by Renee, Holly
“Yeah. My best friend is a bit needy.”
“But he’s still your best friend?” He looked up, and he looked so unsure of himself.
“Forever.”
Twenty-Three
My parents were freaking out.
Their perfect little daughter with her perfect hair and perfect clothes on the perfect life path was officially screwing everything up.
But I didn’t care.
My dad was furious when I told him that I would figure everything out after he threatened to cut me off. It was the only leverage they had over me now, and neither of them thought I was strong enough to do it on my own.
But I would prove them wrong.
In the week since everything happened, I was already fully enrolled in Columbia University for the spring semester. My scholarship covered one hundred percent of my tuition, but nothing else. Student housing was more expensive there than it was at the University of Georgia, but Theo spent hours with me going over different student loan options and deciding which one was right for me.
I felt settled somehow.
Everything in my life felt like it was off track, every decision that had been made for me for so long had gone askew, but somehow I felt more secure than I had in a long time.
I still hadn’t spoken to Easton.
I called him, twice, and send him a text, but he didn’t respond to any of it.
I didn’t know what to say to him. I didn’t know if there was anything I could do that would change what had happened between us.
But I knew that I couldn’t stay here for him. Not that he even wanted me to.
I slid my phone into my back pocket as I jogged down the stairs. There was a barbecue at the Kappa frat house tonight, and I figured I had been avoiding the place for long enough. I was bound to run into Easton one way or another, and I couldn’t stop hanging out with my best friend for fear that I would.
It didn’t matter anyway. As soon as I pushed open the door to our dorms, I spotted him in the parking lot leaning against the driver’s side door of my car. He watched me as I walked toward him, but I couldn’t take my eyes off his white t-shirt that read Columbia University across the chest in blue.
Shivers ran through me the closer I got to him. I knew seeing him would be hard, but this was different. My whole body felt like it was on fire as I walked toward him. I could feel the flames licking up my skin, but I was no longer afraid of being burned.
“What are you doing here?” I looked from one side to the next, anywhere but directly at him, and I wrapped my arms around myself.
“I heard a rumor about you, Ms. Duncan.” He was still leaning back against my car. He looked so calm and confident, and for a moment, I wished that I could take away everything that had happened between us. I wished he were just a boy and I was just a girl and that the world was still at our fingertips.
“Which rumor would that be?” My eyes finally met his blue ones. “There seems to be a few going around.”
He smirked then, that cocky self-assured smirk that I couldn’t get enough of, and I knew that a week away from him had done nothing but made me weaker against him.
“I heard that you’re leaving for New York.” He cocked his head to the side, just slightly, and waited for my answer.
“I am.” I nodded, and for some reason, I was more nervous to tell Easton about Columbia than anyone.
“This will definitely be a story for our children.” He pushed off the car and took a step toward me. “Their mom planned to leave me without a single word, and she didn’t even think that I would follow her.”
I sucked in a broken breath, and he kept talking.
“She didn’t think that, after everything, I would still love her. That I would do whatever it took to figure everything out.”
I shook my head because I couldn’t even comprehend what he was saying. He wasn’t supposed to forgive me. I had no right to his forgiveness. “Easton.”
“But she was wrong.” He stood directly in front of me now. The tip of his shoes touching mine. “I should have called you back, but I needed some time.”
I stared at him as I nodded, but he didn’t owe me any explanation. “I didn’t expect you to call me back.”
“I didn’t expect you to go to Columbia.” His voice was softer now.
I shrugged my shoulders like it was no big deal, but we both knew it was. “And what about you? What now since you lost your TA position?”
“Well.” He reached his hand out and wrapped his fingers around my hip before pulling me a step closer to him. “It turns out the perks of the job weren’t as good as I thought.”
“No?” I was staring up at him, but he was staring at my lips.
“No. I mean the professor’s letter of recommendation helped me get accepted to Columbia for grad school next fall, but I’m not sure how much that matters if I can’t date the students.”
I wanted to laugh, even with every inch of my body feeling like a live wire in his touch. “You have any specific students in mind?”
The grin that lit up his face was the grin of a heartbreaker, and I knew firsthand just how treacherous falling for him could be.
He didn’t give me time to catch my breath or to calm down my heart. He reached forward, wrapping his other hand around my neck, and he kissed me like he had been missing me as badly as I had been missing him.
It wasn’t gentle or teasing. It felt like a storm. The wild chaos of lightning and wind and rain pounding down against me, and just for a second there was a silence, just before the thunder hit, and I knew with absolute certainty that I would never love anyone like I loved Easton Cole.
He pulled away from me, and I was terrified.
Loving someone like that was scary, and I knew that he would demand all of me.
But I was tired of living with both feet planted firmly on the ground. I was ready to take the plunge and go all in. No excuses. No one to decide but me and him.
Easton pressed his lips back against mine, gently this time, and he whispered his words against my lips.
“Just one.”
The end.
Epilogue
Easton
Three Months Later
I never really thought that I would be visiting my girlfriend at the same school I had been working my ass off to get into for the last four years.
If you had told me I’d be here six months ago, I wouldn’t have believed you. I wouldn’t have believed any of it.
But here I was climbing up the steps of Maddison’s new dorm room, and all I could think about was her. Hell, the only thing I had been able to think about since Maddison Duncan walked into my chest was her.
I never stood a chance.
Not when she arrived at the University of Georgia and not when she left.
It didn’t matter where she was. I wanted her, and now that she was officially mine, I wouldn’t let anything get between us again.
Not her parents who already didn’t like me even though they didn’t know shit about me.
Not some stupid school rules.
And definitely not Theo Hunt.
Maddison had forgiven him so easily—too easily if you asked me, but I was still working on it. I had a feeling I was going to be working on it for a while. But he was her best friend, and for her, I was willing to try anything.
I knocked on the old wooden door that led to dorm two hundred and seventeen. It had been exactly one and a half months since I laid eyes on Maddison, at least in person, and I was dying to touch her, to smell her, to feel her skin under my fingers.
I had just gotten her before she was gone again, and God, I would never stop her from going after what she wanted, but I’d be lying if I said that the separation wasn’t torture.
That was why I was here today. It wasn’t planned. I have exams to study for and graduation to prepare for, and I knew that Maddison was just as busy. But none of that mattered. I needed to see her.
She opened the door with a pencil dangling between her teeth
and her brow was still scrunched in concentration from whatever she was working on. She didn’t even look up from the textbook in her hand as she pulled the door open and turned to walk back in the room.
“I hope you didn’t get Chinese food.” She turned the page as I stepped into her small space. “I’ve been craving it like crazy, but it makes me so homesick.”
I couldn’t help staring at her ass as she walked back toward her twin bed. She was wearing a pair of shorts—the tiniest scrap of fabric, and I almost fell to my knees at the way the curve of her ass was on display.
“How homesick are you exactly?”
She spun toward me so quickly the pencil flew through her mouth, and I had to duck to avoid a stab wound. She didn’t answer my question. She just stared at me for a moment—one, two, three. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as I counted the seconds that lay between us.
Her textbook left her hands at the count of five.
Her feet pushed her into motion at six.
Her body hit mine at the count of seven.
And just like that, in eight tiny seconds, I felt like I was breathing clearer than I had in months.
“What are you doing here?” Her words were muffled as she buried her face into my neck.
“I missed you.” I shrugged my shoulders like it was no big deal that I had just traveled over twelve hours to see my girlfriend of three months because I missed her.
She laughed, the sound bubbling out of her, and it was weird how attracted I was to it—that one simple sound.
“I cannot believe you’re here.” She pulled back from me and stared up at my face as if she was trying to take every single inch of me in. “I’ve missed you so much.”
I couldn’t stop myself as I leaned down and kissed her. Her lips felt softer somehow, her kiss more desperate than I remember, and even though I didn’t realize how badly, I needed that kiss from her as much as she needed it from me.
My fingers roamed over the edge of her t-shirt, and she laughed against my mouth. “My roommate should be back any minute with lunch.”
I peppered kiss after kiss against her mouth as she spoke. I wasn’t ready to stop.
“Shhh.” I pressed my finger to her lips. “She won’t even notice me.”
She smiled, and I loved how carefree she looked—how much weight had been lifted off her. “Trust me when I tell you that she’ll notice you.”
I took a step toward her and forced her closer to her bed. “Are you saying I’m hot?” I wiggled my eyebrows as she laughed.
“All I’m saying is that you’re hard to miss.” She rolled her eyes, and I took one more step.
“Because I’m hot.”
“No.” She shook her head before looking back to see how much space was between us and her mattress. “Because you’ve got a really big head.”
“You know.” I put my hands on her hips and stopped our pace. “I knew it the moment I met you.”
“Knew what? That you were full of it?”
“No.” I smiled down at the girl I had been falling for far too easily. “That you were going to fall in love with me.”
She sucked in a tiny little breath before she tried to laugh it off. “Is this going to be another story that you tell our children? How the princess fell so easily in love with the prince, and they lived happily ever after?”
“No.” I shook my head and ran my tongue over my dry lips. “This is a different story.”
“Oh yeah?” She cocked her head to the side with the softest smile on her face, and I knew without a doubt that I may not have been the guy Maddison had always dreamed about, but I would always be everything she needed. “What’s this story about then?”
“This is the story of how the big strong handsome Prince Charming—” She rolled her eyes again, but I kept going. “—fell irrevocably in love with the girl.”
She blinked up with me, and I knew without her saying a word that she had fallen as easily as I had.
“I thought you weren’t a Prince Charming.” She ran her fingers through my hair and pulled my face closer to hers as she stood on her tiptoes.
I wasn’t a Prince Charming. Definitely not that kind of Prince Charming she had always had in mind, but for her, I’d be anything she wanted me to be.
“Turns out I was wrong.”
Acknowledgments
To every reader, blogger, and bookstagrammer who takes a chance on me and my books, thank you so much. It means more to me than you will ever know. Thank you!
To Hubie, I feel like you should probably be tired of me acknowledging you by now so I’m not going to talk about how supportive you are or how amazing of a father you are or how you have made so many sacrifices to help me follow my dreams. I just want you to know that you are so incredibly hot. Like the hottest. God, I could stare at you all day.
To my family, THANK YOU.
Thank you Becca for helping craft my story and for believing in me even when I don’t. You are one of the best things about this little book world of ours.
Thank you to my amazing editor, Ellie McLove. You’re the absolute tits.
To Regina Wamba, thank you for your brilliant mind and always knowing what I want even when I don’t know how to say it.
To Linda, thank you for everything you do.
About the Author
Holly Renee is a best-selling author of sexy, contemporary romance, a Harry Potter fanatic, a body positive babe, and a boy mom.
When she’s not writing, you can find her reading all the books, taking long strolls down the aisles of Ulta, or hanging out with her two favorite boys.
Also by Holly Renee
Where Good Girls Go to Die
Where Bad Girls Go to Fall
Where Bad Boys are Ruined
Bottoms Up
Double Shot
