You’re still the one
In my arms tonight
Love me like you do (Coming Soon)
What if you can’t help but hurt the person you love?
Kat Cullen has it all—a staff writer position at the New York Times, beauty, independence—until she finds herself alone on the subway at night with a rapist. Saved by Alex Summer, a democratic candidate running for mayor of New York, she develops an unexpected friendship with him.
Alex’s chaotic past is the kind of juicy scoop every political reporter dreams of—which is why he keeps it hidden. But as he starts falling in love with Kat, he opens up to her about his darkest secrets. What he doesn’t know is that Kat already knows all about him, and she’s on an assignment to expose his history.
Caught between truth, love and ambition, two people must figure out the politics of the heart.
Forty-two years ago
The shadows haunting the walls of his room grew bigger and scarier, creeping closer to the edge of the bed. Shivering, Cole ducked his head under the sheets. His pulse pounded like nails being hammered into the wall.
Footsteps. Coming towards him. Growing in volume.
The creak of the door opening made him almost pee in his pants, but he controlled himself by biting his bottom lip. He had to be strong.
Holding his breath, Cole peered through a sliver of space he created by lifting the bedsheet.
Someone snuck in, filling the room with a strong presence. Mom. She switched on the lights and shook her head in disapproval when he blinked at her and then screamed in joy.
“You should be sleeping,” she chastised.
Tugging at the hem of her pink skirt with his chubby fingers, Cole tried to pull her closer to comfort him. “Tell me a story.”
Instead of her bending over for the book, which lay somewhere in the dark place under his bed, her gentle fingers raked through his hair.
“Sorry, dear, I can’t. I have to work. Be a good boy and go to sleep, okay?” She hugged him. It was a short hug, which meant she had no time.
“I’m scared.” Cole pushed his cheek against her tummy when a trace of those dark forms crawled over the walls again. He didn’t want to upset her by crying, so he reined in his tears.
“Don’t be scared. You’re a brave boy.” Her fingers brushed his neck and her scent—feminine, soft and comforting like her—infiltrated his nostrils.
Cole tried to throw a tantrum to make her stay, knowing that she wouldn’t. She never did. “I need you.”
“Tomorrow, we’ll go to the park and I’ll buy you ice cream. But only if you go to sleep now.” Her body pulled away, leaving his skin cold.
The mention of ice cream soothed his anxiety. “Promise?”
“Promise.” She kissed his forehead and he almost shed a tear. “I love you.”
He loved her too, but he didn’t say it.
She tucked him in under the sheets, left the light at his bedside on and soundlessly shut the door.
Then never returned.
By the time he was twelve, Cole had realized a few things. The first was that the best way to deal with bruises was by hiding them, the second was that trying to please people was the most useless pursuit in the world and the third was that like all the other foster parents before them, Maria and Bill were going to send him back.
His ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ stood at the door like statues, holding Dawn, their newly adopted girl, waiting for him to vacate their suburban castle. Cole had never thought of them as his parents, but that didn’t mean their rejection didn’t hurt.
Turning up the intensity of his scowl, he sneered at the woman standing by the door jamb. The social worker. He’d seen her a couple of times before.
All he could say about her was that she was fat. So fat he couldn’t make out where her stomach ended and her legs began. That’s why he’d nicknamed her ‘Watermelon’.
“It’s time to go,” she said.
To their credit, his ‘parents’ flashed a sickeningly superficial smile and mumbled words that didn’t matter. Dawn reached out a finger to him, muttering a slurred, “I’ll miss you.”
At least she was genuine, though, with the red eyes and stuff.
Cole slapped her hand away, a move that invited a sharp look from his ‘mother’. What was her name again? Mrs. something? Honestly, he’d had so many ‘mothers’, he couldn’t be bothered to keep track of all their names.
Dawn looked upset, but she didn’t cry. Little Miss Perfect.
Dawn had been his sister for the two years he’d lived in this house. She was seven, rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed and perfectly lovable.
She had no ‘behavioral problems’, didn’t break stuff, did well in school, said ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ for everything.
In contrast to his ugliness, she looked beautiful. In contrast to his darkness, she looked radiant. In contrast to his imperfections she was perfect. And she was loved. Cherished, kept like a treasure, not tossed away like an empty can of tuna.
Cole hated her so much.
“Thank you for providing him with such good care, Mr. and Mrs. Alesio.” Watermelon bowed.
Glaring at him, she silently urged him to show his gratitude.
Cole stuck out his tongue at the four of them—Dawn, his ‘parents’ and Watermelon—then averted his face. He refused to thank the two people who were throwing him away.
“Take care. It was great having you with us.” Mr. Alesio said, caressing Dawn’s hair. Wishes were not meant to be delivered with such a strained face.
Watermelon wrapped her cigar-like fingers around his wrist. “Come on.”
Cole gave her a dirty look, but followed her out of the house without protest. He didn’t like her, but he’d seen her so many times, he could at least tolerate her.
When all was said and done, she was the only constant factor in his life. Every year or so, she showed up without fail to take him to a new version of hell. A new set of faces he would try to please, long to be loved by, until they uttered the dreaded lines: “I can’t deal with him anymore. He’s out of control. Let’s send him back.”
Then a few days later, Watermelon would appear and drive him to a group home, before dumping him on another pair of losers, aka ‘parents’.
Cole, these are your new parents. Mr. and Mrs. Loser, she’d say, in her super-annoying Minnie Mouse voice, crossing her fingers behind her back, praying desperately that he would click with the new family.
Cole felt a twinge of pain as the yellow-painted house, built with the ingredients of a fairytale, became another painful thorn in his memory.
He’d never liked that house or Mr. and Mrs. Alesio anyway. They were nice in a fake sort of way, like they were trying so hard their faces could crack. He didn’t like fake people.
But what he liked even less was feeling like a ship in the storm. His memory lingered on the day before his mother had died, the day he’d been thrust into this cycle of homelessness and hopelessness.
Every time he thought of that episode, it only made him want to pull out his heart and burn it.
He was angry. Angry at his helplessness, his ugliness, his stupidity. Angry at his mom for dying and leaving him in the hands of stupid people who kept sending him to the wrong place time after time.
“Cole, ya alive back there? Haven’t heard a peep from you,” Watermelon said half an hour later, craning her neck to get a glimpse of him in the rear view mirror.
“Shut up.” Cole kicked the back of the driver’s seat.
“Seems like you’re doing good. Wanna grab ice cream on the way back?” They stopped at a red light.
Cole kicked the seat again, embarrassed by ho
w quickly tears rushed to his eyes. “I hate ice cream.”
If there was one thing that exemplified what was wrong with his life, it was ice cream. Ice cream was bad memories. Missed chances. A broken promise. The impossible.
Stupid. Stop being such a crybaby, he scolded himself, wiping away the moisture in his eyes with the back of his hand.
“What about candy? I have some in the car,”
Candy? Did she say candy?
“Which one?” He pushed his face into the space between the two front seats, his ear squishing into the flesh of her arm.
“Whichever you want,” she said, running her fingers through bars of Snickers and Mars stored in the glovebox.
Cole’s face lit up.
Actually, he could get used to Watermelon.
Two years later
She should’ve been different. She’d seemed different. For starters, she’d said that she loved him. Too many times to count.
“I love you, Cole. You’re a wonderful child. I just wish you helped me more at home.”
To please her, he’d started doing laundry, dishes, vacuuming, car maintenance, everything.
He’d polished vases instead of breaking them, replaced F-words with ‘thank you’ and ‘please’, stopped whining about the bullying in school, hidden his bruises under baseball hats and long-sleeved T-shirts so that she wouldn’t see how violent he was. He’d stopped blaming fate and started taking things in his own hands. And every time she’d cast that disapproving look at him, he’d sworn to do better. To become better.
All so that she would keep him. Free him from the revolving door of parents. Free him from having to live in uncertainty.
She was his last chance. His last chance to redeem himself. And this time, he’d sworn to become what she wanted.
That perfect, obedient boy who was worthy of love. Worthy of having parents.
Cole had been so, so sure that she’d want to keep him forever, just like he wanted to be with her forever.
Then, punctual as the rising sun, Watermelon had dropped by to pick him up a year later in her worn-out Prius, and tried to soothe his unsettled emotions with more candy bars.
His newest ‘mother’ had abandoned him, too. Thrown him away like trash.
“It’s not your fault. She has to move away and she wants to focus on her hobbies. She said she enjoyed her time with you,” Watermelon consoled, speeding up.
She always made them—these foster parents—seem like they were such nice people, when they weren’t.
“So I was her hobby for a year and now she wants to move on to something else? Crochet, maybe?” Cole stuffed his mouth with Snickers, finding solace in the yearly ritual that had begun two years ago when he’d left the Alesios.
Catching his reflection in the mirror only made him feel worse. Puberty had painted his face with splotches of acne and scratchy bristles of hair, sealing his fate as a perpetual loner.
He looked disgusting nowadays. How was he going to get laid? And more importantly, who was going to adopt him now?
His chest reverberated with his heart’s thumping as his mind wandered down the treacherous path of ‘what-ifs’. What if nobody ever adopted him? What would he do then? If he was lucky enough to scrape through school, he’d get a job. But what then? What about his future? He didn’t want to be stacking shelves at Walmart or frying burgers at McDonalds forever. His life was more than that. He wanted to be something. Do something important. Something heroic.
But how would he do it when his future was floating away in the stream of uncertainty?
“I hate everyone!” Vigorously, Cole tore into another bar of Snickers, attempting to bury the aching insecurity. There were so many questions in his head with answers he didn’t want to hear.
Watermelon, looking concerned, attempted to make him feel better. “Cole, don’t be disheartened. We’ll find you a better place. You’ll love the people there. And they’ll love ya.”
Cole scoffed at that. What did she know? She’d never loved.
Love was the hardest thing in the world. So fleeting. So painful. And so damn unreliable.
Two years later
People scuttled out of the courtroom at the end of the trial, sparing him contemptuous glances from the corners of their eyes. Criminal, their hard-lined lips screamed without parting. Cole wanted to punch them, more so because they were right.
Five minutes ago, he’d officially become a criminal.
The judge’s words hung over him. Found guilty for illegal possession and distribution of controlled substances. A year in prison. Detention center, they called it, but it was the same thing.
For a crime he hadn’t even committed.
The unfairness of it all grated on his nerves, throbbed in his veins, turning to cold, hard anger that controlled him once again. He beat on the table, kicking and pummeling it until it cracked.
Now, along with everything else, the law had let him down, too. It had made him a victim a second time. First a victim of the foster care system, now the legal system.
His throat stung but he couldn’t allow himself to let the tears out. He hadn’t even cried when he was four. He was not going to cry over some pathetic old geezer’s judgment of what he’d done.
Unlawful possession and distribution of controlled substances. That was a mouthful for a simple action.
He was no drug lord. He’d just delivered a few packets of what his employers had told him was Chinese medicine. It had been a part-time thing. He hadn’t even known that the fucking packets had crack in them.
He’d thought it was herbs. Or whatever Chinese medicines were made of.
Okay, he should’ve suspected that it was some type of illegal stuff, because nobody paid a sixteen-year old twenty bucks an hour to hand around herbs and collect payment, but the clinic he’d been working for was pretty swanky so he’d figured they made good money. It wasn’t his crime. He wasn’t the one buying or selling that stuff. He’d only been transporting it. Unknowingly.
But those lying bastards who’d paid him had pinned the whole deal on him. He was the boss, apparently. The one calling the shots, smuggling drugs from Mexico under their ignorant noses, selling it out of their squeaky-clean clinic to their unsuspecting patients.
He—a sixteen-year-old who couldn’t fucking spell his name properly.
And the jury had bought that piece of bull. What a bunch of dickheads. How was it possible for a sixteen-year-old who spent all his time bouncing around schools and group homes to run a crack business on the side?
And the public defender assigned to him—the one with a face like a toad—had not said a word to defend him. The public defender had let the prosecutor’s show play, let the lies go, let the false accusations turn into reality.
Let Cole go to jail.
He clenched his fists and tried to take a shot at Toadface’s jaw, which Toadface blocked.
“Do you need to add assault to your criminal record?” Toadface asked through clenched teeth. A real toad would look more handsome in that suit.
“I’m going to jail anyway,” Cole returned.
Police officers standing around the door rushed to control him. Their hands clamped down on his arms. He wriggled, but they didn’t give him any room. It was going to take a lot of getting used to, being tied down like this.
“You’re only going to be in there for a year,” the public defender consoled him.
Only for a year?
One year was an eternity in the life of a teen. He’d be seventeen by the time he was released. And any chance of him ever getting through high school with decent grades would be gone. Not that he’d ever had that chance, but still.
“Is my life a joke to you, asshole?” He lunged at Toadface, but was pulled back.
“No, but you’ve made a joke of it yourself.” Toadface slicked back his hair.
Seething rage shook Cole, but he couldn’t do anything. Helplessness was what he hated the most, but it followed him around like a vengef
ul apparition.
Two more years and he could get rid of it. He wouldn’t have to depend on anybody. He’d be an adult. Independent. Free from all these people who were running his life and letting him down all the time. He was going to go as far as he could from here, to somewhere he could start anew.
“It’s okay, Cole. Calm down.” Watermelon, who’d been standing close to him, put an arm around his shoulder.
Cole didn’t know whether it was pity or sympathy that played on her face. Whatever it was, he didn’t want it.
He shrugged, pushing her away.
She was the last person he’d wanted to see today. He’d hoped she wouldn’t come. Wouldn’t see him like this. Their relationship was rocky, but it was the only one that had lasted longer than ten years in his life. She was the only person who he didn’t feel like punching in the face ninety-nine percent of the time.
“Go away.” He sulked.
“I’m afraid I won’t see you again. I’m retiring this year.” Fatso swallowed, guilt flickering in her misty ebony eyes.
He blinked, his idiotic brain not registering the words quickly enough. “So this is the last time I’ll see you?”
“Yeah.”
Those words rocked him. Cracked him. More than the verdict, more than Toadface’s ugliness.
She was abandoning him, too.
“You can’t leave. Don’t leave.” It had an eerie echo of the parting words he’d said to his mother.
Cole balled his fists, knowing the inevitability of what came next. The one thing that was predictable about life was the way it always, always managed to suck away your happiness and replace it with misery.
Watermelon looked at the floor. “I’m sorry. I hope you grow up to be a fine young man and channel your energy in the right direction.” Closing her cocoa palm over his, she pleaded, “Please try to change, for my sake. You can do it. I know you can.”
Useless hopes. The only thing he was going to grow up to be was a violent, bitter man with a mile-long criminal record.
“Ma’am, we need to take him now,” the law enforcement officer bellowed and Cole felt trained muscles poke into his back.
In my Arms Tonight (NYC Singles Book 2) Page 1
