Rebound (Soulmates Book 3)

by Dykes, Nicole

  I caught up with her and gently grabbed her arm, “Maddy please just talk to me.”

  She yanked her arm away from me. She was absolutely gorgeous and the sweetest girl I had ever met. Yeah, I was a total prick. She just looked at me with intense hurt in her eyes, “Why does she think you are her boyfriend?”

  Because I’m a total prick. “Maddy I’m so sorry.”

  She just stared at me angrily, “Answer the question.”

  I couldn’t lie to her anymore. The fucked up thing was I really did love Maddy, but we had been dating for a while and I was ready to take things to the next level sexually. Maddy was a virgin and wasn’t ready. Like an idiot I let temptation and pressure get to me and ruin what could have been an amazing relationship. “I met her at a party in Hutchinson. It just sort of happened.”

  “What happened?”

  “We…fooled around.”

  She cocked an eyebrow and got even angrier, “Fooled around? Did you have sex with her?”

  I nodded and barely squeaked out, “Yes.”

  I could see tears forming in her eyes and she asked me how many times.

  “Maddy.” I didn’t want to hurt her any more than I already had. I just needed her to forgive me. I could fix it and I would do better. “You don’t want all of the details. I’m so sorry. It will never happen again. I swear!”

  She laughed, a cold, bitter laugh and then screamed at me, “I trusted you! You made me look like a total idiot. I will never trust you again. She thinks you are her boyfriend so it must have happened more than once. How many times?”

  I sighed and gave a vague answer. “I don’t know. A few.”

  “A few? How many times is that? And those other times they just happen too?” She paused and a look of horror went over her pretty face, “Oh God, have there been others?”

  I didn’t know what to say. Nothing was going to fix this. I stood there and she said, “I’ll take that as a yes. You and I are done. I don’t want anything to do with you!”

  I tried to reach for her again, but she pulled away and walked back to where our friends were. I wanted to go after her, but I stood there frozen. She hated me. I hated me. I had no excuse, I was just a total fuck up.

  Chapter 1

  Andy

  Our senior year in high school, I convinced Jake to throw a big party at his mom’s lake house for New Year’s Eve. I met him there before the party and we hung out drinking beer in the large living room. Jake and I had been friends for a long time. We met in junior high. We both played every sport we could in school and had bad reputations. And mine had only gotten worse since I cheated on Maddy. Everyone just saw me as an asshole and a player, so I played it up.

  A lot had changed Maddy and I had broken up. She had dated some asshole from a rival town the year before, but they broke up because he went to a college in Alabama. I fucking hated seeing her with someone else. I knew I had no right to be jealous, but I was.

  Also, that year at homecoming, Jake’s older brother, Chris was killed in a car accident. It hit us all hard. He was like an older brother to all of us, always giving out free advice to any of us that would listen. New Year’s Eve was the first time we had been at the lake house since the night he died. I thought maybe it would help Jake move on, to finally go back there. Jake hadn’t been around very much since it happened. I took big gulp of my beer, “So where the hell have you been lately? I never see you anymore.”

  “I’ve been hanging out with Maddy a lot.” Maddy and Jake had been best friends since they met at six years old, but they had some kind of falling out our freshmen year and Jake tormented her. Since Chris died though it seemed like they had forgiven each other. It was so weird to see them getting a long after years of fighting.

  I still had no idea what they were fighting out in the first place. Now all of the sudden they were friends again. “Is there something going on with you two?”

  He was playing with the label of his beer bottle and actually looked a little guilty, “Yeah.”

  I couldn’t believe it. Jake hounded me the entire time I was dating Maddy, trying to get me to break up with her. He called her a tease and told me that she would never want to have sex. I stared at him in disbelief, “Are you fucking her?”

  “Yeah, but it’s more than that. At least I want it to be more.”

  I ran my fingers angrily through my hair. They were fucking. Maddy had sex with Jake. We dated for a year. I loved her and she slept with Jake who fucking tortured her. “Are you kidding me? You broke us up, telling me how crazy she was and now you want to date her?” I took a brief pause and then asked, “How long has this been going on her? Did you fuck her the night we broke up?”

  There was a rumor that went around our school about Jake and Maddy having sex that night, but he swore to me that nothing happened. He looked at me and quietly said, “Andy calm down. I didn’t break you guys up. You did that on your own.”

  That pissed me off. It wasn’t completely on my own, “You were always in my head telling me how she would never want to have sex. You tried all of the time to get me to end things with her.”

  “I’m sorry for that. It wasn’t fair, but you were the one that cheated on her. I didn’t tell you to do that, and even if I had you didn’t have to listen.”

  I stood up so pissed off I couldn’t see straight. I felt completely betrayed by my best friend, like maybe he was trying to get us to break up the entire time. “How long has this been going on?”

  “Since Chris died. She was there for me.”

  “She comforted you with her body. How nice. She’s more fucked up than I realized. I mean you treated her like shit for years and then she just gave her virginity to you!”

  That got to him and he stood up also, “She’s not fucked up. She’s just caring. She forgave me.”

  I glared at him, “There is no way she has completely forgiven you. You said that you want more, sounds like she doesn’t.”

  His face looked like I had been right about that. “I’m going to find out tonight. I’m going to ask her to be with me exclusively. I love her.”

  What the hell? He loved her. This was not happening. I knew it didn’t make sense, but a part of me still loved Maddy. She was my first love and after we broke up, I had thought that maybe someday we would end up together.

  Then she started dating that asshole from Hutch and I was almost as much of an asshole to her as Jake was because I was so fucking jealous. Then Chris died and I started dating Kourtney, a really hot, really dumb cheerleader that I didn’t have any real feelings for over Christmas break. “You don’t know what love is. I know and so does Maddy. She’s too good for you and there is no way she will trust you.”

  He looked hurt and didn’t say another word to me. He just put his beer down, picked up his keys and left.

  I sat back down on the couch, stunned. I had a feeling something was going on between them, but had just shrugged it off.

  An hour later Paul and Shelley showed up at the lake house. Paul played a couple of sports with Jake and I, but wasn’t too into them. Shelley was his girlfriend and they had been dating since our freshmen year. Paul wasn’t an aggressive guy by any means, but I was pretty sure he would have killed for Shelley.

  They came in and walked over to the couch, where I was still sitting. Shelley surveyed the large room, “Nice party. Where is everyone?”

  I took a drink of my beer, I was still in a really pissed off mood, “It’s still early.”

  Paul went in the kitchen and brought back a beer for him and some flavored drink for Shelley. She took it and they both sat down on the couch next to me. Paul asked, “Where’s Jake?”

  I stared absentmindedly, “Don’t know.”

  They looked at each other and then Shelley looked at me, “Did something happen?”

  I shook my head, “No. I don’t know where he is and I don’t fucking care.”

  Shelley and Paul were the mom and dad of our group. They were mature and there was n
ever any drama with either of them. I never even saw them fight. Paul changed the subject and we started talking about the beginning of basketball season.

  Jackie

  I walked into the lake house with Maddy and Michelle around nine thirty on New Year’s Eve our senior year of high school. I really didn’t want to be there, since Chris had died it was kind of eerie being there. I remember being at a party there the night he died. He had looked so happy and carefree and then boom he was gone.

  I looked around the large room filled with people I went to school with and some that I didn’t know. We walked into the kitchen and mixed drinks. I mixed mine pretty strong, it was a holiday after all.

  We walked back into the living room and were talking for a little bit and then I saw Mary, one of the only girls on the cheerleading squad with me that I actually liked, “I’ll see you guys later.”

  They both waved to me and I walked over to Mary, “Hey

  I hung out with Mary for a while. We talked about how basketball season was coming up and how excited we were to cheer for them. I loved spending time with Maddy and Michelle, but they always made fun of cheerleaders and made me feel dumb a lot of the time. So it was nice hanging out with Mary.

  I downed my first mixed drink and then had another one. You would think that after what happened with Jake, I would never drink again, but I kind of went the other way and partied a lot.