We'd both dated other people off and on over the years, nothing really panning out the way either of us wanted. I think the women I dated were jealous of Ella, and rightfully so. However, the men she dated were just dicks, but that could've just been my opinion.
Personally, I knew she was looking for a Prince Charming to sweep her off her feet, and I guess I always assumed that once we were both done sowing our wild oats, I would be that Prince Charming she'd always waited for.
On the other hand, she completely tried to keep me at arm's length because of the fear of losing our friendship—little did she know she was fighting a losing battle. That girl was going to be mine, and mine alone.
Before I knew it, I was already walking up the flight of stairs to our front door. I ran my fingers through my hair before walking into the house, but as soon as I walked in I noticed she was fast asleep on the couch. She only ever did that when work had exhausted her to the point where she couldn't even make it to her bedroom.
Dropping my keys and duffel bag on the floor, I made my way over to her and scooped her up in my arms to take her to her bed.
ELLA
I woke up to Cooper holding me in his arms like a baby.
Rubbing my eyes, I asked in a scratchy voice, "You're home already?"
"It's like eight."
"What the hell? I must've been really tired."
"Did you get the promotion?"
I looked away, unhooking my legs from his arms, and as soon as my feet touched the ground, I let out a short grumble.
"So that's a no?"
"It's definitely not a yes."
"I'm sorry. I know you were looking forward to that new job."
"Well, what are you gonna do? Shit happens, I guess."
"It's gonna happen for you. I know it will."
"I don’t even wanna talk about it. I just want a glass of wine and a long bath."
He grabbed my wrist and pulled me back toward him, wrapping his arms around me. The cologne he was wearing drifted from his neck, making my lids flutter in utter arousal.
"Are you okay?"
I didn’t have anything to say, since I actually wanted to stomp my fucking feet and cry every time I thought about that asshole telling me I hadn't gotten the promotion.
He pulled away a bit and looked down at me, caressing my cheek with his thumb. "What can I do to make it better?"
"Pizza. Lots and lots of pizza."
"Not exactly what I was thinking, but if that's what you want."
"What were you thinking?"
My lips parted.
"You know what, never mind. Don't answer that."
"You probably couldn't handle what I was going to say."
I shook my head as I pulled away and fell back on the couch.
He plopped down next to me, shuffling the envelopes on the coffee table. "What's this?"
"What's, what?" I asked, rubbing my eyes.
"This invitation. It's from your old high school."
"Let me see," I said, yanking the envelope from his hand, pulling the card stock from its jacket.
I scanned the information printed inside.
"Huh! My ten-year high school reunion. I can't believe it's been ten years already."
Shrugging, I threw the card back on the coffee table, hoping Cooper didn't pick up on my dismissive behavior, as I had no interest in explaining why I wouldn't be attending.
He looked at me with astonishment on his face.
"Don't you wanna go? I went to mine, and I had a great time," he said, picking the invitation back up, perusing the details printed on the page.
"You're a doctor, and you're fine as hell. Of course, you had a great time. I highly doubt I'm gonna wow anyone with my crappy job."
"Hey now, that's my best friend you're talkin' about there. And you're forgetting all your other amazing attributes."
"Like what?"
"Like the fact that you're beautiful, smart, and sometimes funny. Not all the time though, but you do have your moments," he said jokingly.
I turned from the television.
"Shut up, Cooper. You're my best friend, so you have to say that to me. You don't even know what it was like for me back then. It wasn't a walk in the park, ya' know. The mean girls, the boys that never noticed me, and there was that carb addiction adding forty-five extra pounds to my butt," I barked, grabbing the invitation from him, and flinging it back on the coffee table.
I planted my foot on top of it to keep him from picking it up again.
"Yes, I do! I was a scrawny little kid that got made fun of all the time, too. Don't forget what I looked like the day you met me. I opened the door, wrapped in nothing but a towel, to this beautiful creature holding a newspaper. I must've been about a hundred and fifteen pounds soaking wet."
Chapter Three
Cooper
"You know what…" my words trailed as I jumped over the couch, headed toward the bookcase, which mostly housed my medical books and some of her unused cookbooks.
"What?"
"You'll see," I said, pulling a dusty red leather-bound book from the bottom shelf.
I made my way back to the futon, and sat down next to her, crossing one of my legs over hers.
"Wait, what's that?"
"This, my dear, is your senior yearbook," I replied with a sinister smile. "Look here you are, Ella Anderson, most likely to succeed. See I always knew you were meant for great things!" I said, nudging her with my elbow.
Her reply was a quick nudge back, causing the moment to go from zero to sixty in less than two seconds flat. One could call the tension palpable, but I would call it downright thick. We gazed into each other's eyes and had one of those moments—the kind of moments right before a really great kiss. But as I leaned in to press my lips against hers, she backed away and cleared her throat.
"Most likely to succeed. What a joke! I've never succeeded at anything," she said sarcastically, as she shut the book and slid it onto my lap, before heading to the kitchen.
Goddam this woman should get a gold medal in playing with my fucking emotions.
"You succeeded in making me fall in love with you," I muttered under my breath.
"What'd you say?" she yelled from the kitchen.
"Oh, nothing," I replied, slumping down into the futon, opening the yearbook back up.
"I'm not going to embarrass myself, and I don't wanna hear anything else about it."
"Embarrass yourself?" my reply was peppered with a tinge of anger.
I hated that she felt that way about herself. I wanted her to see the woman that I saw—the woman that I loved. I shook my head. They say that love is blind—well, I say it's deaf, blind, and mute. This woman could do no wrong in my eyes, which was my fatal flaw when it came to our relationship; I let her hold all the power—even though she didn’t know it.
She schlepped back into the living room, indulging me with a fake smile, but the disappointment on her face was apparent, so I decided to change the subject.
"Who's this guy?"
She leaned over and eyed the picture I was pointing at. Her whole demeanor changed in a split second.
"Oh my goodness, that's Jay Aston, the most popular guy in school. He was MVP everything, and I was so in love with him. Ahhh, Jay. So yummy! Too bad he never knew I existed," she said, still gawking at the photo.
Disappointed, I asked, "Really, loved him, huh?"
She went around the futon and sat next to me, giving me a little push on the shoulder, chuckling. "Oh, Cooper. That was a little girl crush I had over ten years ago. There is no way he is still single, and even if he is, I'm sure he doesn't know who I am. But I bet he still looks just as fine as he did back then, though. Lordy, that man was fine as all I don't know what! If I was gonna pick someone to lose my virginity to—mmm, mmm, mmm."
"Hmmmm," I huffed.
I almost couldn't believe I was jealous of a high school crush that never amounted to anything more than a young girl's fantasy. I could feel the heat
in me swell, and I knew I had to drop the subject before I said something I was going to regret.
"It was ten years ago. Trust me—he didn't know me then and he sure as hell wouldn't know me now."
"Whatever you say," I said, trying not to pay attention.
"Why are you getting upset?"
"I'm not upset. Can't a guy ask a question without there being an ulterior motive?"
"Are you jealous?" she asked with a smile on her face, jumping off the futon and onto my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck.
"Jealous? Jealous of what? Like you said, it was ten years ago, and nothing happened right?"
ELLA
I raised an eyebrow, annoyed he was being weird about Jay. It was ten years ago, and nothing ever happened. Not that I wouldn't have wanted it to.
Jealous fuckin' men.
I smiled, trying to brush off his comment.
"You know, you should go. These things don't come around every day," he said, picking me up off his lap, throwing me onto the couch.
"Hey!" I hollered.
"You're a big girl. You can take it, can't you?"
I shot him a wink and a smile. "I can take a lot of things."
Sitting up, I studied the picture of Jay. His silky smooth bald head plunged into a chiseled jawline, and his light brown eyes were framed by a thick set of black eyelashes that were set above a pair of lips that begged to be kissed often. I remember passing him in the halls, eyeing those very lips, which were the star of most of my early fantasies.
I worshiped the ground he walked on, but dragging around all that weight, plus the other unattractive features, didn't help me attract his attention. The only people who ever really noticed me were the mean girls in school that bullied me daily.
One girl went as far as to pour grape Kool-Aid over my head during lunch while everyone else in the cafeteria laughed. I had to walk around the rest of the day with sticky, frizzy, hair, and purple stains all over my t-shirt. If I was honest with myself, I still carried around all the hurt from those terrible years.
"Are you still looking at that picture?" Cooper yelled from the kitchen.
I didn't reply, sliding my hand over the matte paper, reminiscing about the day it was taken. It wasn't a picture of us exchanging a friendly hug or even standing close enough for our jackets to have grazed. It was a picture for an article that I was writing for my journalism class, interviewing Jay before his big game against our rival school.
My best friend at the time, Jillian, had taken the picture to go with the article. Unbeknownst to me, she anonymously sent it to the yearbook committee under the guise that is was a flattering picture of Jay right before he won the big game and brought home the banner.
I could still remember the first time I laid eyes on him. Having just left class on my way home, I decided to cut through the football field, when out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of the marvelous creature whom I later came to know as Jay Aston. There he stood, in all of his shirtless glory, the sun glistening off of his beautiful brown skin.
I was hooked from the word go. Needless to say, from then on, I took that shortcut home every day. My imaginary relationship with him was the only thing, other than my journalism class, that made high school bearable.
"Man, I was so gross back then." I chuckled to myself.
"Did you say something?"
"Nope—nothing," I replied, shaking my head.
Cooper was already jealous enough, so there was no need to egg him on. I pored over the picture of my fat self, disgusted that I'd ever let myself get to that point. But, during the summer after graduating and before heading off to college, I decided to take matters into my hands. I stayed away from carbs and went to the gym every day, and eventually found myself a great dermatologist to take care of my horrible skin. By summer's end, all my hard work had garnered me a supermodel figure, and a blemish free complexion, but the exercise never shed the insecurity that still occasionally haunted me.
Cooper came back from the kitchen. "So, have you decided if you're going?"
I thought about it for a moment, the allure of seeing Jay again tantalized me so much, how could I say no? Maybe this was the man that I had been waiting for, the one who would sweep me off of my feet and put a ring on my finger. Well, a girl could dream—couldn't she?
I gazed down at the picture, then to the mirror that hung on the wall. Even though at times I still felt like that girl in the photo, I didn't look like her anymore, and maybe if I ran into Jay at the reunion, a second chance would be in the cards.
"You know what? I'm gonna go! And I'm gonna show all of those bastards that made fun of me the new and improved Ella Anderson."
"I'm glad you changed your mind. Do you want me to take a day off and go with you?" he asked, taking a bite of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
I thought about it for a moment, realizing that if Cooper came and Jay was there, Cooper would see me revert into a nerdy giggling school girl, and that was something I didn't want him to witness.
"Uh, no. I probably won't stay long, so it wouldn't be worth the extra effort to reschedule with your patients."
"Ok, if you're sure?"
"Yeah, I hate when doctors reschedule appointments I've had forever."
"You're probably right. And don't worry, it'll be fine. They're going to see the woman that I see, and they are gonna love…" his words trailed as he took another bite of his sandwich.
"They're gonna love?"
He didn't reply. Instead he took another bite of his sandwich as he stood up from the couch, and headed for his bedroom door. "As much as I'd love to stay up and chat, I got a few surgeries tomorrow, so I really gotta hit the sack."
"Sleep well, my prince," I said in the most sensual voice I could muster as I fluttered my eyelashes at him.
He shook his head at me. "You play way too much, Ella. One of these days it's gonna catch up with you."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means exactly what I said. Stop playing games," he warned, walking into his room, slamming the door behind him.
Chapter Four
Ella
It had been a few days since the invitation had come in the mail, and I had put the whole business of the reunion out of my mind. My less than stellar job kept me way too busy and way too tired to think about anything other than Form 1002 goes into file cabinet three, and Form 1002.1 goes in file cabinet twenty-seven. Who even made that up?
Cooper hollered from the kitchen, "Are you up?"
"Leave me alone!"
"Come here and make me," he flirted.
"I'm not in the mood."
"I made your coffee already. I'm leaving. I'll see you tonight."
Before I could say thanks, I heard the door slam. I rolled out of bed and brushed my teeth, and I think I might have thrown on some mascara, but I'm not too sure about that fact.
Like I said, I was tired, and I wasn't in the mood to look pretty for anyone. I shimmied on my usual tight pencil skirt, and blouse, and headed for the door to start another fabulous day of slinging forms around a stuffy office cubicle.
My phone beeped as I reached for the door. I pulled it out of my purse and read the text.
Cooper: Dinner tonight?
Me: Yes, but I have to buy a dress.
Cooper: You have a million dresses.
Me: Not one good enough for the reunion.
Cooper: Okay meet me in front of the apartment at 7.
Me: Why do you get to decide?
Cooper: Fine you decide.
Me: 7:02.
Cooper: Bye!
I chuckled to myself. I had to run and grab something to wear right after work and right before dinner with Cooper. Otherwise I'd be stuck wearing last year's New Year's Eve party outfit to the reunion.
"It never ends," I said, sliding the phone back into my purse before heading out the door.
As I waited for the elevator in the office lobby, my mind wandered to the impending reunion. I w
ondered how I would handle myself around all those mean ass women. My head told me it was years ago and people change—hell, I'd changed, but there was still that insecure little girl lurking underneath the surface, just waiting to make her presence known.
The elevator dinged, and the doors opened, snapping me out of my deep contemplation.
Here we go!
I stepped into the elevator, praying the whole way the work day would fly by, but that would've been too good to be true. The hours seemed to tick away more slowly now that I had somewhere to go after work. I was going to ask to leave early, but Mr. Rells, looked unusually flustered, and I wasn't one to rock the boat.
So after filing my hundredth form, my mind once again drifted to the reunion and the possibility of seeing Jay. I had to figure out what to wear, and I had to make sure that it was going to get everyone's head to turn. After all, I was only going to get one chance to make the best second impression.
"Ella. Are you there?" my boss asked, waving his hand in my face.
I was startled after being caught daydreaming. "Yes. I'm sorry. I'm here."
"I need you to file this stack of forms before you leave. Alma didn't come into work today, so you're going to have to pick up her load."
"But—"
"Uh, uh, uh. Teamwork makes the dream work," he said, wagging his finger at me.
"Right—the dream."
"Say it with me. Team. Work. Makes—"
I nodded. "I got it. I got it. Makes the dream work," I said with a snarky attitude, sighing as I grabbed the added stack of work.
Damn Alma!
The clock said I only had an hour to go, but the stack of work in front of me said I had another eight.
Addicted To You: A Last Chance Romance (You and Me Series Book 2) Page 2
