I give an understanding nod of agreement. The Scott I know, the one I love, is not the guy he just told me about. And if he’d told me the truth from the start, there probably wouldn’t have been a year to lose and I’d have missed having him in my life. Missed the experience of loving him and being loved by him. So I guess in a roundabout way, things had actually worked out for us.
“So am I going to lose you?” His voice is strained and hoarse as if he’s struggling to hold it together. As if he’s waiting on pins and needles and truly doesn’t know where he stands with me. And in that moment, if I’d ever doubted his feelings for me, I don’t now—will never doubt it again.
Placing the laptop on the coffee table, I rise to my feet and move to stand between his spread thighs. “You never really lost me.”
A smile of happiness and relief lights his beautiful green eyes as he pulls me down onto his lap. “Thank God,” he murmurs against my lips before he kisses me.
EPILOGUE
REBECCA
“So how did it go?” Scott asks as I approach his car. He managed to get the same parking spot as he had when he dropped me off at the mall two hours ago.
“What do you think?” There’s no way he can miss my ear-to-ear grin. “If you can believe it, I think they were more excited about the meeting than I was.” Which, I honestly didn’t think possible. Although I’m pretty sure I was way more nervous.
“Oh I can believe it alright,” he says before pulling me into his arms for a kiss. What I think is going to be a brief kiss becomes long and involved, slick tongues tangling in wet demand. The kiss is entirely inappropriate for the viewing public.
Which is how I’m finally able to work up the will to end it, pressing firmly against his broad shoulders to separate us. “Scott, we can’t. Not here.” I glance around to see if anyone is watching. No one appears to be. But still…
Scott groans in protest but flashes me an unrepentant grin before reluctantly releasing me. I stand back as he opens the passenger door. He eyes me hungrily as I get in and buckle up so I know I won’t be getting a lot of sleep tonight. I don’t mind.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving with my mom, so we get to sleep in. On Friday we’re driving down to his home for a couple days, where I’ll finally meet his dad, who I recently learned is his mother’s chief of staff. Talk about keeping it all in the family.
I smile and let out a sigh of complete and utter contentment. The past month has been great. When we’d originally gotten back together, I’d wanted us to get back to what we’d had, not realizing how much better it could be. Well now I know and I wouldn’t trade what we have now for the world. It’s that good. Now we talk about everything. I’m secure enough in his love to know he will fight for me—fight for us—but it’s not something I’m constantly expecting or demanding of him.
My problem was I’d always been looking for Scott to prove his feelings for me regardless of all the obstacles I placed in his path. The no-sex thing had just been the latest in, what I’d come to see, a line of them. The other thing I learned is that I can’t expect him to know what I’m thinking, especially if I’m saying the opposite of how I feel. He’s not a mind reader. He wasn’t the only one in our relationship not being completely honest.
What’s incredible is how open Scott is now that he’s not operating under the fear of losing me. He can now reveal parts of himself I’d never seen. The guy who grouses about his parents’ too-high-profile careers and the strain it puts on their family. But at the same time, he’ll brag about an important bill his mother wrote or sponsored. He talks about high school and all the bad stuff. These are the things he would never have shared with me before. I love that he feels he can safely share it with me now.
I watch him circle the rear of the car and climb in. Dressed in a pair of dark-blue jeans, a black turtle neck and a light fleece jacket perfect for autumn in this part of Nevada, Scott looks good. As in smokin’ hot.
Instead of starting the car, he angles his body toward me, grabbing my left hand in his. I weave our fingers together.
“So what are they like?” he asks softly.
I give his hand a loving squeeze. This is one of the many reasons I love this man. I launch into the details of the last two hours. I tell him how much Amy looks like me, same blue eyes and long dark hair and how Susan is the shy one of the three. He listens as I tell him about how Brandon wants to be a professional hockey player and plays in the Pee Wee league.
My siblings are really great. I enjoyed every moment I spent with them and look forward to seeing them again during Christmas break. Their mother, Renee, is so not at all the evil stepmother type. I mean how bad could she be to have brought the kids? But she’s even nicer than that; a person I could actually see myself liking and not just because she’s their mom.
“Your dad was here,” Scott says quietly, watching me closely.
My heart does a little jump and I’m momentarily breathless. I swallow hard. “He was?”
Scott nods. “I saw him when his wife got into the car. It was about ten minutes after you went in.”
We’d all met at the designated spot on the lower concourse of the mall. Even if I hadn’t already seen pictures of them, there’s no way I wouldn’t have recognized them instantly. Even Renee looked like the picture I’d seen of her three years ago.
After Renee had performed the introductions she’d left the kids with me, insisting we needed time alone to get to know each other. She’d left, telling me to call her cell if I ran into any trouble, but she hadn’t said where she was going…or who’d she’d be with.
“Are you sure it was him?”
“Becca, he looks like you. I mean you look like him.”
Yeah, that’s the impression I got from the family picture I’d seen on Facebook. Plus my mother is super fair, has dirty-blonde hair and hazel eyes. I certainly hadn’t taken after her, which leaves my dad.
“Why do you think he came?” I ask, even though I think I know why.
“To see you,” Scott replies, his voice unshakeable in its certainty.
“You think?”
I told him I didn’t want to see him and he came anyway. But then I didn’t see him, he saw me. I should be upset with him but oddly I’m not. He did say he wouldn’t stop trying and so far, he’s been true to his word.
“I know.” There’s firm conviction in his voice.
We sit in silence for a few more seconds, holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes.
“I love you,” I whisper, not for the first time today, this week or this month… Or the last.
“I love you too.”
“Thank you for telling me about my dad.”
In response, Scott pulls me in for a kiss. Deep, wet and hot. And all too brief.
“Maybe next time you’ll see him.”
“Maybe I will,” I say with a smile. I probably will.
Scott starts the car. “Okay, you ready to go home?”
“Yes, let’s go home.”
Thank You
I hope you enjoyed Rebecca and Scott’s story. I know I enjoyed writing about them and getting to know them. If you did enjoy All Over You, I hope you’ll also consider taking a moment of your time to post a review for it. Second only to writing stories that our readers love, authors appreciate reviews (all kinds) more than we can probably articulate. Again, thank you for taking the time to read All Over You and I hope you’ll be coming back to read the final two books in the series: Always Been You (Fall/Winter 2013) and Forever With You (2014).
ONLY FOR YOU
College freshman Olivia Montgomery is thrilled at the chance to start over, escape the rumors that plagued her in high school. And she can finally put her juvenile crush, Zachary Pearson, where he belongs—in her past. Then her unrequited love strolls into her French class, shattering Olivia’s newfound peace, and the feelings she'd thought buried for good come rushing back. Now she can't shake her unwanted attraction to the one guy who can twist her stomach int
o knots with just a smile...but has never given her the time of day.
Zach’s good looks may have always gotten him his pick of girls, but it's the star quarterback’s skill on the football field that gives him his pick of the Big Ten colleges. To escape the crushing demands of his win-at-all-costs father, Zach opts for a private university in upstate New York where, his present and past collide. And the one girl he’s always wanted but can’t have—and a class trip to Paris—turn out to be the ultimate game changer that has him breaking every one of his rules.
Chapter One
OLIVIA
Did you know in your mind a lie can morph into the truth if you tell it to yourself long enough? I heard that once.
As I’m sitting waiting for class to start, that’s the thought that goes through my mind the instant I spot Zachary Pearson framed in the doorway. It’s also the moment I fear I’ve fallen victim to the same phenomenon.
How? By fooling myself into believing that what I felt for him was something between antipathy and indifference.
It had all started on the first day of high school. I’d been fourteen—you know, the age when our bodies are a flux of surging hormones. The instant I laid eyes on him, I felt a physical attraction so powerful I swear it left me dazed. I think my heart had been in the smile I sent him, to which he’d responded by giving me the colder-than-arctic shoulder.
The memory of that look still sends shivers through me.
Beyond crushed is the only way to explain how I felt when he’d completely ignored me. At that point, disliking him had been a simple matter of self-preservation. Of course that’s not how I looked at it back then. No, back then I was just plain hurt, not to mention nursing a bruised pride. You see, by then I’d become accustomed not only to male attention, but their admiration. It hadn’t been anything I’d actively sought or was particularly proud of, it just was.
He hasn’t seen me yet so maybe there’s still a chance I can escape before he does. But the only exit means I’d have to walk right past him, which means I’m stuck.
Stuck with Zachary Pearson.
Stuck on Zachary Pearson.
I’m not even sure I know the difference anymore.
In high school, it’s not like I expected him to instantly fall at my feet or anything like that. What I had expected was that he, at the very least, acknowledge my existence. What I’d gotten was him looking through me like I was glass. Call me young and foolishly naïve, but it had taken me an entire week to finally get the message that he did not like me. And was never going to like me.
The clincher had been the first day of French class. Zach had arrived late and the teacher had instructed him to take a seat in the desk beside mine—one of only two available. His expression had given nothing away when he’d shifted his blue-eyed gaze in my direction, then to the vacant desk to my left. Without saying a word, he seemed to make it a point to bypass me to take the other desk at the opposite side of the room.
I can still remember how hot my face had gotten and how badly I’d wanted to get up and leave, aware of the curious stares and speculative glances being cast in my direction. Steely pride had kept my butt in the chair and my chin high.
And it was at that precise moment that any remotely warm feelings I’d had for him died. At least that’s what I’d convinced myself.
Here’s the thing, I believe in karma and I’ve always tried to conduct myself in a way to stay on its good side. Irony, on the other hand, is a cruel and heartless bitch. There’s no reap what you sow philosophy to it, more a betcha didn’t see that coming sort of thing.
Well, I definitely didn’t see this coming because when I arrived at college last week, memories of high school and Zach were just that, memories. I’d filed them away in the section of my brain where I stored all the other unpleasant things and never-to-be-relived events in my life.
But as usual, life has other plans for me. Filing Zach away is going to be anything but easy. Life, as I’m learning, likes to eff with me. And today, I’m not finding the joke it’s playing funny.
Nope. Not one little bit.
A shallow breath catches in my throat and my heart starts this fierce, uncontrolled thumping, as if it’s trying to escape my chest. I’m treading water, trying to wrap my brain around what’s happening.
Zachary Pearson is standing in my French class. That’s what’s happening.
Yes, me and my one-time and all-too-brief high-school crush—but more notably my long-time nemesis—are attending the same college.
Zach.
At my school.
In my class.
My French class no less. That’s irony working overtime.
While part of me is mentally gasping at his appearance, the other part tries to convince me he must be a hallucination. Part of a bad dream from which, God willing, I’ll soon awake.
Seriously, what are the chances that having moved to a different state more than three-hundred miles from home, I’d run into him here?
I close my eyes, but when I open them again he’s still there, scanning the room in search of a place to sit. When our eyes finally meet, he goes still, surprise flaring in his pale-blue eyes. Wickedly beautiful eyes that can appear a dove gray in a certain light.
Grrr, why do I even know that?
He’s wearing a tan-and-brown leather varsity jacket I recognize from high school, worn blue jeans and a pair of Nike sneakers, the casual non-trendy look typical of Zach. His appearance causes a buzz of excited female chatter throughout the room. Again, typical Zach.
In high school, he’d been considered the ultimate catch with girls falling for and after him like a line of dominoes. And I swear from the way the eyes of every girl in class are currently fixed on him, he’s all set to retain that status.
At six-two, Zach’s the quintessential quarterback—all broad shoulders, narrow hips and lean, well-defined muscles. His hair is the closest shade to black without actually being black, close-cropped at the sides and back, and long enough on the top to give a hint of natural wave. He has a habit of running his hand through it and considering its slightly mussed appearance, he’d been recently doing just that.
Although it feels like an eternity that we stare at each other, in reality it lasts only a few seconds, the time it takes his expression to shutter and his eyes to narrow. Which is exactly what I need to drill home the point that ours isn’t a happy reunion of high-school classmates. At the most, we’re familiar strangers.
Okay, so maybe one of us is more familiar with the other. But that’s something that after a year, I’m still trying hard to forget. My face warms at the memory. It’s not easy though.
With his hooded gaze still trained on me, he tips his chin in acknowledgement. I push the corners of my mouth up in a smile that probably looks as strained and artificial as it feels. Tough. It’s more than I’ve ever gotten from him. Anyway, I’m trying to be polite.
Non-verbal greetings dispensed with, we break eye contact, Zach managing it a split second before I do. The fact that I even take note of this irks me.
The truth is, the fact that Zach doesn’t like me and never has isn’t what’s gnawed at me for years. No, the million-dollar question is why.
Crap. Now I'm ticked at myself for allowing him to take up so much time and space in my thoughts. I give my head a determined shake and vow to ignore him; simply not think about him. From past experience, I know that will be easier said than done.
And right away, my mind refuses to cooperate, my peripheral vision and other senses working as well as they do. I’m hyper aware of him as he tightens his grip on the strap of his backpack. He has this comfortable-in-my-skin gait as he makes his way to the back where it appears all the guys have telepathically agreed to take up residence.
I’d already checked out most of the guys in class as they’d filed in over the past few minutes. While there are a couple who most girls would consider hot, with Zach in the mix, there’s no competition.
Only aesthetically
speaking, of course.
“Mother of God,” the girl in front of me with dirty-blonde hair and Spanx-fitting jeans whispers. And there’s so much awe in her voice, you’d swear she’s getting an eyeful of her favorite celebrity wearing nothing but his boxer briefs and a smile. Twisted at the waist with both hands gripping the hard plastic back of her chair, she makes zero attempt to be subtle, eyeing him like he’s the appetizer, entrée and dessert, all rolled into one demigod.
My jaw goes tight. I can already see my nerves are going to be tested in this class, watching as a bunch of Zach groupies fawn all over him the entire semester. And I can't help feeling he's invaded my space, the place I’ll be calling home for the next four years. I mean of all the universities in the country, why did he have to come here? Didn’t big-time football jocks go to universities like Texas A&M or Michigan State?
Several girls in class crane their necks to give him a thorough checking out and with that mission accomplished, proceed to their hair tossing routine while sending do-me glances back at him. Honestly, their behavior is so painfully obvious, I’m embarrassed for them.
But it’s not embarrassment that has me snapping my textbook open until the spine cracks. No, that’s irritation. But at whom, I’m not even sure. I do my best to ignore the little voice in my head telling me my pants are on fire.
The other truth is I've managed to muffle that niggling voice for over four years now. But after seeing Zach today, I realize I can’t ignore it anymore. I am a liar. And my pants? They’re hot as hell and burning a hole right through the denim and scorching the skin where the sun don’t shine.
All Over You (Unforgettable You, Book 1.5) Page 14
