Who Breaks First: A New Adult Bully Romance (Clearwater University Book 1)

by Eva Ashwood

  And sitting next to her in the booth, looking angrier than I’ve ever seen him, is Trent.

  10

  Trent

  My mom has never introduced me to any of the men in her life, and quite honestly, I never ask. So when she tells me there’s someone special in her life that she wants me to meet, I figure it has to be pretty serious. I’m not gonna lie; if I don’t like the guy, then I’m gonna straight-up tell her that.

  I won’t let my mom be taken advantage of by some douchebag. She’s been through enough already.

  Things have been going okay in the past few weeks of school, and I can tell Emma is about to throw in the towel, which delights me to no end. I don’t want to see her leave Clearwater U so much as I want to see her crumble.

  As I sit next to Mom at Louie’s, of all places, there are a lot of things going through my mind. My mom is drinking a chardonnay and wearing a black dress, which tells me she really means business. I threw on a pair of slacks and a white shirt because I guess that’s what you do when you go to a steak house. Quite frankly, I’m not interested in this dude thinking I’m trying to put on a show for him, because I’m not.

  We got here early, so we’re killing time until her date arrives. As I stare at the candle flickering on the table, memories I’ve purposefully repressed for years filter through my mind.

  My parents got divorced in my junior year, four months after dad learned that Mom kissed another man. Those four months after my dad got the anonymous tip were like hell in my household. I can’t blame him for being angry, but he laid into Mom in such a serious way that I wanted to kick him out myself.

  Mom was a mess about it all, which is understandable. She went to therapy and a bunch of shit like that. It hurt like hell watching it all go down, wishing I could save their marriage, that I could save my mom from my dad’s wrath, but not being able to do shit about any of it.

  As far as I know, Mom hasn’t really dated at all since the divorce went through, so whoever this joker is we’re meeting tonight, he better be worth her putting her heart back on the line.

  “You okay?” I cut my gaze to Mom, and I can see that her hand shakes a little when she goes to pick up her wine.

  “Oh! Yes. It’s funny, but I’m kind of nervous,” Mom says, taking a sip.

  “No worries. I’m sure it’ll be great.”

  I shoot a glance toward the entrance of the restaurant, wondering where this guy is. It would look pretty fucking pathetic if he was late for dinner.

  Compassion comes over me as I look back at my mom. She’s never been the same since the divorce, which got really damn messy. Mom kept the house, and Dad moved to San Diego because that’s where his work is. He bought some bachelor pad condo, and we barely ever hear from him anymore.

  “Oh! There they are!”

  Mom sits up straighter in her seat, a smile breaking across her face. I turn my head to follow her gaze, and it’s like my vision narrows down to a damn pinprick. Everything in my periphery seems to go black, and can only focus on two faces as they cross the restaurant toward us.

  Emma Holloway.

  And her father, Paul.

  The same fucking man who kissed my mother. The one who caused her goddamn divorce.

  They stop in front of our booth, and my first instinct is to launch myself from the table and punch Paul Holloway in the face. My second instinct is to grab Emma Holloway by the waist, drag her into the alley out back, and…

  My brain doesn’t know where to go with that thought, torn between violent punishment and something else.

  As I stare up at them, I’m filled with a kind of rage I’ve never known before—and I have a lot of experience with rage. Is this really how it’s going to go down? Does Emma really expect me to sit here and have dinner with her and pretend everything is okay? Paul broke up my parents’ marriage, then Emma sealed the nail in the coffin. And now they’re all dressed up and standing in front of our table at Louie’s, Paul smiling like a jackass and Emma looking like she’s about to sink into the floor. I’m glad she looks so miserable. She should look miserable. In fact, I hope she fucking breaks into tears right now.

  “Right on time! Have a seat,” Mom says with a smile. She’s beaming at the man I want to murder, and she doesn’t seem to have noticed that I’ve gone still as a statue beside her.

  “Great.” Paul smiles back, sliding into the booth so that he’s sitting next to my mother. Emma sits on the other side of him so that I’m looking directly at her in the curved booth.

  “Did you have a nice day?” my mom asks Paul, her voice softening as she speaks to him.

  “I did.” He squeezes her hand on the table and presses a kiss to her cheek.

  All I can see is red. Seriously. I can’t speak, I can’t look away. I’m just staring at Emma and her father, my face set in a grim mask. Mom finally picks up on the tension hanging over us like a cloud, and she glances over at me, her brows drawing together.

  Before she can say anything, the waiter comes over to tell us about the specials and hand out menus. I use the opportunity to suck in air through my nose, trying to hear above the rushing in my ears.

  My mom and Paul don’t know that we saw their kiss a few years back. And they don’t know that Emma ratted them out about it and brought about the downfall of my parents’ marriage. As far as they’re concerned, this is the first Emma and I know about anything existing between them.

  “All right, I’ll go first,” Paul says once the waiter leaves, straightening his tie and speaking back and forth to me and Emma. “We thought it was a good idea to bring everyone together because Claire and I have been seeing each other for a little while now.”

  “And things are getting more serious,” my mom chimes in, seemingly to help him out.

  “That’s right.” He smiles broadly.

  I look over at Emma again, and she still looks like she’s seen a ghost. God fucking dammit, is it wrong that I desire her right now? That even though she looks terrified, she also looks beautiful? That she makes me want to hurt her and heal her at the same time? This kind of confusing shit happens all the time. I’ll be furious with her one second, and then the next, I’ll want her so badly I can’t even fucking breathe. It doesn’t make any sense.

  “We know you guys used to be pretty good friends,” Mom goes on. “And we wanted to tell you in person, so that you didn’t hear it from other people.”

  “We also just thought it would be fun for the four of us to spend some time together!” Paul says with enthusiasm. “Maybe we can hang out more often.”

  I find his statement incredibly lame and forced, and I close my eyes, summoning whatever fucking shreds of self-control I can muster. The thought of the four of us hanging out together makes me want to laugh—or hit something, I can’t decide which.

  When I turn my gaze toward my mom, she’s looking at Paul Holloway the way she used to look at my dad when she was in love with him.

  Anger fills me once more, and most of it is directed toward Emma. This whole situation is entirely her fault. If Paul and my mom wanted to kiss each other a few times and then move on, all of our lives would’ve remained intact. But because Emma couldn’t let it fucking go, she threw all of our lives into a tailspin.

  Not only do I have more motivation than ever to destroy Emma, I also want to destroy Paul Holloway now. There’s absolutely no reason Mom should be looking at him like that. I miss the days when she looked at my father like that, and he returned the sentiment.

  None of this shit was supposed to happen.

  When the food finally arrives, I pick up my massive knife and dig into my juicy steak. My bites are large and animal-like, and directed toward Emma. I can tell she has no appetite at all, because she just kind of picks at the fish on her plate and looks up at me from time to time. Paul and my mom continue to make small talk because they can tell that Emma and I aren’t saying a thing.

  But after another few minutes, I can’t keep my mouth shut any longer.
/>   “Something wrong with the fish?” I ask Emma. She looks up at me like I have no right to remark upon her eating habits.

  “It’s fine.” Her voice is hard as glass.

  “Probably cost more than my steak,” I add. “Shame for you to pick at it like a child.”

  The table goes silent as the vibe finally gets weird enough that no one can ignore it anymore. Good. This goddamn charade has gone on long enough.

  “You can always pack it up to go, sweetheart.” Paul pats her hand.

  “Sweetheart!” I scoff. If Paul Holloway really knew anything about his daughter, he would not be calling her sweetheart.

  “Trent,” my mom says in a quiet hiss, turning to face me with wide eyes.

  She looks embarrassed, Emma looks mortified, and Paul looks confused. The evening is young, but I guess we’re off to a good start.

  11

  Emma

  I don’t even know what I ordered for dinner, and it doesn’t matter anyway. I can’t possibly eat it.

  When we approached the table, I didn’t register immediately that it was Trent Cooper sitting next to the woman in the black dress. From across the restaurant, I saw a guy sitting at a table with a woman, and he seemed to be smiling at her. Now he’s leering at me, and I don’t know what to do.

  I drop my head, staring down at my fish, and the sight of it makes me want to gag. Is this really happening? I can tell Dad is uncomfortable and confused. He keeps shooting me glances even as he makes overly cheerful conversation with his new girlfriend.

  Trent’s damn mother.

  Jesus, kill me now.

  Every time I lock gazes with the man across from me, he looks like he’s going to kill me or something. Despite the tension that seems to make the air too thick to breathe, when I catch my dad sharing a look with Claire, there’s a warm gleam in his eye. It’s such a heartbreakingly sweet look that it makes my heart clench. I’m happy he’s found someone after so many years of being alone… but dammit, I hate this so much.

  I try to shove down the emotions roiling inside me, but there’s no way I can force myself to eat. There’s just not enough room inside my body for food. Every square inch is taken up by my fucked up feelings.

  When Trent makes fun of me for not touching my food, I’m struck with the nearly overwhelming urge to jam my fork into his eye. I grip it so hard the metal almost bends instead.

  “Yeah, I think that I’ll just bring it home with me,” I tell Dad, my voice raspy from the effort of speaking.

  “You can have it for breakfast tomorrow.” Trent snorts, curling his lip.

  You can have my fist in your face for breakfast tomorrow, you fucking asshole.

  The words beat against my closed lips, but I’m trying like hell to hold down my anger for my dad’s sake. He’s in love with Claire. I can feel it. I can see it in the way they act together. But why the hell did he have to fall in love with the mother of my worst enemy?

  That thought sticks in my brain like a burr, refusing to be dislodged. It’s something I’ve never understood, even after all this time—why is it that Trent is the worst of them all? I can tolerate Reese, and I have to admit that what happened between us in the library conference room made my heart race with something other than fear for once. Even West is tolerable sometimes, because he’s so quiet we can just let things simmer and carry on with our lives. But Trent is the opposite. He throws everything in my face, and I don’t even know why he does it.

  “Maybe she’s watching her figure.” His tone is rough and deep, the kind of voice that might make me melt if not for the fact that every time he speaks, his words come out coated in acid. “She has filled out a bit since high school.”

  Deadly silence comes over the table, but a loud rushing sound fills my ears anyway. I’m literally seeing a halo of red around the edges of my vision, and Trent’s eyebrows raise, as if daring me to use my sharp metal utensils the way I really want to.

  “Trent!” Claire’s voice sharpens in dismay, and she turns to me. “I’m so sorry, Emma. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

  “Come on, Trent,” Dad says through his teeth, clearly angry that the asshole would say such a thing.

  “There are just a lot of nerves at this table.” His mom affixes a shaky smile to her face, putting her hands in the air. “These things can be complicated. I know neither of you were expecting this, and maybe we sprung it on you too quickly. But let’s all take a breath and try to relax.”

  “I feel completely relaxed.” Trent shrugs, slouching back in his seat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He smiles cruelly, and I want to hurl my plate of fish at him. Somewhere in the midst of the anger burning through me, my heart is cracking open in my chest. The Trent I knew back in high school—the one that was my friend, the one I nurtured a secret crush on, the one who would do anything to protect me—doesn’t exist anymore. In fact, I don’t think he ever did exist. All of it must have been an illusion. The man sitting across from me right now is the real Trent.

  And I can either let him take me down, or I can go down fighting.

  “Maybe I should let you finish my dinner.” Forcing my lips into a smile that matches his, I lift up my plate to offer it to him. “You’ve gotten scrawny since high school. Maybe you can have West give you some pointers at the gym.”

  “Emma!”

  Dad looks scandalized, and I know I’m ruining this evening for him. But it was doomed the minute Trent and I locked gazes. Sitting quietly and letting myself be a punching bag for that fuckhead isn’t going to salvage this disaster of a dinner.

  “What has gotten into everyone? This is getting out of hand.” Claire looks defeated and exhausted as she brings her hands up to rub her temples.

  I arch a challenging brow at Trent, waggling the plate as I hold it out, and something fierce and hot flashes in his eyes for a half-second.

  “Maybe I have lost a little weight.” His jaw clenches. “I guess that’s what happens when a leech feeds off your blood.”

  I put down the plate, my brows pulling together. What the hell is he talking about? Am I the one who he thinks leeched his blood? If anything, he’s the one who’s done all the harm. Why does he make it seem like I did anything to hurt him? Okay, so I turned him down in high school. I didn’t want to. I was attracted to him deeply, and maybe even beginning to fall in love with him, but I had feelings for all three of the guys and didn’t want to lose any of them.

  Sadly, the end result of my attempt to do the right thing was that I ended up losing all of them.

  “That’s not fair.” I shake my head slowly, my nostrils flaring as the tension inside me builds to the snapping point.

  “Life’s not fair,” Trent shoots back, his voice dull with rage.

  “What is going on here?” Claire blinks helplessly, turning to my dad for support.

  “Hey, folks. Can I get you anything else?”

  Our poor waiter seems to realize even before the words are out of his mouth that he’s interrupted something he shouldn’t have. None of us have been yelling, we’ve barely even raised our voices, but the atmosphere around the entire table is toxic.

  He looks like he wishes he could just flee, but instead, he turns to me and gestures to my nearly full plate. “May I box this up for you?”

  “Yes, please,” I reply softly.

  The waiter picks up the plate and looks around the table with a tight smile plastered to his face. “And would anyone care for dessert?”

  Silence falls as all four of us look up at him, and he shifts uncomfortably as it grows longer and longer. He probably thinks we’ve all gone crazy or something.

  Finally, Claire clears her throat, her face a mixture of forced happiness, anger, and determination.

  “Yes, thank you. I’ll have the chocolate lava cake.” She reaches for her glass of wine and takes a sip, although it’s more like a heavy gulp.

  “Ah. Your favorite.” Dad nudges her shoulder, no doubt try
ing to lighten the mood.

  “Uh huh. It’s why I love coming here,” she says with a forced smile.

  “Give Emma a scoop of vanilla ice cream.” Trent nods toward me, his gray-blue eyes glittering. “Someone so bitter needs a little sweetness.”

  He’s still smiling at me like a fucking serial killer, and I can’t take it any longer. He’s been cruel to me before, more times than I can count, but this is somehow worse than all of those times. Because he’s doing it in front of our parents. In front of my dad.

  I feel like I’m on the verge of tears, and I refuse to let Dad see me melt down. I grab my napkin off my lap and throw it onto the table. Then I run toward the bathroom, and it’s a very long, dark hallway that takes me there. My nails dig into my palms as I fight to keep my sobs contained in my chest. Once I’m hidden away in a bathroom stall, I can let the tears go.

  At the end of the hallway, I shove open the door to the ladies’ room and throw myself into a stall just as the first wracking sob shakes my body. Emotions pour out of me along with the tears—things I haven’t felt or allowed myself to feel in years. Things I never processed after everything that happened in high school. Anger, bitter resentment, aching loss.

  I let it all go, let it pour out of me in a torrent until I can’t cry anymore.

  When I finally grab a wad of toilet paper and wipe my eyes and nose, it occurs to me that my dad, Claire, and Trent might think I’ve just bolted from the restaurant. Forcing my legs to bear my weight, I come out of the stall and take a good, hard look in the mirror.

  Jesus. I don’t know who that person staring back at me is. She looks like the tortured, sad creature I remember from high school, but that’s not the new me. That’s not the Emma who’s making new friends and living life on her terms. That’s not the Emma who’s determined to prove herself to her dad.

  It’s obvious I’ve been crying, but I can’t fix my face, so I decide to let it be.

  Leaving the bathroom, I start to head back down the long hallway—but I stop before I make it three feet. Trent is standing halfway down the corridor, his back pressed against the wall and arms crossed over his chest. He turns to look at me, and as he does so, there’s a softness to his expression, something almost like concern. It reminds me of the friend I once knew, and it hurts worse than if he’d spit at me.