Fall in Love Book Bundle: Small Town Romance Box Set

by Grover Swank, Denise

“She’s fucking hot,” Mav says beside me.

  “She is.”

  “I don’t understand why you don’t just lock it down.”

  “Lock it down?” I turn to look at him.

  “Make her your girlfriend, you know.”

  “Why would I?”

  “Because she’s fucking hot.”

  “And?” I raise an eyebrow. “Why don’t you have a girlfriend?”

  “Why would I? I just got here, I’m on the hockey team, I’m hot, you want me to keep going?”

  “So I’m assuming you’re saying I’m none of those things?” I laugh, shaking my head.

  “I’m just saying, you already played the field and ran through all the hot girls here. You might as well settle down with one.” He shrugs a shoulder. “Then again, what do I know, right?”

  “I know you’re going to learn this your way, but there’s more to a relationship than being with a hot girl.” I shoot him a look. “And there’s more to being an athlete than just fucking all the hot girls.”

  “Says the guy who has spent the last three years fucking all the hot girls.” Mav scoffs. “And still doesn’t want a girlfriend.”

  I don’t respond to that because what would I say? He’s not wrong. I haven’t really given the girlfriend thing much thought. I had a serious girlfriend in high school and we went our separate ways when she went to school in California and I chose UNC. As far as I know, she’s in a serious relationship now and I’m happy for her. That doesn’t mean I want to follow in her footsteps. Getting girls has always come easy for us. We’re not too humble to disagree with that sentiment. We’re also not so hung up on ourselves that we think anyone would be lucky to have us. Our parents raised us to believe in ourselves but to keep enough humility that we respect everyone. I’d like to say they did a fine job. It’s one of the reasons I wouldn’t officially date someone like Jessa. She’s fun to fool around with but we have nothing in common outside of bed.

  “When I meet the right girl, I’ll settle down.” I finish my drink and turn to him. “Want more poison?”

  “Why not?” He shrugs a shoulder and follows me inside the house.

  It’s so crowded that if it weren’t for our height, stance, and the fact that everyone knows us and parts slightly when we walk by, it would be impossible to walk in. We reach the kitchen, where the drinks are set up, and Mav pours new punch into our cups. I watch while he does it and suddenly feel like passing on the punch.

  “You know anyone could have spit in our drinks, right?”

  “They wouldn’t.”

  “It’s a punchbowl. They could throw anything in there.” I examine the Kool-Aid-looking punch, unsure of whether or not I want to take the gamble on it now that I’ve seen where it comes from.

  “Dude, you already had a drink.”

  “Yeah, that was before I saw this.” My face pulls. “Did you pour it from here the first time?”

  “Yeah.” He stops pouring.

  “And you didn’t think maybe someone spit in it?”

  “Of course I didn’t think that. You’d have to be a freaking psycho to do that.” He hands me the cup. “You want this or not?”

  “Not. I’ll just have a beer.” I walk over to the cooler and grab a beer while Mav sips on the punch.

  Soon, a huge guy walks into the kitchen with a smile on his face. “They told me you were here!”

  “Luke.” I give him a side hug when he gets close. “What’s going on?”

  “Not much. Missed you at practice the other day.” He eyes me. “You gonna be okay?”

  “I think so.” I move my shoulder out of habit. “I’ll be back Monday. Coach wants me to come in and learn the plays even if I don’t go out on the field.”

  “Yeah, you should. Some of the guys are out back. You wanna head over?” Luke nods toward the backyard. I look at my brother, who shrugs.

  “Let’s go.”

  I spend the majority of the night talking to my teammates and hanging out with Mav. Mitch shows up when I’m almost leaving, and I end up staying longer than I wanted, and by the time I’m really ready to leave, Jessa shows up at my side and starts practically hanging from my arm.

  Chapter 7

  Jo

  “I don’t think I want to smoke this in public.” I lift the joint in my hand and look at Misty. “Can we go to your car?”

  “So that it can reek of weed for the next century? No, thank you. If you wanted to hot box, you should’ve brought that nasty old Celica you’re driving these days.” Misty raises an eyebrow. “Besides, this is perfectly legal.”

  “Not here.” I shoot her a look that makes her roll her eyes.

  “It’s not like you’re going to get high out of your mind. Just high enough to relax. I mean, your doctor prescribed you Valium.”

  “For flying.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Valium is a hardcore drug. This is all natural.”

  “I guess you’re right.” I press the joint to my mouth. “I just don’t want someone to take a picture of me and post it somewhere. Dad would kill me.”

  “First of all, Dad won’t care.” Misty lights the joint and I inhale deeply and cough loudly as I exhale. “He literally was the one who got this for me from his doctor friend in Florida. Besides, who will take a picture of you? You’re not that important.”

  I stick my tongue out at her. She doesn’t mean it in a bad way. In all honesty, I’m not important in a let’s take a candid picture of her sort of way. When I was dating Lawrence, I was. My heart squeezes. I cannot, will not, think about Lawrence right now. I can’t have him ruining a night he’s not even a part of. It’s just hard since all the previous college parties I went to were with him and his friends and some of my volleyball teammates and now it’s just me. And my sister.

  “I think I’ll stick to tequila.” I hand over the little joint to her and grab my water bottle.

  “Wow. Tequila.” My sister laughs. “Your liver will hate you, but I guess that’s a choice you have to make, right? Liver or lungs.”

  “That shouldn’t even be a choice.” I cap my water bottle and tuck it into my purse again.

  “Well, we could do edibles.”

  “Last time you talked me into doing an edible I thought I was going to die, so I think I’ll take my chances with my liver for now.” I smile.

  “In that case, I’ll go get some shots,” she says.

  “Do these guys even have alcohol? This is a pretty tame frat party.”

  “It’s a medical fraternity. They’re into drugs, not alcohol,” Misty says. “They’re all probably doing drugs inside right now. You know, testing the limits of the brain and all that.”

  My eyes widen. I’m not a judgmental person, but that’s a little off-putting.

  She drops the joint into the small tube it came in and puts it in her bag and applies hand sanitizer before squirting some into my hands. “So, how’s living with Jagger?”

  “So far it’s fine. It seems like we have opposite schedules. I haven’t even seen him again.” I walk beside Misty toward the house, taking in the guys stumbling out of it.

  Maybe she’s onto something and they really are all on drugs.

  I purse my lips, looking around the lawn as she pulls the door open. It really is a tame party, despite the stumbling guys. I’m used to seeing shirtless people running around the beer kegs.

  “Has Lawrence reached out?”

  “No.” I swallow, my heart squeezing. “There’s nothing to say. He’s probably fucking Crystal.”

  “Jo.” She reaches for my hand and squeezes. “I’m sorry you’re going through it.”

  “Well, you went through it last year, so you get it.” I shake my head. “Seriously, what is wrong with men?”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t catch Michael in the act and he took responsibility and said it hadn’t gone past flirting, so technically, he didn’t cheat.”

  “Technically he was emotionally cheating. Some say it’s worse.”

  �
��Is it?” She glanced up at me as she poured our shot glasses.

  “No. I don’t know. It’s all hurtful.”

  “Exactly.” She hands one over to me and clinks hers against mine. “To purging our lives of men.”

  “Here, here.” I lift my glass and take a shot, my mind swimming instantly. When I open my eyes, I smile at her. “Let’s do another.”

  * * *

  After my third attempt to put the key in the lock, Misty takes them away from me and does it for me, ushering me inside.

  “Careful with the step,” I mumble.

  “You’re slurring,” she says.

  “So are you.” I laugh. “Maybe weed isn’t bad after all.”

  “I don’t think the weed hit you. You’re drunk.” She pulls me toward the hall. “What room is it again?”

  “That one.” I point straight ahead.

  “That’s the bathroom.”

  Both rooms are shut, so I step forward and go left first. Might as well try both of them, right?

  Misty grips my arm tighter, making me straighten. I pause and take a breath so I don’t stumble. I took a pretty big fall on my way to the house. A funny fall. I mean, my knee hurts, but I laughed for an hour outside on the floor, so it obviously doesn’t hurt that bad. Misty pushes the door open and gasps loudly, letting go of my arm and jerking away to rush down the hall.

  “What are you doing?” I shout, then look inside the bedroom, where Jagger is lying naked with a naked woman on top of him.

  I’m shocked into silence, staring at his muscular arms and large hands squeezing her waist. My entire body heats instantly and when her attention whips over to us, I feel sick.

  “What the—” she says.

  “What the fuck, Jo?” Jagger roars, raising his confused but livid gaze to us.

  “Shit. Sorry.” I shut the door quickly and stumble back. “I’m so sorry!”

  I turn and run over to the living room, where Misty is picking up her purse.

  “I called an Uber,” she announces.

  “You can’t leave me right now,” I whisper-shout.

  “I can’t stay!” Her mouth drops. “Come with me.”

  “I can’t leave. This is my house too.” I frown.

  “So, you deal with it. I just saw Jagger Cruz fucking a woman and holy shit, Jo.” Her eyes widen.

  “We couldn’t even see anything,” I whisper.

  “You’re right, but what we saw is enough.”

  “I can’t believe you’re going to freaking leave me to deal with this.” I point down the hall.

  “Go to your room and go to sleep. It’ll all be forgotten tomorrow,” she says.

  “Okay.” I nod. That sounds completely possible. I kiss her cheek and lock the door behind her as she runs to her Uber.

  As I undress, sloppily, because even in my drunken state I know I’m being sloppy, I think about what I saw. Jagger. A naked Jagger. Fucking a woman. Heat floods my entire body. I look at the door, wondering if they picked up where they left off, if they’re still . . . I shiver. I shouldn’t care. I don’t care. Absolutely don’t care. Yet, there’s a twist of something deep in my stomach as I recall what I saw. Jealousy? There’s no way. I mean, maybe there is a way. Maybe I’m jealous that someone is getting lucky while I’m just sitting here thinking about it in my underwear. There’s commotion outside my room and I sit up straight. I can’t hear what the voices are saying, but I do hear the door slam shut and the stomping in the hall just before the door opens suddenly.

  “What are you—”

  “You think this is funny?” Jagger asks. He’s positively seething, shirtless, and seething, and holy shit he is so hot. So, so hot. I hate him, absolutely hate him, but damn. “You think it’s funny to come home in this state and barge into my room in the middle of the night like that?”

  I shake my head. I want to say I don’t think it’s funny at all, but I can’t look away from his thunderous gaze and his chiseled jaw or his messy sex god hair and his ripped torso. Jesus. I knew Jagger was hot but this is beyond.

  “I’m drunk,” I say instead. “Like really drunk and I don’t ever get drunk like ever and I am so mortified and so sorry. Truly.”

  His expression softens, not much, but enough. “We need to set up ground rules if we’re going to make this living arrangement work.”

  “Okay.”

  “Good.” He breaks his gaze from mine and lowers it to the rest of my body. His jaw twitches and I swear he looks more pissed off than he did a second ago.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” He swallows.

  “Oh.” I look down at myself and realize I’m wearing nothing but a strapless bra and ivory lace panties. “I . . . I was changing but then I couldn’t find my pajamas and I mean, is it me or is it really hot in this house?”

  “Yeah. Really hot.” He lets out a laugh. “We’ll talk in the morning.” His jaw twitches again as he turns around and slams the door shut behind him, making me jump. He slams his own door shut as well, making me jump again.

  Living with Jagger Cruz is definitely not for the faint of heart.

  Chapter 8

  Jagger

  “I’m sorry about yesterday.” Jo’s voice is just above a whisper. “I never, ever get like that.”

  I shake my head. I’m not sure I’ve ever been able to hold a grudge against Jo and this is no different, but seeing her barge into my room while I was with Jessa was a lot to handle, especially since I’d been thinking of her. I told myself it was because she was my roommate now and she’d always been my what-if, but if I’m being honest with myself, I think about Jo a lot more often than I should. I shut my eyes and huff out a quiet laugh. It’s pathetic, really, and something I’d never admit to anyone.

  “Where’d you go last night?” I turn around with two mugs of coffee in hand and place them on the table in the kitchen.

  “Frat party.” She takes a sip of coffee. “Boring frat party.”

  “You went to a boring frat party and came home like that?” I raise an eyebrow.

  “Yeah.” She licks her lips. I look away. The last thing I need or want is to get caught up in those lips and wishing they were on mine. “I’d never smoked and then I started taking shots and . . . yeah. I guess I overdid it. I’m sorry I walked in on you like that. It wasn’t on purpose.”

  “It was probably for the best.” I take a sip of coffee. “But we do need to set up boundaries if we want this to work.”

  “I agree.”

  “No barging into each other’s rooms without knocking,” I say.

  “That’s fair.” She presses her lips together. “You walked into my room without knocking too though.”

  “Because I knew you were alone.”

  “I could have been naked.” She raises an eyebrow, but even as she does it, she blushes. I ignore the way her words and that blush seem to go straight to my cock.

  “You practically were naked, Jo.”

  “I could have been touching myself.” She glances away.

  Her words throw me off, but as I stare at the side of her face, I decide that this conversation needs to be over because now I’m hard and there’s no way in hell I’m ever going to try to hit on this girl again, not after what happened when we were freshmen. It’s like I can’t help myself though.

  “Seeing me fucking someone makes you want to touch yourself?”

  “No.” Her face turns bright red as she meets my eyes. “I didn’t even see anything. Not really anyway.”

  “But you would have liked to stay to watch?” I raise an eyebrow. “I can arrange that.”

  “Absolutely not.” She scowls, dropping her gaze to the mug in front of her.

  I enjoy my coffee in silence. I want her to be the one to set a rule or say something about her life, which I don’t know much about anymore. I’ve made it a point to stay far away from Josephine Canó as long as she was with Lawrence, but she’s no longer with him, so . . .

  “No leaving clothes on the bath
room floor,” she says after a moment.

  “Okay.”

  “One of us goes grocery shopping every week. We split the cost of everything so we don’t have to argue over who ate what.”

  “Has this happened to you?” I fight a smile. She looks upset about it and she always looks so damn cute when she’s upset.

  “My last roommate had a problem sharing everything from peanuts to apples.”

  “I thought you hated peanuts.”

  “You remember that?” She blinks up at me.

  I want to tell her I remember everything about her, but don’t, because it would make me sound like a loser and an idiot and I refuse to be either. I clear my throat. “So we split the grocery bill.”

  “Or we can go together.”

  “Where?”

  “Grocery shopping.”

  “I don’t go grocery shopping. I have it delivered.”

  “Of course you do.” She rolls her eyes.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You always had everything done for you so I guess it should come as no surprise that you can’t even buy your own groceries.”

  “I do buy my own groceries, from the comfort of my couch. And my mother didn’t do everything for me.”

  “You’re right. Your nanny did.”

  “Are we going to start arguing about the way we were brought up now, Jo?” I raise an eyebrow. “Because my nanny babysat you an awful lot.”

  “Yeah, when we were in New York and our parents left us at your house. Not all of us grew up like that though.” She raises an eyebrow right now. “My parents are pretty well off and I’ve been doing my own laundry since I was twelve.”

  “Miss Responsible, huh?” I set my mug down. “Yet you managed to crash the most expensive car in your dad’s lot.”

  “You heard about that, huh?” Her voice no longer holds the spunk it did a second ago and it makes me even more curious as to what happened that night. When I found out about the accident, I thought there was no way Jo was involved, but she was, and that made me even more upset because it made me realize I truly didn’t know this person anymore.