Don’t let him fool you. He’s the one messing with you, I reminded myself. Don’t let him see you get annoyed. It’ll only encourage him. And don’t tell him why you want to watch it so badly.
I smiled and nodded, and then, once he walked off and sat down, I clambered up on a barstool to hoist myself atop the bar. I tuned the channel back to CSPAN. I wasn’t even off the barstool before I heard him clearing his throat directly behind me.
“Really?!” he asked loudly, right behind my ear.
I heard a sharp, unladylike squeak escape me. Surprise made me gasp and slip, and I turned and nearly fell backwards off the barstool. Ward’s strong hands shot out to grab me, gripping my shoulders and under my knees and then setting me on my feet and pinning me to the bar before I could regain my footing.
He’d caught me. Damn, he was fast.
We were now only inches apart. My heart thudded against my ribs. His lips parted in surprise, and I remembered kissing them. My mind was a thousand miles away…
Ward was tall. At least a full foot taller than my five-one-and-three-quarter-inches. I had to look up and up to see his eyes, which looked surprised, and then confused. We stared at one another for a long, long moment.
Suddenly, he released my shoulders like I was on fire and stepped back. His face went blank as if remembering something. I was too shocked to speak, so I just stared instead.
But it was his fault I’d fallen in the first place. Belatedly, I felt myself scowling. I drew myself up to my full height—all five foot two inches—and glared.
“Come on, Emma. You’ve lost this round. Give it up,” he ordered me before I recovered the powers of speech. With his height, there was no need for him to climb up on a barstool precariously. He just reached up around me and returned the channel to football. “Also, you really shouldn’t stand on the barstools or the bar. They aren’t meant to be climbed on. Perhaps you’re used to dancing atop bars, but this isn’t that kind of place.”
He let out a small chuckle and looked me up and down appreciatively.
“Excuse you?” I hissed. He might own the bar, but Kate managed it. I dropped the sugary tone from my voice. He no longer deserved sweet Emma.
“Nobody here likes CSPAN.”
“I do. Please turn it back on.”
His eyebrows lifted in apparent amusement and he laughed at me while shaking his head. “Yeah, I don’t think so.” Perhaps being so ridiculously sexy meant women just did whatever he ordered them to do. Likely so. It was time someone knocked him down a peg. And these days, I was just the woman to do it.
“Listen Ward, you need to—” I started.
At the same time, he said, “Last time I checked, this is still my bar.”
I made a dismissive, huffy little noise that silenced him—at least temporarily, because he chuckled. It wasn’t exactly a dignified noise and his reaction seemed to indicate he found it cute rather than intimidating, but I used the moment to explain,
“Your bar or not, I’m a human being who doesn’t appreciate being talked down to! I don’t put up with jerks ordering me around for no reason and being condescending, sexist, and high-handed.”
He laughed. “I’m hardly a sexist because I want to watch football. By that logic, all men are sexists.” He looked down at me like he was having the time of his life. He was definitely getting off on this little spat, and it was infuriating me. Another part of me—a small but vocal part—was enjoying his attention and our fight way too much. I shifted from foot to foot as my brain pinged between anger and attraction. Anger won. Nobody calls me sweetheart.
“Not everyone likes football. There’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to mop in peace and have the TV tuned to something that isn’t boring sports.”
“Boring?!” He looked horrified. You’d have thought I’d just personally insulted him or blasphemed against the lord himself.
“Boring?!” I repeated Ward’s previous words, complete with a rude exaggeration of his slight southern accent.
My impression only made him laugh. When he spoke, he was still grinning, “Woman, you are in a bar. My bar. TVs in bars play sports. What the hell is going on here?” he asked the air around him rhetorically. “Is this the twilight zone?” Clearly, he was not used to being challenged.
Willie pulled his newspaper up higher around his face, insulating himself from the conversation despite being only two feet away. I thought I could hear him sniggering behind it. Coward.
“Is it really so surreal for you that someone might stand up to you? You’re a walking stereotype.” I shook my head at him.
He smirked. “Says you. I bet you live entirely off a diet of quinoa, kale smoothies, and smug superiority.”
I happen to like quinoa and kale smoothies.
“While I suppose you like to spend your time drooling in front of the latest Sharknado sequel when you aren’t reliving your glory days on tape. I’ve seen your silly truck, too. Are you compensating for anything?” A couple of his buddies laughed.
He leaned in close to whisper in my ear, “You know there’s absolutely nothing I need to compensate for, now don’t you, Emma?” When I felt my blush burning my cheeks, his smile was knowing. His voice was soft and amused when he added, “You have no idea what’s going on here right now, do you?” His utter confidence was sexy as hell. It was also obnoxious as hell. Being turned on and angry wasn’t something that I was used to.
“Clearly, we need Kate to come and talk some sense into you. I’m going to go get her.”
He nodded and sunk down on a barstool. A frustrating smile was still on his face. “Yeah, you do that, Tinkerbell.”
Tinkerbell?! I stormed off toward the office, practically quivering with anger, attraction, confusion, and embarrassment. I was so stuffed full of emotion I worried I was going to spontaneously combust, and I definitely didn’t want Ward to see it.
* * *
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Prologue: Aimee
“Those are bad for you,” I told Brandon as he snuffed out a cigarette. I plopped down next to him on the poolside lounger, expending the very last of my teenage confidence and bravado by aiming a teasing smile at him.
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Are you a doctor now, Aimee?”
I shook my head, sending my meticulously curled hair bouncing. “Not yet, but I will be.”
Brandon’s cocky eyebrow stayed cocked. “I know you’re a genius and everything, but aren’t you, like, twelve?”
Twelve?
I forced myself to sit up straight. Brandon had always intimidated me, but not tonight. Tonight, he was going to see me. Tonight, he was going to want me back. This was my first and last chance and I wasn’t going to blow it.
“I’m eighteen thank you very much,” I told him. I wasn’t shaking yet—thanks alcohol—but I didn’t say it with nearly as much confidence as I’d started the conversation.
He looked me up and down from the top of my blonde head, down my revealing white sundress, to my purple toenails. His dark gaze darted away like he knew he’d been staring, and my stomach did a little, eager flip-flop.
“You’re all grown up, huh?” He sounded amused. “And drunk.”
“Relatively.” My voice sounded weak, high-pitched, and ridiculous, even in my own ears. I was so nervous I could barely breathe.
“Relatively grown up or relatively drunk?” he teased.
“Both.”
He laughed. “I’m right there wi
th you.”
I was eighteen as of last week. Which meant I was an adult. Finally.
So, as an adult, I felt absolutely no guilt coming to Brandon’s college party without anyone’s permission, getting drunk, and hitting on my neighbor.
Brandon was the ridiculously hot twenty-two-year-old son of my aunt’s employer. She was his family’s cook and housekeeper, and I was the weird, smart but introverted teenager she inherited when her sister died in a car crash.
We lived adjacent to them in what they called a ‘carriage house’. It was basically a garage apartment we rented dirt cheap. Although we were technically neighbors, the economic differences between our families were lost on no one. It made for an awkward living situation and an even more awkward social situation between Brandon and I, on whom I’d had a massive crush since laying eyes on him four years ago.
Back then we’d been eighteen and fourteen, which means I was basically invisible to him during his brief visits home. My crushing shyness didn’t help either. Brandon was popular, athletic, and outgoing. I was a quiet weirdo with a backpack full of books and no friends. But none of that was an obstacle anymore.
Both my aunt and Brandon’s father were out of town. I’d grown out of my awkward looks, filled out, and was leaving for school soon. Brandon was only in town for the weekend. This was my chance, and I’d worked myself up with tequila and Taylor Swift over the past three hours. We were alone. It was just us. Well, us and the fifty people Brandon invited over without his father’s permission, but the party was winding down and I’d finally worked up the courage to talk to him.
“Alright Miss all-grown-up, do you want something to drink?” he asked, offering me a drink from the cooler sitting next to him on the pool deck. I nodded and was promptly handed a Dr. Pepper. I rolled my eyes at him.
“Really?” I asked.
“I don’t remember inviting you to my party, jailbait. So, this is all you get.” He was teasing me. Did he tease everyone? I didn’t know. Despite living next to his father for years, we’d barely spoken for five minutes in four years. I did a lot of staring though. And I heard a lot of rumors from my aunt about how much he and his father fought.
I frowned at the extended soda, but I took it anyway. I’d drink it later. I never turn down free food or beverages.
“I’m not jailbait and you don’t need to invite me,” I told Brandon. “I live here.” Our fingers brushed on the can and I felt a jolt of electricity, and then he smirked at me and my heart skipped a beat.
“Not for much longer, I hear,” he replied. “You’re moving right? Going to school somewhere?”
I nodded, elated that he had at least enough interest in me to know that I was leaving. I’m sure it was no secret to him that I had a crush on him. I wasn’t exactly experienced enough to conceal it. I wasn’t experienced at all. I was game-less, hopeless virgin with a giant crush and a terrible plan.
Brandon stared at me and I remembered that he’d asked me a question.
“Medical school,” I stuttered. “In California.”
He shook his head at me in disbelief. His hair was cut extremely short, but it suited his face. With his strong, chiseled jaw, penetrating dark eyes, straight nose and muscular body, he looked like a recruitment poster for the military, which was consequently exactly where he was headed.
“It blows my mind that you’re graduating from college when you should still be in high school,” he told me. “You caught up to me.”
Technically I was ahead of him now that he’d dropped out right before graduating, but I didn’t say that. Brandon was extremely smart, too, but I had a perfectionism that bordered on mental illness when it came to school. I wasn’t actually a genius, just gifted. What I did have was a prodigious work ethic and determination to get what I wanted, which was usually to be the best at everything. When my mom died four years ago, it lit a fire under my ass, and I hadn’t been able to slow down for anything since. But being an academic prodigy is not without its drawbacks. Or loneliness.
It’s very hard to make friends on a college campus as a young teenager. College students avoided me or treated me as a curiosity, and I’d skipped so many grades that I never made friends my own age. I’d gotten used to being alone, but I hated it.
“Yeah, it’s weird,” I admitted. “Sometimes I wish I was normal.”
Brandon’s dark eyes fixed on mine and his lips parted. Was he curious about me? I was ravenous for information about him.
“You do?” he asked, “I always got the impression that you were too busy being perfect to have time for normal. You’re always studying, always doing what you’re supposed to do. Not like me.”
I wanted to stare back into his eyes, but it almost hurt. I stared at my feet and willed my voice to be calm. “I used to be normal, before my mom died.”
Brandon looked away.
“Yeah, me too.” His voice was soft.
Brandon got in trouble a lot. Constantly. And somehow, that only made me want him more despite the fact that I’d always been a huge goody two-shoes.
My aunt told me that he’d been accepted to West Point and Yale but ended up going to a public party school instead a few states over. He’d been arrested a couple of times for fraternity pranks, and once for marijuana possession. He’d crashed multiple cars in illegal street races. He and his father got into screaming matches sometimes when Brandon came home on breaks. According to my aunt, they hadn’t gotten along since Brandon’s mom died.
I looked over at him to see more understanding than I was expecting. My way of dealing with my mom’s death was to throw myself into academia. Brandon’s way? Apparently, the opposite. We were more alike than we were different.
“I overheard your argument with your dad earlier,” I told him. “I didn’t mean to, but you were kind of loud.”
Brandon took a swallow of his drink and stared at the crystal blue infinity pool ahead of us. It was quiet out here now that the party was almost over. It was almost two a.m. There were probably still some people inside, but we couldn’t hear or see them from where we were.
“Great.” He shifted in his seat, perhaps wanting to get away from me now.
“Are you really going to join the military?” I asked.
He nodded and his expression turned stubborn. “I’m done dancing to his little tune. It might not be the decision he wants me to make, but it’s going to make me happy. I want to live my own life.” His voice was full of anger, pain, and pride.
I looked at his profile, lit by the huge picture windows of the mansion he grew up in. It was strange to me that someone with everything, all the good looks, the money, the privilege, and the brains, could be unhappy. His father, Dr. Koels, had always been so kind to me. But Brandon hated him.
“I hope you’re right. I hope it makes you happy.”
He smiled and it seemed real. “Thanks. I thought you’d try and talk me out of it. My dad adores you. He talks about you constantly. I think he likes you better than he likes me. You’re so responsible.”
I shrugged. “Not tonight I’m not.”
We lapsed into silence for a moment.
“What do you mean?” He asked me. There was something in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. Heat. It made me feel dizzy but also weirdly strong.
I swallowed hard. “I have a really big crush on you. I want you to take my virginity tonight.”
My heart was in my throat. Why did I have to come right out and say it? That was weird, right? I had no idea.
Brandon’s lips parted in apparent surprise. I hoped it was dark enough to hide my blush.
“What?”
“You heard me,” I mumbled.
“You’re serious?” His eyes were wide.
I nodded.
“Aimee—” he started, and the tone in his voice made me shake my head.
“Look,” I said, cutting him off, “you’re leaving tomorrow. Maybe forever. I’m going to medical school and I’m going to be with all these people th
at have way more life experience than me. I don’t want to go into that without a little experience of my own.”
Brandon was quiet for a long time.
“Why me?” he finally asked.
“Because I like you and I want to sleep with you.” God, I thought it was obvious. I’d been blushing and mumbling around him for years.
“You barely know me.” He frowned and shook his head. “I’m all wrong for you. I’m too old for you. I’m leaving tomorrow. You shouldn’t go around saying things like that to men--”
I kissed him, cutting him off again. It was the bravest thing I’d ever done. I didn’t go around saying things like that to men. Or kissing them. Just him. Just now, tonight.
Our lips met and for a second, I hung weightless, suspended in fear and confusion. Then he kissed me back, and all the color and feeling rushed back into the world. His mouth sought mine with an eager, challenging intensity and his fingers tangled in my hair. Every other thought receded into the background, and it was just my pounding heart and his mouth on mine.
Was he testing my resolve to see if I was serious? If he was, my response should have convinced him. I kissed him back for all I was worth, which maybe wasn’t much since I was certainly no pro when it came to kissing, but I tried. When we drew apart a moment later, I was breathless. He stared at me with an expression that I had no idea how to interpret.
“I’m not an idiot, Brandon,” I said after I’d partially recovered my wits. “None of those reasons matter to me. I know what I want.”
I thought the world of Brandon. I wanted to lose my virginity tonight, and I wanted it to be with him. Beyond that, I wasn’t really thinking clearly.
Brandon stared at me with an unreadable expression. “You’re serious,” he repeated. He seemed shocked.
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