“Head straight back and to the left,” I told her.
“Done.”
She took my hand as we wove our way through the crowded bar. When we reached a relatively clear area where four guys stood playing darts, I got an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Kaitlyn’s arms were suddenly wrapped around my waist. “Since you refused to pick me up at the airport, big brother, I picked myself up a man. We’re going to have a few drinks and then go back to his hotel to have some fun.”
She looked up at me and winked as my eyes got wide. That was the game she wanted me to play. I was so not getting my ass kicked by her brother because she wanted to be cute.
A tall guy with a baseball hat over his blond hair turned to face us. “You did what?” Then his eyes darted to me and recognition dawned in them.
Ho-ly shit.
He looked at his sister again. “What the fuck are you doing with him?”
I was fairly sure Kaitlyn assumed her brother had recognized me from Liar’s Edge and not because he actually knew me.
“I told you. We’re going to hook up.” She grinned up at me. “Isn’t that right, baby?”
I unwove her arms from around my waist. “Uh, no. Sorry, I can’t play this game. I should go. This was a mistake.”
I turned to leave but stopped in my tracks when he said my name.
“Andrew, wait,” he said when I didn’t turn around the first time he said it.
I finally turned around slowly and took a deep breath.
“Hey Cole,” I said, as my heart started to pound, and my head started to wrap around what had just happened. Seriously, what were the odds?
“You two know each other?” Kaitlyn asked.
“Yeah,” I mumbled at the same time Cole said confidently, “Yeah, we do.”
Then he took a step toward me, and it felt like my heart was literally going to pound out of my chest. But at least I knew one thing – I definitely felt something for the man standing in front of me. And it scared the shit out of me, because no longer was there a country between us to keep me from acting on what I was feeling. There was just three feet of open space.
“How do you know my brother?” Kaitlyn asked, looking up at me.
I sighed. “He’s the guy.”
“The guy? Oh! The guy. Shut up, seriously?” She was looking back and forth between us. “Huh.”
“What is she talking about?” Cole asked, a smirk twisting his mouth up at the corner, giving me flashbacks of what exactly that mouth could do.
“Nothing,” I said quickly, because I was suddenly afraid to come clean about every little thing swirling through my mind and awakening areas below my waist.
“Cole, you jerk!” Kaitlyn said then, smacking him on his chest. “You never told me you hooked up with Andrew Bryce from Liar’s Edge! That is so cool! I’m so jealous!”
Cole didn’t answer her, and I was glad he didn’t. I also found it kind of nice that he hadn’t told anyone about us.
Then I noticed a guy standing a few feet behind him who looked decently pissed off, and I knew in that moment why Cole wasn’t answering his sister’s question. I also realized that I really should have thought through my impromptu trip more carefully. Or I should have at least called. Apparently Cole was on a date.
“I can totally see you two together,” Kaitlyn said, clearly not noticing the other guy. I watched the color drain from Cole’s face. “But I thought you were with that guy that you told me about? Haden, right?”
“Shut up, Kaitlyn,” Cole growled under his breath, and I couldn’t help but find it sexy.
“He is with Haden,” the guy who’d been watching us said as he stepped up next to Cole and took his hand. Then he narrowed his eyes at me. “I know you.”
I cocked my head to the side. “Uh, I don’t think we’ve met.”
The guy nodded. “You play guitar, right?”
“Yes.”
He nodded as he glared at me. “Yeah, I remember you. You were talking to Cole the night your band played here.”
Who the hell was this guy?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess I was.”
I was fairly certain that he had no clue his date or boyfriend – whatever the hell they were to each other – had asked for my number the week before, nor did he know the finer details about our history.
And that was my cue to get the hell out. I had plans to be on the first plane back to Raleigh the next morning. What the hell had I been thinking? I’d just assumed when Cole called that he was single, but apparently he wasn’t. And that pissed me off.
I untangled myself from Kaitlyn who had wrapped her arms around my waist again when I hadn’t been paying attention. “I’ll see you all later,” I said with no intentions to see any of them ever again.
Then I turned to walk away.
“Where are you going, Drew?” Kaitlyn asked, and I didn’t think she could be that clueless.
“Home,” I said, not looking back at any of them.
That time Cole didn’t stop me.
Chapter Five
Andrew
When I checked into my hotel, it was well passed eleven, but I wasn’t tired, so I went down and ran a few miles on the treadmill to try to push all the garbage of the past week out of my head. The next morning I’d go home, crawl back to Jen and apologize. She didn’t deserve how I’d treated her, and I was going to start making it up to her right away.
I got back to my room an hour later and saw that I had several missed calls. One was from Zack. He’d been calling me all night, and I’d been ignoring him, but the three other missed calls were all from the same number, and it was an 813 area code. I hadn’t saved the number the first time he’d called, but for some odd reason, those ten digits were burned into my brain.
My phone rang again, making me jump. It was Cole again. Out of anger, I yanked it off the bed and answered it.
“What?” I demanded.
Apparently I was a glutton for punishment.
“I don’t know what to say,” he said softly.
“Then why did you call?”
“Because I felt bad leaving things the way we did at O’Donnell’s. It wasn’t cool, but I didn’t know what to do. You just showed up out of nowhere.”
I sat down on the edge of the bed. “Yeah, well, it wasn’t my intention. I had no idea that when I agreed to have a drink with your sister in exchange for a ride that I’d run into you.”
“What are you doing in Tampa? I know you aren’t playing a show, because you guys are on hiatus while you record your new album.”
A warm feeling spread in my stomach at the fact that he knew that information. I softened just a bit.
“What do you think I’m doing here?” There was no use in pretending now.
“You came here to see me, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I said resignedly.
“Then, do you want to see me?” he asked cautiously.
I sighed. “I already saw you, and you were with your boyfriend.”
“Andrew, it’s not like that. Haden and I are dating, but I’m not looking for anything serious – with him.”
Well, shit, what the hell was I supposed to read from that?
“What’s your room number?”
“What?”
“I’m in the lobby of your hotel. What’s your room number?”
My heart started pounding in my chest. “Why?”
He sighed. “So we can continue this conversation in person instead of over the phone.”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I never should have told Kaitlyn where I was staying. And now that Cole was here, I should not let him in my room. That would only lead to bad things. I needed to be stronger than that.
“Room 726,” I said, my mouth having a mind of its own.
“I’ll be right up.”
Shit.
I instantly turned to look in the mirror. My blond hair was damp around the edges, and my sleeveless shirt was drenched in several p
laces. I probably needed a shower, but there wasn’t much I could do about that now.
A knock on the door made me jump a mile. I ran my hand back through my hair, cupped my hand over my mouth to check my breath and then opened the door.
Cole was still dressed in the gray t-shirt he’d been wearing earlier with jeans that showed off his perfect ass. I’d noticed when he’d had his back to us by the dartboards, back before I’d realized who he was. I’d been checking him out.
“Come in,” I said, stepping back into the room.
“Did you work out?” he asked, as I closed the door.
“Yeah, I ran on the treadmill for like an hour.”
He narrowed his eyes in confusion. “It’s after midnight.”
I shrugged. “I had some things to get out of my system. Running helps. But listen, I sort of want to take a shower. Can you give me a few minutes?”
I figured if he was still there when I got out, then I’d talk to him.
“Sure,” he said, taking a seat on the bed as he flipped on the TV and kicked off his shoes like he was planning to stay for a while.
I took my time in the shower, and when I emerged fifteen minutes later, Cole was laying back on the bed still watching TV. His hat was sitting next to him on the bed, and his hands were behind his head of moppy blond hair that I wanted to run my fingers through. He looked up at me and smiled, so I sat on the edge of the bed.
“What do you want to talk about?” I asked, even though I knew.
He sat up straighter and looked at me. “You changed your mind. What happened to your girlfriend?”
“I’m still with her.”
He nodded. “But you feel something between us, don’t you?”
Apparently we were cutting right to the chase.
“Yes,” I said, sort of afraid to admit it out loud.
“I feel it too. It’s not like this with Haden. I like him, but I don’t lose sleep thinking about him.”
Holy shit.
“You’ve lost sleep over me?” I asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.
He nodded. “Tons. I don’t know what it was about you, but you stuck in my brain, and then when I saw you again, I couldn’t just walk away without seeing if there was something there on your end.”
“So, you’re bi,” I said, not sure why I’d blurted that out. Maybe I needed to hear his story to know that what I was feeling wasn’t so crazy. It also held off the subject he wanted to dig deeper into, which I was artfully avoiding.
“Yeah. I like women, but I’m attracted to some men too.” He shrugged. “It’s been that way for years, but it took me a while to admit it. What about you, because I don’t believe that shit about you being straight.”
“I guess I’m bi too,” I said, the word as hard to say as I’d imagined. “Truthfully, you’re the first guy I’ve ever really been attracted too, and it’s sort of freaking me out.”
“Really? You’ve never had feelings – even feelings of lust – for another guy?”
I shrugged. “No. I don’t know. I guess on some level, yes. There have been guys that I’ve been attracted to, and I’ve kissed a guy before – my friend in high school – but I figured that was just experimental teenager stuff that a lot of people do.”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Not many guys do that.”
I sighed. He was probably right. “Fine, I guess I’ve always been this way,” I said begrudgingly, “but I’m just now coming to terms with it, I suppose.”
“I know the feeling. It’s not an easy thing to admit. I fought it for years before I finally just decided to own it.”
Damn, he was so nice, and just seeing him in person and hearing his voice was putting me dangerously close to doing something I might regret.
“So I was the first guy you hooked up with?” he clarified.
I nodded. “Yeah, and I really was drunk that night. For a while I told myself it was the alcohol, but for the next three hundred and eighty days that I thought about that night, I was sober.”
Cole smiled. “Fond memories?”
I let out a short laugh. “Yeah, really fond if I’m being honest.”
“I know what you mean. I don’t want to freak you out or anything, but that was sort of the best sex of my life.”
“Mine too,” I blurted out, chuckling nervously. Then I felt weird that I’d admitted it to him.
“So what do we do?” he asked, thankfully not commenting further on my admission.
I shrugged. “Nothing, I guess. I have a girlfriend, and you’re dating Haden.”
“But you’re here. You came all the way to Tampa.”
Cole yawned again, and I looked at the clock to see how late it was.
“I know, and I’m leaving tomorrow,” I told him.
He nodded, as if knowing I was going to say that.
“So why did you come here if you’re just going to leave tomorrow? I mean, I know you wanted to see me, but that can’t be all you wanted.”
It was a valid question.
“I guess I wanted to get you out of my system, but I wasn’t really thinking things through when I made that decision. I won’t hook up with you while I’m with someone – or frankly while you’re with someone for that matter.”
He cocked his head to the side. “You did it before. I had a girlfriend the night we hooked up.”
“That was different,” I said, holding up my finger to make a point. “She was there. She consented. I’m not into cheating, and from the look on Haden’s face tonight, he had no clue about you and me.”
You and me. I shouldn’t have liked how that sounded when I heard myself say it.
Cole must have liked it too, because he reached over and took my hand in his. I let him, enjoying the feel of our fingers wrapped together, even though it made me feel guilty.
“Come here,” he said softly.
“Did you not hear what I just said?” I asked, but still I let him hold my hand.
“I heard you loud and clear, and I’m not going to kiss you if that’s what you’re worried about. Just come closer. The scent of your shampoo or your body wash, or maybe just you, is driving me a little nuts, but in a really good way.”
My heart skipped a beat at that admission, and I slid over next to him. He ran his hand through my damp hair.
“You’re really beautiful,” he said as he took my hand, turned it over, and ran his thumb across some of the calluses I’d gotten from a decade and a half of playing the guitar. “I’m not going to lie. I’d like to kiss you.”
I closed my eyes. I wanted that too, but I couldn’t. I opened my eyes to see Cole yawning again, and when he closed his mouth, I reached out and ran my finger across his lips, memorizing the softness of them since I knew I wouldn’t get to touch them again. Now that I’d seen him, I would be okay letting him go. We both had people to get back to, and we needed to just do that.
“I should go. It’s late,” he said when I pulled my hand back and moved away from him, essentially making my final decision that nothing would happen between us.
I nodded. “It’s probably for the best.”
“Can I call you?”
I shook my head. “You probably shouldn’t.”
Cole stood from the bed and stared down at me. Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to my forehead. “I’ll call you this week, Andrew. If nothing else, we can be friends.”
I nodded, unable to tell him no. He took my hand again and laced our fingers together as he pulled back and stared at me, an intense look in his eyes. The corners of his lips turned up slightly.
“I’m glad you came to here,” he said then. “Stay another day, will you?”
“I really shouldn’t.”
His lips curled up into a smirk as he took my other hand in his. I didn’t fight him. “But you want to.”
I bit my lip and just stared at him, because a part of me really wanted to stay.
“Kaitlyn and I will come by around eleven tomorrow and pick you up to go to
the beach. If you’re still here, I promise we’ll have a fun day. If not, I’ll understand.”
Simply because he’d given me an out, it made me want to stay even more.
“Will Haden be there?”
He shook his head. “No, he has to work.”
“I’ll think about it.”
I looked down at his hands holding mine, not wanting to let him go. I wanted him to stay, even if it was just to sleep, because in that moment, sleeping all night next to Cole Stephenson sounded like the nicest thing in the world. And it was in that crazy, effed-up moment that I pretty much decided to dive in headfirst and embrace a person I never in a million years thought I’d become.
But sometimes you can’t help who you become. You don’t have any control. It had taken me over a year to come to terms with it, and I still wasn’t all the way there. I knew there were probably a lot of people in my life who would think I was out of my mind or possessed or even a sinner. But as I looked into Cole’s eyes, being there with him felt so incredibly right.
But then I pictured my dad’s face when I told him I liked guys, that I was dating a guy. I pictured my mom crying like I knew she would. I imagined Derrick punching me and calling me a fag like I’d heard him say in the past when we saw two guys together. I saw Zack and Leo disgusted by me. I saw our fans turning their backs because of me and the guys kicking me out of the band. And worst of all, I saw Jen in tears because she loved me and wanted to make a life with me, and I was taking that away from her.
With all that swirling in my mind, I pulled my hands out of Cole’s and looked down. “You should go,” I said, the emotion drained from my voice.
“What just happened?” he asked, confusion lacing his tone.
“I can’t do this.”
“Do what? We’re just friends.”
I shook my head, but I still wouldn’t lift it. I didn’t want to look into his eyes as I told him to leave, because it wasn’t what I wanted. It was just what I had to do, and if I looked at him I knew I wouldn’t have the strength to send him away.
“Just go, Cole. I’m leaving in the morning.”
“Okay,” he said, even though I knew he wanted to say more.
Broken Fairytales Series Box Set (Broken Fairytales, Buried Castles, Shattered Crowns) Page 67
