, and I could tell from the years and years we had spent together that we were about to get into a real big fight.

  You know, the way best friends fought. The way two people who spent so much time together that they became sisters for life, did.

  Part of me wanted the fight. At least Bryant was good for that. When we were in school, I could channel all my stubbornness to standing up for myself against that jerk. In the year since Sam left, a lot of unresolved resentment in our friendship bubbled… and if we weren’t going to get that out of the way now, I worried that it was going to come up at some other bad time.

  Tiffany played mediator again. “Let’s all play nice for the rest of the day, okay? There’s a party tonight, everyone’s going to be there. Start things on the right foot.”

  “I can do that,” I exhaled, hoping to calm myself down.

  Sam led the way into the dorm building, a beautiful building with a fancy heritage facade that looked straight out of an ‘80s cop movie set in Miami Beach.

  “Whoa, pretty,” I said, looking around. I was expecting student housing to be more… functional.

  That was to say, barebones.

  But no, the Warren Building that would be my dorm looked like a seriously impressive place. The interiors were done up beautifully, showing a mix of modern and more classical design. It didn’t seem fancy or expensive, but coming from a city like Indianapolis where architecture was a lot more restrained, the Art Deco elements of my new home really impressed me.

  Sam and Tiffany helped me with the paperwork, sorting everything out. After all, being a year ahead of me meant that they knew the place far better than all the other confused freshmen here. I had hoped I could transfer my credits from community college, but that wasn’t a sure thing yet, and the best I might expect was that I could breeze through my first year with a good number of basic subjects taken care of.

  There was no point worrying about that at the moment.

  It did feel funny to see Sam as a big sister here, though. Everywhere we went around the dorm building made it clear just how popular she was. People would say hi and rush over to hug her, asking her about her last break.

  If I was a nerd in high school, Sam was just… someone ordinary. She was in with most of the cliques, had no scandals that left her bullied, got along well with everyone generally. She wasn’t popular, but I got the sense that she was, here.

  Especially with Tiffany around — I really felt like someone as chic as Tiffany Jobson wouldn’t just hang around anybody unless she thought they were cool.

  My dorm room was cozy. Good lighting, decent space… I was lucky enough that coming in as a scholarship holder, I was on the priority list for a single occupancy dorm, and when I got it, it meant that I had a smaller room overall but at least I didn’t have to share it with other people. I already had plans to make my room feel like a real home.

  “Leave all the unpacking for tomorrow,” Sam said, sitting on my bed. Tiffany had disappeared to get some clothes from her own place. “Tonight, you dress up
real pretty, we’re going to introduce you to everyone who matters, and this is going to be, like, your debut appearance to the student population of Florida University.”

  “I’m not going to be the only new student there, surely,” I pointed out.

  “Probably not, no, but still — you know someone, you’re not like one of those freshmen who show up and don’t know anyone, desperate for attention, you know?”

  “Okay, okay, help me pick out something cute?”

  We grinned at each other, knowing that this was a way we could bond all over again. This was special: we had done this a billion times before back home, getting ready for a party, picking out what to wear, prepared to take over the world together.

  We were sisters, after all, remember?

  I had to remind myself that. Sam was my best friend for a reason. Nobody knew me better than she did, nobody could get in sync with my head and heart the way Sam did.

  Regina was a great friend who had been there for me when I needed her the most, but we had never connected that way — it always felt like we were friends brought together by circumstance and convenience.

  Whereas for Samantha, everyone knew we were friends because we were meant to be friends. There was nobody who knew me better… and I hoped that even with the year that had passed, she felt that way about me, too.

  Maybe I could find it in me to forgive her for dating Bryant.

  Or at least I could just forget about it.

  An hour later, we finally picked out the right outfit. I was going to wear a shiny gold lamé blouse that I had once bought for a disco-themed Halloween party, pairing it with black leggings. Sam liked it. “I’ve got something that can match with this. If you wanna do that thing we used to do, that is…”

  “Twinning with you is mandatory,” I told her, reaching out to hug Sam now that my mood was better. “It’s unforgivable that you would consider not twinning with me.”

  “But I’ve got heels and you’re still sticking to sneakers. I’m going to be like four inches taller than you, babe,” Sam pointed out. “I’ve got to take you shopping or something. You look like you’ve worn these Converses to hell and back.”

  “Hey, they’re not dirty! They can just tell a good story,” I grinned. I glanced over at those white mid-top sneakers. Sam was right: they could use a seriously good scrub, but they were still the best pair of footwear I had for a party like this.

  My flats just didn’t match, and I had these wedges that I thought I liked and would elevate my height a couple of inches, but they were a little too summery for my liking.

  “I’ll wear the Converses,” I told Sam.

  “Fine, fine,” she said. “Hey — there are going to be a few drinks. Probably a lot of drinks. I’m not going to drive, if it’s all the same with you. Have enough cash to pitch in for a cab with me and Tiff?”

  As if on cue, Tiffany showed up, wearing a black cocktail dress that made her look stunning. Seriously. She looked like she was a full-time Instagram model.

  “Fine, that works for me,” I said, shrugging. I wasn’t sure if I was going to drink that much tonight, not necessarily feeling the need for alcohol here, but I appreciated that Sam had matured a little from her high school days when she would sneakily drink tons of beer and somehow still convince me she was okay to drive.

  I showered and got into my dress while Sam went to get dressed in her room. After my shower when I slipped my clothes on and looked in the mirror, I thought about whether I would go for the glasses.

  Yeah, I was going to keep them on. They were me, like it or not, and if I was going to bump into Bryant Howard, I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of thinking that I was trying to reinvent myself as someone other than a “nerd with glasses.”

  “Cab’s waiting!” Tiffany and Sam called out while I was still making faces in the mirror, deciding to wear glasses instead of contacts.

  “Okay! Coming!”

  It was a short drive. Less than fifteen minutes later, we arrived at the house.

  Bryant “Billionaire’s Son” Howard lived here alright. It was huge.

  4

  Bryant

  The night had barely begun when I started smelling weed everywhere in my damn house.

  I grinned, looking around. What was the point of having high ceilings and big, classy French windows if they couldn’t help ventilate your place when you had a big party?

  Marvin and Russel, another of our roommate-teammate hybrids, stood with me as people filed into the house. I had made it a point to make sure there was every brand of beer here except Ward, just to stick it to my dad. I held a Heineken while Marvin stuck to a flask he filled up with a genuinely disgusting smelling liquor.

  “What do you even have in there?” I groaned.

  “Like six different things. One of them is herbal or something. I’m not sure. Supposed to be a legal performance-enhancing thing. Since, you know, we have to stay away from the good stuff,” Marvin said. “Hey, isn’t that your girlfriend?”

  We were at the balcony of the upper floor, looking down to the atrium, or in less fancy terms, the huge living room where the main entrance was. There were already over a hundred people both inside and outside the house. Marvin would have had to have seriously sharp eyes to spot Samantha.

  After all, she was just one blonde among many, many, many sun-kissed blondes on this side of Florida. I remembered thinking how lucky I was to score someone as hot as her, the first time we hooked up shortly after getting to college.

  But now I just felt like in terms of hotness, she was pretty ordinary. Nothing too special. Any one of the girls here was at the same level as her.

  At least she was fit, though. I appreciated her physique, the avid gym-goer teasing me most mornings with the yoga pants that she would slip into after a wild night with me.

  I felt weird about her staying over, even months into our relationship. There was too much bro energy here in this place, and I didn’t like staying the night at her dorm. So mostly, we either just fucked all night or we’d chill out and after five minutes of silence one of us would offer to get the other a cab home.

  “Are we predicting another Mike Liotta scene tonight?” Marvin asked me as we both began to descend the stairs.

  I was still trying to spot Sam. I think I could see her in the far end of the atrium, getting handed beers from a couple of guys manning a keg. She had two friends with her. I knew Tiffany Jobson, of course, nobody could miss her ass and her afro.

  But the other girl… she wasn’t familiar.

  Cute gold top. Good legs. Kinda small, kinda nice shape to her. Looked like she was making an effort not to look so mousy.

  I was intrigued.

  I tried to investigate this stranger clinging to Sam, watching from afar and holding back at the foot of the stairs even as Marvin jumped from group to group, asking everyone if they were having a good time.

  Sam was an only child, as far as I knew. This girl looked so familiar to her she might as well be her sister — a younger sister. Sam looked taller, and she was dressed like a sluttier version of this mystery girl.

  But then I saw the glasses and it all made sense.

  I fucking laughed.

  “Mia Cowell.”

  Trying to remember my last encounter with her, I guessed it had to be that time at the mall when I was coming out of my favorite sporting goods store. I’d bought a new football that day. I was excited about all the future was going to bring.

  Mia was a real bitch to me that day. I remembered that much. We’d gotten into our usual verbal spats, fighting because we had so much sexual tension that we couldn’t fuck out of our system because that just wouldn’t work.

  I heard she was a virgin anyway. Not the promised-to-Jesus kind of virgin, but really icy, really hard to get ahold of virgin.

  “Can’t fucking believe that’s Mia Cowell,” I said, shaking my head.

  She hadn’t spotted me. I bet she’d freak. Oh, I couldn’t even remember wh
y she hated me so much. When I was a kid I knew she hated me, I just couldn’t figure out why, couldn’t really bring myself to care — I had plenty of friends, so if a snooty geek with her books and her fairy tales didn’t want to be my friend no matter how many times I tried to be nice, that was her problem, not mine.

  Fuck, how did she even end up in Florida? There was that fire that burned her house down. I felt bad when I first heard the news, a couple of hours after I stormed out the school when she ruined my day just as I was celebrating getting accepted to a school I worked my ass off to earn a spot at.

  But I didn’t feel bad about her house, or the fact that she wouldn’t be able to afford going to whichever university she was accepted to.

  I felt bad because I remembered smiling to myself and thinking this was some kind of karma.

  That her making snooty, bitchy remarks about me and my family meant she deserved having her house burn down at that moment.

  Fuck, even thinking about it now made me feel bad. I wanted to think that I was a better person now compared to back then.

  Awkwardness just jolted through me, so I looked out for Marvin, hoping to stick with him for now.

  This was going to be a challenge, because I knew Sam would be trying nonstop to find me. I hoped she’d get drunk enough to be able to take the bad news that was coming her way.

  I had decided to break up with her tonight.

  On the bright side, at least she had her so-called twin and best friend there with her to deal with the news when I dropped the bomb on her.

  And it was great that Mia was here. Sam could just hate me for a while, but then chill out and let Mia do all the heavy-duty hating for the rest of her school life.

  Kind of like in high school.

  “Yo,” I said as I rejoined Marvin. “Help me out, be a bro.”

  “You want me to shield you from a certain Samantha Rogers?”

  I patted my buddy on the shoulder, clasping the back of his neck like how we celebrated after a good play on field. “You know, for a defensive lineman, you’re not so dumb after all.”