Autumn Doughton
On an Edge of Glass
Copyright © 2013 Autumn Doughton
[email protected]
Kick-ass cover designed by Divine Michelle (inktwister)
All rights reserved. This book may not be used or reproduced, scanned or distributed in any form without permission from the author except where permitted by law. All characters and storylines are the property of the author and your respect and cooperation are greatly appreciated. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Ebook Edition
For Stephanie, who read it first,
and for the music that inspired.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
EPILOGUE
Acknowledgements
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE
Santa’s Helper
There’s nothing like a missed opportunity to ruin a perfectly good cup of coffee.
It’s Monday and I’m sitting in a high-back chair, trying unsuccessfully to wrap up an essay that’s due for one of my classes. I have about, oh, twenty minutes until the deadline, so I’m frantically typing on my laptop, rechecking facts from the textbook balanced on my knee.
A line of impatient caffeine addicts snakes out the door just behind me, letting in an unsettling gust of cool air. It ruffles my hair and the pages spread out on the low table in front of me. I’m attempting to ignore the obnoxious little boy bent over the armrest of my chair, but it’s a tad tricky to concentrate on the conclusion to an academic paper when a kid is holding a plastic gun in your direction.
I glance up from my frenzied typing to give him the stink-eye. I figure there is no way that this blue-eyed, blonde-haired monkey can possibly stand up to my glare when I want to turn it on. My looks are epic. Known around five counties and purported to have the power to bring about a doomsday type scenario.
But this time it doesn’t work. The kid actually sticks his tongue out at me.
Such nerve!
I switch tactics. Using the most sugary voice I can muster, I lean to my left and turn on a candy-coated smile. “Sweetie, would you mind not doing that? I have got to get this paper emailed to my professor ASAP. Okay?”
Imagine my surprise when he grins gleefully, exposing bare pink gums from where he’s missing teeth. “Yes, I mind! You’re dead lady,” he declares loudly with his small chest puffed out in front of him. In addition to the gun, he’s now holding up some sort of silver flashing device that screams cheapo Happy Meal toy.
My lower jaw drops. I look up to the kid’s mother for help, but she’s engrossed in the business of relaying the amazingly interesting details of her latest hair appointment to whoever is on the other end of her phone call.
At this point, it should be noted that I’m not so hot with children. I’m the only child of two only children, and my intellectually superior parents’ idea of a play date was to take me with them to an art gallery opening where we could mingle with the other popular up and coming attorneys and discuss at length, the benefits of the macro diet. My mother read me How to Win Friends and Influence People as a bedtime story when I was three. Seriously.
I force my eyes down to the keys of my laptop, refusing to give the little pest the satisfaction of any more of my attention. The lady at the front of the line with the ridiculously complicated order will get her drink soon. Subsequently, everyone will move forward a few steps and this kid will be gone from my life forever. I’ll be able to finish my paper in peace and in time.
And, let’s face it, I’ll probably get an A on it, and Dr. Barden is going to recommend me for that summer internship. Along with the knockout LSAT scores I’m going to get, I’ll be shoo-in for acceptance to Columbia Law. Everything is going to fall into place according to the master plan.
But then the plastic gun is actually in my hair. As in: scraping against my scalp. God, I’m going to rip that thing out of his sticky little fingers and throw it right into the trash can! I twist in my chair, intending to threaten just that, when a low voice infused with the slightest hint of a southern drawl sifts into the space between us.
“Look kid, I happen to be an undercover agent for the North Pole, and if you don’t stop harassing this young woman then I will have no choice but to turn your name and information in to Santa himself. You can forget about getting the things you want for Christmas this year.”
The kid’s eyes widen and we both look up—a long way up—at the speaker. Tall, dark, and handsome would all be pretty accurate descriptions of my savior. He meets my eyes head-on and flashes a quick smile that makes my heart dip unexpectedly. When he turns his attention back to the boy, I let my eyes wander over the side of his face, taking in the scruffy jawline and narrow nose. A warm heat spreads under the skin of my cheeks and my stomach begins to twist itself into a knot.
“But if you keep your hands to yourself from now on, we’ll pretend like this never happened and Santa and Mrs. Claus will never be the wiser.” He cocks his head to one side and winks at the kid. “Do we have a deal?”
The little monster looks properly shamed. Under his breath, he mumbles something unintelligible that may or may not be an apology. Then he hops to the other side of his mom’s thigh and grabs onto her free hand in the most angelic fashion that a demon spawn can muster.
I swivel, my hands still clamped to the armrest of the chair. “I cannot believe he fell for that,” I half-laugh. “Thank you.”
Tall, dark and handsome leans closer to me. I get a whiff of soap and something light and woodsy on him. It’s decidedly delicious and I involuntarily inhale deeply.
“No problem. I have four little brothers and I’m sort of an expert when it comes to dealing with brats.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Four younger brothers? Your poor mother!”
He smiles at me then, one dimple emerging on his cheek. His eyes are crinkled at the corners. Whoa. My pulse spikes noticeably.
This guy is ridiculous. And dangerous.
He’s got a face that you might pass over at first glance. But once you really look—really see the dark eyebrows falling over the straight-edged angles that make up his features, you can’t look away.
I would say that he’s got the type of arousing attraction that has girls dropping their panties with one crooked grin and a few cliché words. I’ve seen it happen to too many of my friends. The fall is hard and fast and not easy to pick yourself up from.
“Are you going to sit there and say that you wouldn’t like to deal with five of me?” He points at his chest with a mocking smile that kills me.
I sputter out a cough.
Admittedly, the first answer that comes to mind is not accompanied by a PG rating. All the pores in my body seem to be opening up. I fumble over my tongue to say something witty, and cute, and not laced with a sexu
al innuendo. But, before I manage to botch my response, the line shifts forward and Sir Hotness steps away.
I take a long, jagged breath into my lungs and release it slowly. Honestly, it’s probably a good thing that the conversation ended when it did. Lord knows that I do not need that kind of complication in my life right now.
Despite my best intentions toward indifference, I spend the next six minutes simultaneously finishing the closing paragraph of my essay and darting looks at my sexy savior.
Slim, dark brown pants cover his long legs. Up top, he’s wearing a thin navy blue tee that fits him snugly in all the right places and exposes his sinewy forearms. A black corded leather band circles his left wrist, and I think that I catch the glimmer of a silver ring on his thumb. His long brown hair is tucked behind his ears so that I can clearly see the strong line of his unshaven jaw. Absently, he touches the soft skin just below his ear and I suck in an uneven breath.
I remember that his eyes are somewhere in between brown and gold. I also remember the tingle that coursed through my entire body when he looked at me. I think my skin actually started to hum.
That isn’t normal, right?
Maybe for Payton, one of my roommates, who falls in lust with someone new nearly every other month, and drops him once she gets involved enough to learn his middle name. But, I am not the type of girl to get goose bumps over some random guy—especially not a stranger with long hair who looks like he could use a good shave.
I shake my head to clear it and turn back to my work. After a final read-through, I click the send button to turn in the paper. Checking the time, I note that I have about two and a half minutes to spare until the deadline. Cake. I lift my hands in a sort of silent cheer and stretch out my neck muscles. As I turn my head, I look up and directly into brown eyes staring back at me from the cream and sugar counter. A shot of something electric and warm buzzes through my entire body. He smiles and I feel an answering grin spread across my face.
When he glances down quickly and chews on his bottom lip, I just about fall out of my chair. A swarm of frenetic butterfly wings are flapping against the walls of my stomach.
So much for being an empowered independent woman, Ellie. Apparently, I’m just as susceptible to a sexy look from a mysterious guy as the next girl.
He finishes stirring his coffee and slips the lid back on his cup. He hesitates. He chews that bottom lip some more and when he glances over at me again I just know that he is going to come talk to me.
I’m not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, this boy is completely intriguing. The problem is that I do not need to be dealing with any distractions now—just when my life is about to get serious.
I take a deep breath and pretend to still be working on my paper. In reality I’m trying to hold my head at an angle that I think shows off my long neck and angular cheekbones.
Four seconds. Five. Six. I can sense someone beside me. Someone tall. Someone male.
He clears his throat, and I raise my head, and bat my eyelashes, and…
“What is that face for?” My best friend Mark scrunches his nose. He adjusts the strap of his leather messenger.
My mouth is slack. I know that I must look like an idiot.
With a huff, Mark slips into a purple chair opposite me. He grabs my coffee cup off the table between us, and without further question, helps himself to a long sip.
Squaring his shoulders, he settles back and glares at me. “Do I have spinach in my teeth or something?”
Before I can answer, Mark holds up his hand dramatically and closes his eyes. Long lashes dust his cheeks. “No. Never mind Ellie-bear. I don’t even want to know if I do.” He shakes his head slightly. “I have had the worst day ever, and if I find out that the entire time I was talking to Hal Shepherd I had green goo stuck between my teeth, I will kill myself.”
“Your teeth are fine,” I say, hurriedly pushing the words out of my mouth and twisting to the side to look around the coffeehouse for my mystery man. The last place I saw him was by the cream and sugar counter, but now there’s just a bunch of girls there. My eyes move to the corner and then the door.
“Damn it,” I murmur. The guy is nowhere to be seen. Gone—just like that.
“Seriously chica, what are we looking for?” Mark cranes his neck to follow my gaze.
I look down, trying to conceal the disappointment that’s threatening to take over my face. Swallowing against the sour taste that’s building in my mouth I mumble, “Never mind.”
“You look upset.” Mark’s voice is laced with skepticism.
That’s because I am upset. Upset and insanely disappointed.
I take a deep breath and remind myself how absurd I’m acting. I haven’t missed out on anything because nothing actually happened. He was just some random guy that I exchanged a few dozen words with. The encounter was nothing more. Nothing.
“It’s honestly nothing,” I say tersely, adjusting my laptop and scooting back in my chair. “I just thought that I saw someone from class.”
Mark downs the last of my coffee. Dropping the cup to the table, he scoots back in his chair and frowns. “Whatever. Like I said, I’ve had the worst day. Starting with the fact that Greenly gave me hell about that paper I turned in last week. He said some crap about having to redefine my source material. As if I even know what that means.” He pushes a stray blond curl away from his forehead and sighs, loud and breathy. “Before I forget—Ainsley called my phone looking for you.”
I pitch my head to the side. “What did she want?”
Mark moves his bag from his knee to the floor and begins sifting through the contents looking for something. Probably the latest in that romance series he’s been obsessing over lately.
“She said something about you forgetting your phone at home and gave me a teary diatribe about a momentous thing occurring at your house, and blah, blah… and more blah.” He twirls his hand in the air. Mark Temple is a hand-talker. “Honestly, I wasn’t really listening, but I did catch that your ass needs to get home as soon as possible.”
“Ooooh scary.” I force a smile. “Knowing how Ainsley is, I probably forgot to put my cereal bowl in the dishwasher and she wants us to have a heart to heart so that she can express her feelings on the matter.”
My roommate, Ainsley, tends to be a bit on the sensitive side. She means well, but occasionally I feel like I’m living through an extended episode of Dr. Phil.
Shaking my head, I stand to pack up my laptop and books.
As I give Mark a hug, I swear to myself that I’m not looking over his shoulder for my savior. I. Am. Not. Looking.
Not even when I deliberately circle the coffee shop so that I can throw my cup in the trashcan that rests against the opposite wall instead of the one by the door.
And I tell myself that the feeling that lurches in my gut when I walk out the door and into the brilliant blue of a fall day is actually the salad I ate for lunch digesting wrong.
I sigh and head toward home.
Here, on the edge of campus, where the University blends into the comings and goings of everyday life, the sidewalk is active with people.
I have to duck around an older couple stopped in front of a shop window, discussing the merits of a china pattern on display. I wonder if I’ll ever be old enough to care about china patterns. I hope not.
Passing a stand of bike racks, I pull a study sheet from my bag. I might as well keep myself occupied on the walk. With less than two months until I take the LSAT, every opportunity for study time counts.
LSAT stands for: Law School Admissions Test. You need to take it to get into law school. Obviously.
And to get into Columbia Law, you need to do well on the LSAT. Very well.
Columbia. It’s my mantra.
It’s where I’m headed next year. It’s where both my mother and my father went to law school. It’s where my father’s father went to law school. Getting accepted to Columbia Law is what has been expected of me since birth.
>
Just thinking about it gives me goose bumps. This time next year, I’ll be living in New York City among glittery, wonderful people, and on track to be a corporate attorney like my parents.
I shake the last remnants of my hot boy induced delirium away and glance down at the study sheet gripped between my fingers. It’s probably for the best that the coffee shop guy didn’t come over and talk to me. I have a plan, and distractions have no part in it.
CHAPTER TWO
Hannah, the Deserter
“I don’t understand,” I say shaking my head, letting my fingers drop to the couch cushions. “What do you mean she’s not coming back?”
“Ellie, I mean exactly what I said. Hannah, our lovely roomie, has decided not to come back home,” Ainsley says carefully.
She takes her long hair and begins separating it into even segments and winding them over the splayed fingers of her hand. After living together for over a year, I’ve seen her do this before, and I know that it’s a sign of stress. The puffy eyes and red-tipped nose are an indication that tears aren’t far away.
“What did Payton have to say about this?”
Ainsley swipes her palms against her cheeks. Then she stands and walks to our small kitchen.
“Oh, you know how Payton is,” she says to me over her shoulder. “She freaked out for about ten minutes, and then she redid her makeup and told me not to worry—that she’d start looking for a new roommate today.”
“A new roommate?”
“That’s what she said.” She pauses so that she can fill her electric tea kettle with tap water. After flipping off the faucet she turns back to face me. Her blue eyes are watery. “Ellie, I just don’t know how we’re going to find someone this late in the year. It’s not as if reliable homeless people are falling out of trees. And if we can’t find a new roommate, how are we going to cover another person’s rent and Hannah’s portion of the electric and...”
I can tell that Ainsley is about to start up the water works in a big way. I am at her side quickly. With my arm draped across her thin shoulders, I murmur that she shouldn’t worry. But the truth is that I’m worried. Our fourth roommate, Hannah, called the house this morning while I was at class. She curtly informed Payton and Ainsley that she would no longer be living in the house with us. Effective immediately.
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