“Is this your car?” I asked, I couldn’t hold the question in any longer.
“Yeah. I know it’s not that flashy or fancy, but it’s good for the environment. I want to do my bit, you know? My lifestyle isn’t exactly carbon emission friendly.”
“It’s fancier than my car.” And that wasn’t a lie. My normal ride was a rust bucket with windows that didn’t wind down, which was only a problem in the summer heat. Which was kind of ironic considering it took me a whole summer of flipping burgers to afford it.
As Cole concentrated on making his way through the traffic, I decided to try my luck. “So, where are we going? You haven’t told me anything about this weekend.”
He shot me a smile, the kind that showed all his bright white teeth. “We’re going home.”
Chapter Two
Out of everything I knew about Cole Newton, gleaned from Google and all the magazines ever printed, I imagined he would live in a mansion. I mean, Two Dimension were named as the highest paid entertainers under the age of twenty-five last year. It wasn’t odd to expect some glitz and glamour on the home front.
His house though, was completely the opposite. We had pulled up in the driveway of an average suburban house, it even had a white picket fence. There was no heavy security gate, no gold encrusted pool, and no sweeping staircase with a sparkling chandelier. It made me feel a lot better about my own little house.
“This is where you live?” I was having a hard time censoring my questions, obviously. We stepped over the threshold and entered the living room.
“Yeah, practically my whole life. Wilson!” He started calling out. Wilson was his older brother, his legal guardian ever since their parents died in a car accident a few years ago. It wasn’t something we’d discussed in depth, I knew most of it from the tabloids. So, in other words, I pretended I didn’t know.
An older, more rugged version of Cole wandered into the living room. His face lit up at seeing his brother, he had the same smile too.
Cole and Wilson embraced, patting each other in a manly hug before remembering me. “Wils, this is Melrose.”
Wilson rushed over and gave me a hug, pulling me off the ground with his considerable height. “Welcome, Melrose, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Cole has told me all about you.”
“Good things, I hope,” I said shyly. It felt like I was imposing on a family reunion. I didn’t want to take any time away from the brothers.
“Only the best,” Wilson replied, tapping me on the shoulder. “I’m just happy this idiot finally has someone to keep him out of trouble. I know what a handful he can be.”
“Keep me out of trouble?” Cole said incredulously. “Melrose is nothing but trouble. She’s a bad influence on me.”
My mouth dropped open until I realized he was only joking. I swatted at Cole’s arm in retaliation. “Don’t tell lies about me, Wilson will believe you.”
“Nah, I don’t believe a word he says,” Wilson said jovially before turning serious. “Melrose, I’ve made you up a bed in the spare room. It has its own bathroom so you don’t have to share with us guys. Cole will show you where it is.”
I thanked him as we headed upstairs. Cole insisted on carrying my overnight bag for me, giving me the full gentleman treatment.
The room was frilly and pink, again not what I expected from two guys living together. I guessed they probably hadn’t redecorated since their parents lived there. I could understand not wanting to change something. My dad still hadn’t changed his bedroom since my mom walked out and left us. Every time I suggested he buy a new bedspread he made up excuses about why he shouldn’t.
“Are you tired? Do you want to be left alone or anything?” Cole asked as he leaned against the doorframe. It was just past eleven o’clock but I didn’t feel at all sleepy.
“What did you have in mind?” I asked cheekily.
“Follow me.” He took me across the hall and into another room. Judging from the blue walls and musical instruments, I think it was safe enough to guess it was his bedroom.
He didn’t stop once in the room, crossing the floor to reach the window. Propping the sash up, he climbed through. I hurried over to see where he went, expecting to see him sprawled out motionless on the ground below.
Thankfully, Cole was sitting on the roof. He held his hand out for me. “Come on out, it’s not slippery. I spent half my childhood out here.”
I tried to step out as elegantly as possible but failed miserably when I half-fell onto the roof. I gripped Cole’s hand, not from necessity but from fear. It was a long way down and I didn’t think it would be much fun to fall.
We settled on the roof next to the wall so we had something to lean on. Cole looked comfortable, I didn’t doubt his story about spending a lot of time out there.
I looked up, mainly because it was better than looking down. The sky was so clear I could count the stars if I had forever. They went on for eternity, twinkling and shining like the beautiful lights they were.
“Everything is so still here,” Cole started. “That’s why I love it so much. I feel insignificant in the universe, just a tiny speck in the galaxy.”
“I think that’s all we are in the grand scheme of things.”
“Except to each other. To our loved ones we’re the planets.” I liked the thought of that. There were only a limited number of planets and they couldn’t be replaced. Each one was unique and different, just like people.
“That means some of our loved ones are the suns we rotate around.”
Cole smiled. “Some are.”
His arm snaked around my back, his hand leaning on the roof just to the side of me. If I leaned back, I would get a cuddle but I didn’t dare to. I didn’t want to spoil the moment and have Cole remove his arm. I leaned forward instead, cradling my knees to my chest.
“Have you always lived here?” I asked, breaking the reverent silence.
“Ever since I can remember. I guess that means always. Have you always lived in Meadowbrook?”
I nodded in the darkness. “Always. We can’t move now in case my mother comes back. She won’t know where we are otherwise.”
“You really miss her, don’t you?”
My mother wasn’t a topic I normally spoke about but Cole was such a good listener. He created a safe space for me, one I was never ashamed to share things in. “I think about her every day. I wonder what she’s doing, whether she’s thinking about us. I know it’s stupid.”
“It’s not stupid.”
“She probably doesn’t think about me at all. Otherwise she would have come home.”
Cole shifted, his hand gently rubbing my back. The warmth from his fingertips spread over me like fire. “She probably thinks about you all the time. She’ll come back after she sorts herself out.”
“I’m not holding my breath.”
“People surprise you when you don’t expect it.”
I turned around so I could see the sparkle of Cole’s eyes in the dark night air. They shined from the moon’s beam reflecting off them. If I didn’t change the subject, I was going to cry and I didn’t want to do that in front of him. I took a few deep breaths and blinked away the tears.
“You surprised me when you invited me here,” I said light heartedly.
“I really wanted to see you again. I can’t stop thinking about you. You’re like a cold, I just can’t seem to get rid of you.”
“Wow, being compared to a viral infection. You do know how to make a girl feel good,” I teased. I knew what he meant, but it wasn’t exactly love song worthy.
He stopped rubbing my back to pull me closer. We were in the kissing zone. My stomach fluttered with the thought. Would tonight be the night when I got my first kiss? I hoped so, but was terrified at the same time. He might pretend to be a normal guy but he was still Cole Newton. He had probably kissed hundreds of girls.
“Sorry, that sounded better in my head.” He laughed, his white teeth lit up in the shadows. “You are definitely way better than a
viral infection.”
“I should hope so.” I laughed too, I couldn’t help it. Cole’s hearty giggle was contagious – just like a viral infection.
We remained on the roof for another two hours until Wilson decided we were keeping him awake and insisted we go to bed. Cole made sure I was comfortable in the pink room before returning to his blue one.
As I stared up at the ceiling and willed myself to go to sleep, I wondered how on earth I had got there. I was just Melrose Morgan, a girl from a small town that worked at a burger joint. I shouldn’t be feeling that way about a superstar and he definitely shouldn’t be feeling that way about me. Perhaps in the morning I would wake up and find out it was all a dream.
Chapter Three
My normal Saturday mornings consisted of cleaning the house, making sure Jemma got to her ballet class, and then putting up with Creepy Pete at Burger Nation until about six in the evening. Then I would go home, do my homework, and collapse on the lounge with a packet of chips.
However, this Saturday was entirely different. Cole Newton held my hand as I followed him for a tour around his hometown. So far, we had visited his favorite coffee shop, the general store where he used to work, and the community hall where he won his first talent show award for singing. It definitely wasn’t a normal Saturday.
We made it to the bakery where Cole insisted they made the world’s best sticky buns. “Maggie, this is Melrose. I’ve been showing her around town.”
Maggie, all two hundred pounds of her, jiggled when she talked. “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you Miss Melrose. What brings you to town?”
“Cole invited me for a visit,” I said shyly.
She turned her attention to Cole. “She must be a special one, you haven’t brought a girl here for a sticky bun since Sarah Smithson.”
“Sarah was my sixth grade crush,” he explained to me before returning back to Maggie. “And thank you for bringing up that painful memory. I still haven’t got over her dumping me for the quarterback.”
Maggie shrugged happily. “Go write a song about it, you’ll make it a smash hit and then it won’t feel so bad anymore. I saw Sarah the other day, by the way. She was going to your concert.”
“I didn’t see her there,” Cole replied. How he would be able to see any one person in a crowd of thousands was beyond me. It wasn’t like this Sarah girl would be wearing a sign saying I’m your sixth grade crush or anything.
“Well, it sounds like you’re over her now,” Maggie continued, handing over a brown paper bag of buns. “Miss Melrose seems like a little peach. Enjoy the buns.”
We both thanked her and took one of the empty tables outside. Even though it was eleven o’clock, the street was almost deserted. Even Meadowbrook had more going on and that was saying something.
“I think this town is smaller than my hometown,” I remarked.
“There are about two hundred people that live here.” Cole laughed at my incredulous look. Two hundred people? There were more than that in my school. “It’s a small but tight community. Everyone knows each other so we all look out for one another.”
“So how did you end up in Two Dimension?” I knew the official story, that they were put together by some record producer, but I knew the tabloids sometimes got it wrong. I had learnt that lesson time and again after knowing Cole for the past three weeks.
“They were holding auditions for a new boy band over in Philly. I saw the ad online and decided to try out.” He made it sound so simple, like everyone’s dreams of being a superstar came true just by seeing a notice online.
“And that’s how everyone got in the band?”
“Everyone except Luke, he was already hired. They liked him so much they decided to build the band around him. But don’t tell him you know that, he already has a big head about it.” His eyes shone from mischief. Boys and their teasing, it had to be how they showed each other affection. Girls hugged, boys teased.
“My lips are sealed,” I promised. “This sticky bun is awesome, you weren’t lying about it.”
“I know, right? The best in the world.”
Maggie sure knew how to make a bun. When I finished, I was sad that it was over. Hopefully Cole would insist we get some for the road tomorrow.
“There’s one more place I want to show you before you get completely bored and refuse to see anything else,” Cole said, standing. “Coming?”
I put my hand in his, as if I’d want to do anything else. So far we had walked all around town, it was too small to need a car. This trip was no exception. We had only walked two blocks before Cole stopped and pointed to a school so small it looked like only one of the classrooms at my school.
“That’s your old school?” I asked.
He smiled proudly. “Sure is. This is where my career really started.”
We went through the broken gate, security obviously wasn’t a priority on the grounds. I doubt they had metal detectors like our school did either. The thought of students hurting each other was probably a foreign concept in such a tiny town.
At least I could finally figure out why Cole was so grounded. There was something about small towns that refused to let your head inflate. I thought Meadowbrook was bad, but I got the feeling Stonewall was worse. Maggie for one would probably slap an ego out of somebody in an instant.
“How many people go to this school?” I asked as we circled the building. It looked to have about four rooms in total. One per grade, I guessed.
“About fifty. There are a few smaller communities around the place that send their kids here.”
“Smaller than Stonewall?”
“A little,” Cole replied. He peeked in through the windows, a sense of nostalgia washing over him. He probably had so many memories of the place. I wondered what kind of a student he was? He was always so polite, surely he had to be one of the good ones.
“Do you miss coming here?” I asked, sensing I already knew the answer. As much as people couldn’t wait to leave school, there was still something safe and familiar about attending every day.
Cole pursed his lips together in thought before finally scrunching up his nose. “Yeah, I kind of do. Does that make me a nerd?”
“I think you can pull off nerdy.”
He slid his arm around me and pulled me closer for a moment, kissing my forehead. I could still feel his lips on my skin even after he removed them. “What if I said I liked coming back here because it reminds me of where I came from? Could I get away from the nerd tag then?”
“Definitely. This entire town must hold lots of memories for you, especially about your parents.”
Cole immediately tensed and let me go. I instantly wanted to recall my words. He hadn’t talked about his parents with me yet, it was so stupid of me to be the first one to bring it up. Stupid, Melrose, stupid. I pressed my lips together before I could say something worse.
“I made peace with my parents’ death a while ago. I can remember them now without being sad about things,” he said quietly.
“I’m sorry I brought it up.”
He forced a smile to his lips. “Don’t be. They are a part of who I am. I wouldn’t want to ever forget them. I like the way this place reminds me of things they did or said. It’s like a life-sized photo album.”
Cole handled talk of his parents with such grace that I was in awe of him. My mother had only walked out on us and I went to pieces every time I thought about her. She hadn’t died. How he could be so mature about it was beyond me.
“You’re-” I didn’t get a chance to finish my sentence as we were suddenly surrounded by photographers. One quick glance told me there were about five of them – all men and all pointing their cameras directly at us.
“Melrose, run,” Cole urged. He gave me a push in the direction of the bakery. I started running as directed, desperate to get away from the paparazzi.
I turned back, expecting him to be right behind me but he wasn’t. I slowed down, he was still with the photographers. Judging by the loo
k on his face, he wasn’t happy to have their company.
I waited at the corner, peeking around the old wooden building. Cole took one of the guy’s cameras, or more liked snatched it. The photographer tried to get it back but he continued to dodge his grasp. He didn’t relent until he had done something to the camera, then he handed it back.
Their voices started to rise, the noise floating down to me on the wind. All the words were angry, some I wouldn’t want to repeat. Cole was locked in a battle with the paparazzi, even if it was just a war of words.
Eventually, Cole gave up and stormed off in my direction. I snapped back around the side of the building so he didn’t see me watching him. I waited there patiently, my heart racing with the confrontation. I didn’t like arguments, in any way, shape or form.
“Sorry about that,” he said when he found me.
I shrugged. “It wasn’t your fault. They follow you everywhere, right?”
“Yeah, normally I would just walk away but I couldn’t have them taking photos of you. I had to make sure they’d deleted every one of them,” he explained. He said a few more things but I wasn’t listening anymore. All I could think of was that Cole was so embarrassed about me, he couldn’t even stand being in the same photograph as me.
Chapter Four
I started walking. I didn’t care where I was going but I doubted I could feel worse than I did right then. Cole was ashamed of me. He was so embarrassed to be seen with me he had to make sure all photographic evidence was deleted.
I guessed I should have listened to all those doubts in my head when they told me he was too good for me. Cole Newton was an international superstar. I was me. It was so foolish to think he cared for me.
“Where are you going?” Cole asked as he caught up to me, keeping pace at my side. I ignored him, I didn’t have anything to say to him at that moment.
As I walked, my disappointment soon turned into anger. I was good enough for him to talk to in private, share his secrets with me, make me fall for him, introduce me to his friends and family, but not good enough to be seen with? It was okay that I was around, so long as nobody else saw me?
The Star Kissed Collection Page 6
