by Katie Ashley
But like the ultimate asshole, I had gone and kissed her. Even as I drove farther away, I could still feel her lips against mine as the sweet smell of her perfume clung to my clothes.
I had kissed Avery, and she had kissed me back.
And I hadn’t wanted to stop.
AVERY
Usually whenever our closing manager Jason arrived at five, I hung around and gave him the rundown on how the day had gone. That day I merely threw up my hand in greeting as I breezed past him on the way out the door. There was no way in hell I could stay one minute more at The Ark. I had to get away from there.
More specifically, I had to get away from Cade.
The stifling summer heat smacked me in the face as I made my way to my car. In the four years since I had last seen Cade, I had traded in my grandfather’s old pickup for a more reliable Honda Civic. As I unlocked the door and slid inside, I couldn’t help grunting in frustration that I was once again thinking of Mr. Asshole.
After showing Cade around, I deserved an Academy Award for the performance I had pulled off. For the remainder of the day, I had somehow managed to keep a smile plastered to my face. Inwardly, I was crumbling, but no one would have thought a thing was wrong. I didn’t want to take out my shit on the kids; it wasn’t their fault that the guy who’d shattered my teenage heart had shown up.
My reserve momentarily faltered when Tamar dragged me into her office after I finished Cade’s tour. “Okay, girl, dish it. How do you know Cade Hall?”
Groaning, I put my head in my hands. “It’s bad, T.”
“I can tell that. I just need to know how bad.”
I drew in a deep breath before giving Tamar the quick lowdown on Cade’s and my relationship. When I finished, she let out a low whistle. “Oh honey, I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks.”
“Look, I can totally call the dean back and ask for Cade to be sent somewhere else.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“And you don’t have to force yourself to be part of a hostile work environment.” Tamar placed a hand on my shoulder. “The last thing I want is having you feeling miserable here.”
I shook my head in firm resolve. “But the last thing I want is to give Cade the satisfaction of thinking that after four years, he still holds any power over me or my happiness.”
Tamar sighed. “If you’re sure.”
“I am.” That’s right, I am sure. I mean, I have to be sure. I want to be sure…
She cupped my chin. “You are one amazing woman Avery Prescott.”
“While I appreciate the compliments, you might want to hold them back.”
“What do you mean?”
I grinned slyly at her. “I was thinking that one way to make things easier for me would be to make Cade’s life here at the center a living hell.”
She laughed. “Honey, he deserves every bit of it.”
So, with Tamar’s blessing, I had come up with a quick list of hellish tasks for Cade to complete. I have to give him credit for not vocally bitching about anything. I was sure inwardly he was cussing me out., and while it was a slight victory to punish Cade, it certainly did nothing to quell the emotions raging within me. There was too much history, too much pain, and so much unresolved between us to simply forget and go on.
Before I could make the turn that would lead me to my apartment, I veered off onto the I-75 North interstate ramp. It didn’t matter that it was almost an hour and a half to get home—I just knew I had to go there. I had to see my mom.
As I drove along the long stretch of highway dotted with trees and rolling green grass, I thought about the happy times I’d shared with Cade. When the memories of that first deep love swept over me, I couldn’t fight the tears. The emotional dam that had been holding back my emotions imploded. I began crying around Cartersville, and I didn’t stop until I rolled into downtown Rome.
Instead of pulling around back to the employee entrance, I wheeled into an empty spot at the front of Rose’s Garden. When I threw a quick glance at myself in the rearview mirror, I grimaced; my cheeks were stained black from my mascara. I was suddenly grateful for being OCD and carrying wet wipes in my console. I did a quick cleanup of my face before grabbing my purse and heading out of the car.
The bell tinkled over my head as I entered the store. I had forgotten that during the busy summer months, Mom had a guitar player singing. Because the guy happened to be hot, he had a gaggle of female admirers littering the café side of the store. So much for being alone with my mom.
She had just finished up an order when she glanced up. “Be right—” She froze on her usual greeting and her brows instantly creased in worry. “Avery? What are you doing here?”
I forced a smile to my lips while I walked up to the register. “Can’t a girl just come home to see her mother?”
Mom shook her head. “Not without calling and not on a Monday night.”
With my back to the crowd, my resolve started to wane. “Oh Mama,” I murmured as my lip quivered.
Mom held up one finger before calling out, “Emily?”
My sixteen-year-old cousin came bounding out of the back. “Yeah, Aunt Rose?”
“I need you to man the counter.”
Emily’s brown eyes widened. “But I’m just training. I can’t make a panini without burning it,” she protested fearfully.
Mom placed both her palms on Emily’s shoulders. “I know that you can do this, and if shit gets crazy, come get me. Okay?”
“Uh, okay.”
I walked down the length of the counter as Mom did on the other side. When she came out on the end, she threw an arm around my shoulder and drew me close to her. We barely made it down the narrow hallway to her office. Once we got inside, Mom closed the door.
“Are you sick?” she asked.
“No,” I murmured as I sank down onto the couch.
She paced in front of me. “Are you pregnant?”
My eyes bulged. “Of course not. You know Hal and I broke up onths ago.”
“Just because you’re not in a committed relationship doesn’t mean you can’t get pregnant.” She gave a rueful smile. “I should be the best example of that one.”
“Okay, let me rephrase: I’m not pregnant because I’m not having sex—period.”
Mom exhaled a relieved breath as she sat down beside me. “If you’re not sick and not pregnant, what’s going on?”
My chin trembled as I fought to not cry again. “The universe hates me…”
I then proceeded to tell Mom all about Cade showing up at The Ark. When I finished, she sat so dumbfounded before me that she couldn’t speak. She blinked a few times.
“Well?” I prompted.
“The universe does hate you,” she finally said.
Picking up one of the throw pillows, I then whacked her with it. “I just drove an hour and a half for words of wisdom, and you give me that bullshit?” I teased.
Mom smiled. “You’re going to have to give me a minute. Honestly, I think I would know more of what to say if you were pregnant.”
“I don’t think I know how to respond to that.”
“Now you feel my pain.”
I groaned as I put my head in my hands. “I just can’t believe it. I mean, all day I just kept pinching myself in the hopes I would wake up and find it had all been some horrible nightmare.”
“Can’t you have him sent somewhere else? There has to be another volunteer opportunity in the city.”
“Tamar offered, but I said no.”
Mom jerked my hands away from my face. “What do you mean you said no?”
“I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking he still got to me.”
“Sweetheart, he does still get to you. If he didn’t, you wouldn’t have come home on a Monday night.”
“I’m well aware of what he does to me, but he doesn’t have to know that.”
Mom’s brows furrowed. “It isn’t too late to have him transferred, is it?”
“Why?”
“Because I think it would be for the best.”
“Nice vote of confidence there.”
With a shake of her head, Mom said, “You just lost it over one day with him, Aves. What’s going to happen when you have to see him day in and day out?”
“This is just a momentary flake out after seeing him. I’m sure it will lessen the more I’m around him.”
Mom sighed. “I don’t like you being around him. I don’t want a resurrection of what happened four years ago.”
I knew Mom was referring to what happened after my run-in with Cade and Elspeth’s assault. With only three weeks remaining until winter break, I hadn’t returned to school. Thankfully, Mom didn’t push me to go back. Instead, she allowed me to finish up my senior year at home.
Since I started at Emory in January, I didn’t have to see Cade again…until graduation. As salutatorian, I had to be at the ceremony—I even had to speak. Although almost six months had passed since I had seen Cade, I was still just as much in love with him. I was also just as devastated and wounded by how I’d been treated. Time heals all wounds, but some are so deep it would almost take an eternity to truly repair them.
The first day I saw him at graduation practice, I had to bolt away to find a bathroom so I could throw up. By the time the actual ceremony rolled around, my family doctor had prescribed me some anti-anxiety medication. Once I got through graduation, I never had to take it again, mainly because I didn’t have to see Cade again.
“Man, I was a wreck,” I murmured.
“Do you know how hard it was for me to see you like that? To see my perfect, poised daughter broken like that?” Tears glimmered in Mom’s eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
She wagged a finger at me. “You have nothing to apologize for. It’s all that prick’s fault.”
“True.”
“You should have let me castrate him when I had the chance.”
“While I appreciate your thinking, whether or not he had a penis has nothing to do with him showing up at The Ark.”
“I think the odds of an egomaniac like Cade going streaking with no dick would have been a lot slimmer. Therefore, he wouldn’t have been sentenced to charity work at The Ark.”
I laughed. I could always count on my mom to not only be there for me, but to make me feel better. That day, more than anything, I needed her comfort, but I also needed her to make things lighter and make me laugh.
Mom grinned and patted my leg. “Why don’t you stay the night? We can pig out and stay up late watching movies. A total girls’ night in.”
I could’ve argued that making the drive back in the morning would be hell with traffic, or that I had a million things to do at my apartment, but I didn’t. I knew more than anything I needed to be with Mom right then. “That sounds amazing.”
“Great.” She rose off the couch. “I better get back to the front before Emily burns the place down.”
“Okay.”
“Will you be all right?”
“I’ll be fine. In fact, I’ll wash my face and come out and help you.”
“Great. Closing up will go so much faster, and then we can get home.” She started for the door, but then stopped. Whirling around, she asked, “You know what movie I’d love to see and haven’t watched in forever?”
“What?”
“Sixteen Candles. Gah, Jake Ryan still makes my panties wet.”
Instead of groaning about her grossing me out, I stood frozen at the mention of the movie. There was no way Mom could have known the connection I had between Sixteen Candles and Cade, or what had happened the night we’d watched the movie right there in the store.
CADE
“Mmm, I want to suck you off so bad.”
I cut my eyes over to Elspeth. While she looked like she had stepped off the cover of Cosmo in her designer dress, she sounded like a bimbo out of a cheesy porno. It seemed really out of place standing under the white Christmas lights that were supposed to transform Harlington’s cafeteria into a winter wonderland. I’m not sure why she was suddenly so horny considering the other decorations of snowmen and frosted trees didn’t exactly scream fuck me now.
When I didn’t respond, she ran her hand down the front of my jacket, letting it rest at the top of my fly. “You look so hot in your tux, Cade. I can’t wait to get you out of it.”
I clenched my jaw and tried to fight the irritation I felt at her comments. Normally, I would have been rock hard at Elspeth’s dirty talk—after all, I was an eighteen-year-old dude with a dick so just the wind blowing could get me hard—but that night, it got under my skin, and not in a good way.
Fuck. Nothing about the night felt right. If I manned up and faced the music, I knew nothing had felt right since I’d kissed Avery on Thanksgiving night. I couldn’t do anything but think about her—her lips, her eyes, her body. The more I thought of Avery, the more frustrated I got, and not just in a sexual way.
It all came down to the fact that I didn’t do feelings with girls, least of all relationships. When you got your ass tangled up in a relationship, it meant it was more than just the physical. It meant you had found a deep, emotional connection with someone, that you were willing to give over not only your heart, but your dick as well. Relationships meant monogamy, a term I understood but had yet to practice.
Of course, Elspeth knew the score. She wasn’t the only girl I fucked. Why should she expect to be? All the girls at Harlington made it clear they wanted me. I sure as hell didn’t need a relationship to get laid, so what would be the point?
Avery was one hundred percent a relationship kind of girl—the long term—and there was no way I could give her what she needed...what she deserved.
Because of that fact, I’d been avoiding her the past few days. I’d even lowered myself to skipping English a few times. I’d somehow managed to convince the nurse I had a stomach virus, and she’d written me a note. Since I felt nauseous any time I thought of Avery, it wasn’t stretching the truth too much.
The blaring song the band was playing screeched to a halt. My best friend, Renly, strolled up to us. He swept his sweat-soaked hair out of his eyes. “You guys ready to blow this joint and then get blown?”
His flavor of the week, Emily, threw his arm off her shoulder. “Ew, Renly. Why do you have to be so crude?”
The crew usually spent an hour or two at the Harlington functions and then went back to someone’s house or hotel room to party. “Where are we going?” I asked.
“My house,” Gemma Worthington piped up. I didn’t bother asking if her parents were home—they usually flew their private plane to South Carolina to stay at their beach house on Hilton Head.
“Gotcha.”
Elspeth pressed herself against me. “You coming with us in the limo?”
The thought of being trapped in a confined space with Elspeth wasn’t appealing at all. “Uh, no. I better drive myself.”
Her lips turned down in a pout. “But I wanted to snuggle on the way.”
“Sorry. You’ll just have to go without me.”
“You’re such a party pooper tonight, Cade,” she whined.
Renly grinned. “It’s just because he’s sober. Wait’ll we get a little booze in him. He’ll be his old self then.”
That misguided hope perked Elspeth right up. “Then I’ll see you there.” As she leaned in for a kiss, she threw one hand around my neck and the other went to squeeze my junk.
Once again, it didn’t rise to the occasion, which kinda worried me. Maybe instead of going to the party, I needed to go back to my dorm and watch some porn, you know, to make sure the equipment was still working and this was just a fluke thing.
Then an image of water cascading over Avery’s curves entered my mind and caused my dick to jump. Elspeth jerked back and flashed me a triumphant look like she was the Dick Whisperer or something. “I’ll take care of that when we get to the party.”
“Whatever,” I muttered.
She gave me one last smacking kiss on the lips before pulling away. Her fellow mean girls crowded around her, and they walked away, giggling like loons. I followed behind the others as they made their way out the side door of the cafeteria to the parking lot. “See you in a few, Hall,” Renly said before he ducked inside the waiting stretch limo.
“Yeah. See ya.” When I arrived at my convertible, I took my tux jacket off before getting inside. By the time I cranked the car up, the limo’s lights were fading in the distance.
Before I knew it, I was cruising down Main Street and almost past Rose’s Garden. Just the sight of the storefront caused an ache to burn through my chest. Wanting to get away from it and the feeling, I gunned the engine.
I couldn’t stop myself from throwing a quick glance in the rearview mirror. As I found myself driving farther away from Rose Garden and from Avery, my chest clenched again. It was starting to become unbearably tight, so much so that I debated loosening my tie and unbuttoning my shirt to see if it would lessen the pressure.
Deep down, I knew from my psychology class that the pain was psychosomatic. Nothing but seeing Avery was going to make it better. I had to stop running from her. I knew she had to be clueless as hell about what was going on between us. I’d kissed her and bailed. She wasn’t the kind of girl to text or call; she fully expected me to make the move, and I was failing miserably.
After surveying the nonexistent traffic in my rearview mirror, I cut the steering wheel hard. The tires screeched as I made a U-turn in the middle of the abandoned two-way street.
Almost on autopilot, I eased my car into one of the parking spaces in front of the store. Peering through the windshield, I searched for any sight of Avery. For all I knew, she wasn’t working that night. The last thing I needed was to run into Mae again—my ass wasn’t safe around her.
Then I caught a glimpse of Avery. I felt like the biggest pussy when my heart thundered in my chest. As I watched her wipe the counter, I gripped the steering wheel tighter. Considering the weird way I was feeling, there was no way in hell I should be around her. It was inevitable I was going to say or do something I would regret.
