Heat Up the Fall: New Adult Boxed Set (6 Book Bundle)

by Gennifer Albin

  Cole frowned back, straightening up. I didn’t like making him frown.

  “Why do you believe that?”

  “Maybe you haven’t heard about me, since there aren’t any websites rating the girls of Whitman—at least not yet. I’m what people around here call new money, and that means that while Whitman admitted me and the guys here don’t mind buying me drinks and fucking me, I’m not the kind of girl you bring home to yer mum,” I explained, doing a pretty good impression of his accent with the last words. “You’re not only old money, Cole, you’re ancient money. We don’t mix.”

  “For such a cannie lass, you can be majorly daft. First of all, I think my mum would love you, and since I’m the fourth of four boys, I seriously doubt any kind of noble responsibility is going to fall on my shoulders. Second, although the idea of fucking you appeals to me, that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. Or at least, not all I had in mind.”

  His words burned. They tried to strip away layers of protection put in place by my years in private high school and reinforced after two years at Whitman, layers I needed. Cole wasn’t better than me, and I appreciated the privileges of this life, but I couldn’t afford to believe he might be different.

  Anger shoved heat into my cheeks at his stupid insistence that every belief I held was wrong. It almost overshadowed the fact that the easy way he spoke about his desire turned me on to a degree that might send me back to Liam’s for another try later.

  “Well, whatever’s in your mind, you’d better get rid of it. You want to pretend there aren’t levels and social strata and classes within classes, because from the tip top, it’s hard to see the rest of us and even harder to understand. But I understand, Cole. And even if I were tempted to put myself in a position to get discarded by you, the fact that my website assures me it would be a waste of time ensures that I won’t.” I stepped around him, hopping down the front steps and then turning back to glimpse his reaction.

  His body had gone rigid at the word discarded, shoulders hunched as though he wanted to shield himself from my words. The press of his lips betrayed frustration, making him harder than ever to read, and the fear returned to his eyes. Cole acted like a guy with something to hide, something that shamed him, and he definitely didn’t want to talk about it with me. The couple of times I’d managed to push hidden buttons rushed to the surface of my memory—when I’d suggested he was perfect or some kind of hero.

  Then it all clicked into place.

  He’d known this entire time that I’d started the website. It was the only explanation for why a guy like him would be so keen on playing the gentleman to a girl like me, and why he acted ashamed when I tried to make him out to be the good guy. He’d wanted to plant those seeds of doubt about the truth of his ratings before he came to ask me to take them down.

  My own stupid attraction to him had almost let him get away with it, too.

  Fury poured through my blood until it boiled, until his form almost disappeared behind the red haze veiling my vision. “I’m not taking those ratings down. The good news is, you can stop pretending to like me now.”

  Surprise shot his eyebrows nearly into his hairline. I didn’t give him a chance to respond, just whirled and marched to my car. Frustrated tears pricked my eyes and I blinked them back, relieved they’d waited until now. Nothing would have been worse than letting Cole Stuart see me cry. I could not believe I’d almost fallen for his crap.

  The image of him playing me like a fiddle for the past weeks—the lingering looks, helpful rides home, Homecoming plans, and constant flow of compliments—flooded me with shame. At least my worldview hadn’t been shaken. Cole and his ilk were still exactly the entitled assholes I’d always believed.

  Chapter Nine

  Opening Night nerves crackled through my bloodstream, depositing a good, thrilling tension in their wake. No feeling compared to the shared adrenaline backstage, the distant murmur of the crowd as they settled into their seats, or the collectively held breath as the lights dimmed and the curtain rose.

  Liam lay prone on the stage, the blood bomb exploded and seeping red liquid through his pressed button-down, and I looked up from where I’d thrown my body against his, tears rolling down my cheeks. A toy gun lay within reach and I snatched it, scrambling to my feet and shouting my final lines through my tears, voice clear through the stuttering sobs.

  In the moment, I wondered if Maria would kill herself, and I almost felt the audience hold their breath wondering the same thing. Tension filled the auditorium as Maria restrained herself like the good girl she’s been raised to be, and she and her dead love were dragged offstage.

  My tears dried quickly in the wings and Liam stood and crushed me in a hug, pressing a hard kiss to my lips and swinging me around.

  “You were amazing, baby. We were amazing. Listen.” He grinned so wide it made him look like a lunatic, head tipped to take in the roaring cheers and slapping of hands on the other side of the curtain.

  They parted a moment later and the smaller cast members raced out to take their bows before Liam and I ran through them and landed front and center. A huge smile stretched my own lips and my heart leapt around like a jackrabbit at the euphoria that came from hundreds of people on their feet, cheering for me.

  The Opening Night performance didn’t go off without a hitch, but nothing happened that the audience would have picked up on—everyone covered the stumbles and missed cues with sure-handed grace. My face felt hot from the high that couldn’t be matched anywhere but on stage, and Geoff’s grin in the lobby said the night hadn’t disappointed him, either.

  Two of the directors I’d met at the Coterie trailed him as he made his way to my side, slinging an arm around my shoulders and pressing a fatherly kiss to my sweaty hair. “Excellent work, Ruby. We’ll want to work on the beginning of the second act tomorrow night, but still. Excellent.”

  “Give her a break, Geoff. The girl killed it.” Bobby smiled at me, sticking out a hand. “Seriously, I’m not even a West Side Story fan, but that was one of the best Marias I’ve ever seen.”

  The compliments from real live New York City theatre people went to my head, popping like champagne bubbles. “Thank you.”

  “Imagine how wonderful it would be to open an original play.” Brad added, appraising me with the kind of interest that sped up my heart for totally non-sexual reasons.

  It brought to mind my theatrical heroes—women like Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, who first performed Wicked for the world, or the cast of The Book of Mormon. To get to be the first actress to breathe life into characters people would never forget…just the idea of it made my throat close. It was what mattered the most.

  We chatted for a few moments before they were pulled away by a menagerie of faces. I walked back toward the dressing rooms floating on a cloud, and not even the sight of Cole Stuart waiting in the mostly empty hallway with his arms full of some kind of prickly purple flowers knocked me back down to earth.

  He grinned back without hesitating, relief lightening his green eyes. I’d been pretty harsh the last time we’d seen each other, but a couple of weeks had passed and my temper had cooled. We’d been civil enough during Homecoming planning sessions and he hadn’t made another pass at me or mentioned the website.

  Plus, this was my night. Cole Fucking Stuart couldn’t ruin it.

  “You were pure dead fucking brilliant, Ruby Cotton. I fell in love with you right along with Tony.” He winked, his eyes alight in a way that tumbled my stomach into my curled toes.

  “Thank you.” I nodded at the flowers. “What are those?”

  “Oh! These are for you.” He handed them over, the thin white paper doing little to soften the pricks from the masses of thorns surrounding the gorgeous pops of purple.

  “Are these a torture device or flora? Cripes.” The bouquet was embarrassingly huge—no one had ever brought me so many flowers at one time. They spilled over my arms, scraping every inch of exposed skin.

  “They’re
thistles. The flower of Scotland, but also, they remind me of you.”

  “Oh?” Rearranging the paper to buffer my skin distracted me for several moments, long enough for my brain to wrap around the idea that he’d been thinking of me.

  When I looked up, his green eyes had shifted darker, threads of gold sucking the air from my lungs. What kind of pheromones did Cole give off? I knew the guy had been trying to play me for weeks, but I couldn’t forget those moments on the porch, when his lips had hung a breath from mine, and how badly I’d wanted to devour them.

  “Thistles are prickly, but beautiful. They were chosen as a symbol of defiance.”

  “You think I’m prickly and defensive?”

  He didn’t answer, choosing to give me an enigmatic smile, instead. “I came to watch tonight first and foremost because you’re belter onstage, but also to apologize for our misunderstanding.”

  “You came to apologize to me?” I had been the one throwing insults at him like a baby with fistfuls of spaghetti. He had deserved every chunk of rained tomato-covered pasta, but still.

  “I’m sorry if my request regarding the website made it seem as though I’d been deceiving you. That’s not my style. I asked you out the first day of speech because you’re absolutely stunning, I’ve been thinking about you since the first time I watched you onstage, and also we seem to have a certain…chemistry.”

  Cole paused when I opened my mouth to protest that staring like dummies didn’t equal chemistry, but lying wasn’t my style, either. We did have chemistry. When I shut my mouth again, heart pounding at what might come next, he continued.

  “I helped you when your car wouldn’t start because again, you were the most beautiful lass in distress I’ve ever seen, and maybe it’s in my blood to play the white knight, but I didn’t like seeing you suffering.” He held up a hand to block my protest. “I didn’t know about the website until the next day. I had a computer science friend of mine hack you to figure it out.”

  I swallowed hard, my mouth dry and stomach in knots over his frank statements and the way his mouth spilled phrases like beautiful lass. “Why do you care so much?”

  My curiosity got the better of me. Cole seemed so confident in every aspect of life, but here he was again, clearly wanting the website taken down or censored. Or to prove to me that the ratings were wrong.

  A shiver crawled up my spine at the thought.

  “I try not to, but honestly, with two older brothers and an entire frat house giving me a hard time, it would make my life quite a bit less filled with shite on a daily,” Cole shrugged, his cheeks a little red.

  “How about this—you don’t even have to go out with me. You can just tell me why the ratings are skewed and if I agree that they’re unfair, I’ll take them down.”

  He shook his head, his full lips pressed together, that strange protective hunch returning to his shoulders. “No. It’s my business, and the girls’. I don’t kiss and tell.”

  The way he left unlike you unsaid raised my hackles again, and reminded me who lived underneath his suave and terribly charming exterior. “You mean, the way I do.”

  Cole shrugged, shifting his weight as though the conversation made him uncomfortable. “Like I said last time, it’s not that I disagree with your venture, but it has its flaws. I’m caught up in one of them. I’m only asking you to do the right thing.”

  “I don’t know that it is the right thing if you won’t confide in me, Cole.” The statement came out in a pleading tone that I hadn’t intended. I wanted him to trust me enough to share whatever made him fold in on himself that way—whatever secret made him afraid.

  He stepped forward, invading my space and then, probably encouraged by my tone, lifted a hand to my makeup-caked cheek. “You’re always beautiful, but more so the less makeup you wear. I’d love to see your face first thing in the morning, sleepy and bathed in the first rays of the day. It’s got to be the most stunning sight in the world.” His voice dipped, a little scratchy over the words, like maybe he didn’t want to say them but couldn’t help it.

  He’d thought about me waking up next to him.

  His gaze mesmerized me, and when it fell to my lips, my heart leapt into my throat. Heat sizzled through my blood until I wanted to drop the thistles and drag him away into an empty hallway and simply find out whether the website ratings were a lie the old-fashioned way.

  “You don’t have to shower me with all of these compliments, Cole. I told you I’d take it down if you told me why.” My own voice sounded far away.

  “I’m saying what I want to say. Because I want you to hear it, and I think you’re worth the scrapes from your thorns. Fuck your website.” He moved closer, edging me back against the wall and placing his palms on either side of my head. “I’ve wanted to nip those lips again for the past six weeks.”

  I closed my eyes, trying to control my breathing and get my shit together. I expected to feel him move closer, but a moment later, the warmth of his arms dropped from around me and I opened my eyes, embarrassed to find him watching me from a good two feet away.

  He ran a hand over the blond fuzz on his head, probably recently shaved for a swimming event. “I don’t…. You and I have more in common than you believe, Ruby. I don’t trust easily, either, which means we’re at an impasse.”

  Before either of us could say anything more, Liam rounded the corner, his eyes narrowed as he took in the two of us. The goddamn electricity in the hallway probably stood his hair on end. Thank goodness he hadn’t walked back here a minute earlier. I had no idea what had made Cole retreat, but it was a good thing he had.

  It might have been Liam. Cole seemed to have an ethical code of some sort, although how that allowed him to boot Chaney out in the middle of the night still baffled me, but cheating probably wouldn’t endear me to him.

  Not that I cared. I didn’t care.

  “Hey, baby.”

  My teeth clenched at Liam’s forgetfulness. His eyes cut to Cole, then lingered on the massive pile of flowers in my arms, and I wondered if he’d forgotten at all, or if it the term of endearment was some sort of misguided way of marking his territory.

  “Hi.” My gaze slid over his street clothes. “You changed already?”

  “We finished a half an hour ago. Aren’t you ready to leave?”

  “Um.”

  Cole cleared his throat, not letting me get away with bad manners, and I closed my eyes for a moment. “Liam Greene, this is Cole Stuart. Cole, Liam.”

  Cole stuck out a strong hand, thicker and tanner than Liam’s thin fingers, and they shook. It lasted too long and looked a little too tight from where I stood, and my eyes hurt from rolling.

  “You must be the boyfriend,” Cole said, his voice friendlier than the hard set of his jaw suggested.

  My stomach sank. Great.

  Liam didn’t even look my direction, just smiled and dropped Cole’s hand. “I don’t know about boyfriend, but I’m the one tumbling her hot little ass, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  My cheeks burned from embarrassment. It wasn’t that I had a problem with Cole knowing Liam and I were sleeping together—he’d surely assumed—but the fact that it now appeared to Cole that I thought it was more than that humiliated me. Why had I lied about Liam being my boyfriend? And why had Liam felt the need to toss our business out there like that?

  “I’m going to go change,” I stammered, unable to meet either of their gazes. “Thank you for the thistles.”

  “I’ll meet you outside,” Liam said to my retreating back.

  ***

  It took longer than it should have to calm down, and the fact that Liam’s uncouth pronouncement had made me cry, even in private, irritated the shit out of me. He needed to be put in his place, and I was officially sick of his crap. The sex wasn’t nearly good enough to put up with his increasingly snotty attitude.

  The last thing I needed was to run into Cole, but he lurked outside the theatre’s back door like some kind of handsome Scottish stalk
er.

  I glowered at him, determined to assert my brain over the rest of me. “Don’t you have anything better to do than irritate me?”

  Cole stepped in my path, blocking me from the parking lot and my escape. “I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

  The soft edges to his words almost brought back my tears. How long had it been since a guy had genuinely sounded as though he cared? Too long, but even if Cole thought he cared, it would only last as long as it took for me to meet his friends, or his family. The lectures on the proper type of girl would follow, and then he’d decide he didn’t care about me as much as his reputation.

  Cole had already made it clear that his reputation meant something to him, otherwise he wouldn’t be so worried about being the biggest chump on my referral site.

  My brain knew all of this, but my heart melted a little at the concern in his eyes.

  “I’m fine. A little embarrassed, but fine.”

  His hand snaked out and touched my wrist. It comforted and singed at the same time. “You have nothing to be embarrassed about, Ruby. That was a wanker move, and you deserve better.”

  “It’s not his fault. Things are casual between us.”

  “I don’t care if you two are nothing but a long-running booty call. It was shitty of him to throw it in your face.”

  Cole and Emilie both thought I deserved better than Liam. I appreciated the sentiment, but when going after someone better meant being emotionally destroyed, it felt like too big a risk.

  I shook my head and gave Cole a small smile. “Thank you for waiting, but I’m really fine.”

  “You should be with a guy who makes you feel more than fine.”

  ‘Like you?” Cole managed to turn me on and make me want to put on defensive armor with equal ease.

  “You seem pretty convinced that wouldn’t work out.”

  “I have my reasons. Like you have your reasons for not confiding in me about the ratings.”

  “You’re saying if I tell you why the girls I’ve dated have walked away unhappy, you’ll tell me what makes you so sure you don’t want to go on a date with me?”