Still Not Over You_An Enemies to Lovers Romance

by Nicole Snow

  I hate how grown-up she looks.

  How her eyes, behind her sleeker, thinner glasses, are still the same clear, liquid green that seems to expect something more from me. Hate how it's the same pool I could lose myself in too long. Hate how one phone call from Milah’s manager, later, tells me I have no choice but to rely on Kenna when Milah needs me in Sonoma by Saturday afternoon, and it’s Friday now.

  I fucking hate everything about this. About her. And about the demanding brat signing my next six figure check.

  I've tried to come up with a work around all day, but it’s just not happening. I’m backed into a corner, and I can’t even get my head around what’s happening now.

  Not when I keep remembering. Reliving what happened years ago – on the day I truly met the girl who shouldn’t be here tormenting me.

  * * *

  Ten Years Ago

  Sometimes, teenagers can be complete and utter pricks.

  That’s the first thing I think when I see her crying. I barely know her; she’s just a shadow who hangs around my best friend now and then, someone I vaguely identify as his little sister, McKenna. Kenna, right?

  I probably shouldn’t even be talking to her. I’m eighteen, close to graduating, and she’s this dorky fourteen-year-old freshman.

  But she looks almost afraid of me. I find her out behind the bleachers on the football field after school, sobbing her eyes out. Like someone hurt her and she thinks I’ve come to deliver the killing blow.

  Something about that look makes me want to fix it, even if I’m not the one who fucked it up. It's not my business, true, but for some screwed up reason I want to make it mine.

  She’s curled on the grass, leaning against a post. I sit down on the other side and rest my back against the wood. That way she doesn’t have to feel like I’m looking at her, judging her.

  “You want to talk about it?” I ask.

  “No!” she forces out, sniffling, her voice thick.

  “Okay. Whenever you're ready, I'm here.”

  For some reason, that sets her off crying again. I just wait and listen.

  Sometimes people just need someone to be there with them when they’re sad, but I hope I’m not embarrassing her and making it worse. Thankfully after a while there comes another sniffle, and her breathing sounds easier.

  “Sorry, it's just...” she mumbles. “Thanks. I guess.”

  I look over my shoulder. She’s taken her tear-streaked glasses off to reveal the largest, widest green eyes I’ve ever seen, swimming and nearly glowing with their wet sheen. She’s busy stretching her bulky, ill-fitted shirt out of shape trying to clean her lenses before she darts a quick glance toward me, then reddens and looks away.

  “Not here to make fun of you,” I say. “It’s okay to talk. Really.”

  I think she'll clam up again, when she lowers her eyes to her suddenly motionless hands. But she lets out a lifeless shrug and whispers bitterly, “Just boys being boys. Assholes, I mean. And I’m an easy target.”

  “Did someone hurt you?”

  “No. Maybe?” Another shrug. “Just my feelings. Jonah McMillan thought it would be funny to –” Her voice hitches as if she’ll breakdown again, then smooths as she clears her throat and continues with a touch of stiff pride. “He pretended to invite me to Homecoming. Big fancy fake letter and everything. And when I went to ask him if it was a joke or something...”

  “He humiliated you,” I guess, a slight growl curdling my voice. “Like a fuckstick with nothing better to do..”

  “In front of half the girls in my class!” she finishes with a touch of ferocity, her eyes sparking. “God. I tried to say I knew it was a joke, a stupid one, but he was too busy telling everyone how pathetic I was...thinking he’d ever go out with me. Like I’d be interested in him.”

  “Real cute,” I offer, an awkward attempt to get her to laugh. It works, even if it’s just a kind of quick throaty hurting chuckle hidden behind a pinched smile.

  “He’s an asshole, is what he is,” she counters, but a bruised smile lingers on her lips. Slowly fading. “I just…I don't even know. Now, they’re all calling me Princess. Like I think I’m too full of myself when they’re actually all too good for me.”

  “Princess?” I curl my upper lip. “Like you're somebody’s yappy fucking purse dog? That’s a shit name. And they’re shit people. Here, I’ve got a better name for you.” I stroke my chin, wondering if I should really put it out there like this.

  She eyes me warily. “…what is it?”

  “Rebel,” I say, and grin. “Let's make it 'reb' for short. That's what you look like to me, telling these kids where they can stick it. And I bet that's what you'd like to be.”

  Her eyes widen. Her blush returns. I eye her a second longer, deciding she’s kinda cute in a weird dorky little sister way. Of course, freshmen aren't something I'd be caught dead messing with – especially when she's Steve's own flesh and blood.

  “Hmph,” she says faintly, tilting her head. “I don’t know. I'm not really that much of a rebel.”

  “Bull. You saw through their crap, yeah? You’re too smart for this high school circlejerk, and too good for Jonah McMillan. He’s a limp-dick bully who probably gets off on hurting girls. You did the right thing serving up what he deserved. The world's full of dudes like him.”

  She wrinkles her nose. “Great. I'm glad I have so much to look forward to.”

  “Just telling the truth.” And if that's what I'm really doing, it makes me weirdly happy when she lets out this embarrassed little laugh, looking at me, then looking away again, bringing a hand up to scrub at her tear-streaked face.

  “Hey. Look. I’ve been through four years at this shithole school. I'll tell you right now that if you try to be someone you’re not, it’s just gonna chew you up and spit you out in pieces on the other side. So forget being royalty. Be the rebel you are. This smart, gorgeous girl with rocking glasses. You’ll have so many boys begging for you they’ll be lined up the whole west coast to Seattle, babe.”

  I’ve never seen someone blush so red in my life, right up to the tip of her pert little upturned nose. She ducks her head, tucking her loose, frizzy hair behind her ear.

  “You’re just saying that because you’re Steve’s friend. Trying to make me feel better.”

  “Wrong. I’m saying it because I mean it, Reb.” I reach over and ruffle her hair. “C’mon. Your bro will kill me if I don’t give you a ride home.”

  I have no idea, when I offer my hand to help her up, what I’ve done on this day.

  I’ve earned a friend, an admirer – and made one of the worst mistakes of my life. I have no idea, on this sunlit afternoon, that one day my life will go to hell when my father's mistakes get him killed, and there’s nothing left for me but bitterness, but pain...

  And the vicious disappointment of pushing her away.

  * * *

  Present Day

  Something is chewing on my fingers.

  I’m dreaming about Gremlins, the old horror-comedy movie. In the dream, one of them is chewing on my fingers. Its teeth are sharp, its mouth wet and slimy, and its breath smells familiarly foul. Just like that awful, meaty cat food.

  Velvet.

  Goddamn. I wake up groggy.

  Velvet’s still chewing on my fingers, standing on the desk gnawing at me like I’m a human chew toy. Mews is prowling around restlessly, letting out his typical high demanding yowls while bumping up against the chair.

  Yawning, I push myself upright, pulling my hand free from Velvet’s mouth and wiping my fingers on my thigh. I fell asleep in my chair. I couldn't have been out long enough for them to start screaming for their dinner, though.

  I see why when I glance out the window. Toward the burning orange glow of sunset over the ocean.

  Except that glow isn’t the sunset.

  It’s fire, licking up out of the windows of the beach house, curling against wood turned black by flames, giving off sooty streams of smoke that plume into t
he sky.

  The beach house glows like the mouth of hell roared open against the early nighttime darkness, a raw ember of crackling death.

  My mouth dries. My heart stops. My stomach ices over, and before I can stop myself, I spring up, bolting for the door with only one thing on my mind.

  Kenna.

  5

  Flame-Broiled (Kenna)

  There are few things that can’t be fixed by a Godzilla burger.

  If you’ve never had a Katsu Burger, then you have no idea what you’re missing. It’s this weird Japanese-American mish-mash cuisine with grass-fed Kobe beef breaded in panko crumbs and piled with so much weird stuff, like wasabi mayo and coleslaw and ginger and even a fried egg, if you want it.

  It’s massive. Messy. The perfect thing for a bad day when you don’t want to think about anything but trying to get more of the spicy mayo on your mouth than you do on your shirt.

  I’ve got a stomach full of Katsu Burger chased by a green tea smoothie, but it’s not the massive double-decker that’s got my belly feeling heavy.

  It’s the miles counting down between me and Landon.

  I’d rattled around the beach house all day, beating myself up left and right. If I wasn’t guilting myself over shoving myself into his life in the first place, I was guilting myself over losing a desperately needed writing day to what was basically just biting my nails.

  Worrying myself into an anxiety attack. I needed to get out, clear my head.

  But now I’ve got to go back. I can’t exactly sleep in my car, and this time of night, it’s a little late to pack everything up again for the six-hour drive back to L.A.

  I can head home in the morning, if I have to. This late, Landon’s probably either asleep or out on a job, so if I just hole up in the beach house until morning, we don’t even have to see each other again.

  Still, my stomach bottoms out. I’m suddenly regretting every bite of that grass-fed Kobe beef when I turn onto the long drive leading to the guest house. I can taste it in the back of my throat, courtesy of one hell of a case of nerves.

  He won’t be there.

  He won’t be standing in the door with those cold, cutting blue eyes tearing me open, asking me what I think I’m doing on his property and banishing me from ever coming back.

  Yet, as I round the bend, coming into view of the beach, my stomach drops for a different reason.

  At first I can’t really process what I’m seeing. It’s too surreal, like I’m in an episode of Buffy and no one told me there was a convenient corner Hellmouth in the neighborhood.

  Flames glow orange against the night, throwing harsh light out on the sand, turning it into a garish nightmare. Smoke plumes up into the sky. Mostly from one side of the house, an accusing black finger stabbing into the night.

  The guest house is on fire.

  Holy shit.

  And I must be in shock, because my first numb thought is Thank God I haven’t unpacked my car completely yet.

  My second thought is Oh. Fuck. Landon’s going to kill me.

  There’s a little more real fear in the notion than there should be.

  I screech my little Smurfberry-colored Prius to a halt and stare, fumbling for my phone. Calling 9-11 is raw instinct, but before I can even press the first button I’m captured by a sharp, erratic motion next to the leaping flames.

  Landon.

  He's out here, flinging himself against the door to the beach house, shouting something I can’t quite hear through the car's insulation.

  But it sure sounds a lot like Kenna. Kenna. Kenna!

  The sound of sirens wailing shocks me from my daze. Oh, thank God, Landon already called for help. I tumble out of the car without thinking, the sound of my name floating toward me in desperate cries that sure as hell don’t sound like the voice of a man who hates me with every fiber of his being.

  The firelight casts Landon in stark, violent shades until he looks like the darkly devilish thing he is, a demon against the leaping fire, smolderingly handsome.

  Every muscle in his body straining. Sweat darkening in clinging spots against his shirt.

  He throws himself against the door one more time with a ragged call – Kenna! – a call that cuts my heart and tears it into ribbons. The door splinters inward under the impact of his shoulder.

  Then he pulls himself back, readies himself to charge again, latent energy bristling in every hard-cut line of him.

  “Landon!”

  My turn. I call his name, then stop, faltering, hovering a safe distance away. Not from the flames.

  From him.

  He can hurt me more than any fire. His looks can sear deeper than any burn.

  He goes so completely still it’s like he’s been cast in stone. Then he lifts his head, staring at me, his eyes wide and haunted and stark, his face haggard.

  I’m so confused I could pass out dizzy – torn between the adrenaline, the shock, the fear of the primal animal response to fire...and the charged, trembling emotions of my primal animal response to him.

  He takes one step toward me. Reaches out a hand. “Reb.” A nickname I haven’t heard in years, a single syllable with the power to crush me.

  And then the fire trucks come flying in, ambulance not a foot off their bumper, and there’s no room for words. There’s only the rush of the firefighters unspooling their hoses, turning roaring arcs of spray on flames.

  The emergency responders swarm both of us, a buffering layer of humanity asking questions I don’t quite process, but still manage to answer. No, I’m not hurt. No, there’s no one else inside. No, I didn’t inhale any smoke.

  Landon’s getting the same interrogation, but he’s also getting hustled away from me when his shirt peels off over the powerful, tapered sculpture of a hard-chiseled chest marked in scars, revealing the livid red bruise he’d made on his shoulder trying to break down the door. His hands, too, are a mess, knuckles scraped raw from smashing at the beach house. For me.

  He did that because he was worried for me.

  I don’t know how to feel. I just know that the distance between us is like a stretching thread, and I don’t want it to snap. I want to be near him, suddenly, even if it hurts.

  So I edge through the cloud of EMTs guiding him to sit on the edge of the open back of an ambulance, while a man in a blue uniform looks over Landon’s bruises and scratches. I make myself unobtrusive, tucking myself against the open back door of the ambulance, less than a foot away from Landon. Close enough that I can feel his body heat. Close enough that every hair on my body prickles, as he stares into me, as if he can see right down to the center of my chaotic heart.

  This whole time, he never looks away.

  But he says nothing. So I don’t say anything, either. We're locked in this heavy, heavy silence.

  Together, we just watch, while the firefighters put out the flames. Water cools their glow, until the night is night again, and the only thing left burning is me.

  * * *

  It takes a while to finish, after the fire seems to be out.

  I’d never really thought a sustained blaze can take an hour or more of intense effort to completely put it out. It looks like it’s only the kitchen that’s damaged, though. The flames are contained before they spread to the rest of the house.

  Did I do this? I’m just waiting for Landon to shake himself from his daze and start pointing fingers.

  I’ve been known to be a bit of an absentminded klutz, especially when writing. I never lived down the shame of setting my dorm kitchenette on fire in college because I was so busy on a term paper I forgot the ramen I’d left in the pot. The pot boiled down and the ramen turned to char, and then turned into a little stinking glop of burning crud, setting off the fire alarms and forcing the entire dorm to evacuate.

  Had I left the stove on when I went out for my burger? I’d made a pot of tea to calm myself earlier, but I was pretty sure I’d shut off the burner. I retrace my steps throughout the day, but there’s nothing. Nothing I did t
hat would've caused this.

  I didn’t even plug in my laptop, so I couldn’t be the culprit behind an electrical fire. If that’s what happened, then anything with faulty wiring was there before I showed up.

  It’s not my fault, I tell myself. It can't be my fault.

  And even if it is, it’s not like Landon can hate me more.

  He hasn’t said a word, not even after the EMT patched him up with gauze across his knuckles and a slather of salve on his bruised shoulder, and let him put his dirtied, sweaty shirt back on.

  He’s just alternated between watching the flames with a pensive look and watching me with something completely unreadable in his eyes. I’ve kept my gaze fixed on the beach house, ignoring the pounding of my heart.

  When he speaks, it hits hard as a gunshot in a silence that isn’t silence at all, filled with the sounds of rushing water and calling voices and crackling radios, but somehow between us, the stillness is so absolute that breaking it is like shattering glass.

  Shattering me.

  “Come on,” he says. “We’re just in the way now.”

  He prowls to his feet in a powerful flex of flowing muscle, the rear of the ambulance bucking upward as his solid weight leaves it, and turns to trudge toward the house, the set of his shoulders grim and weary, his crudely beautiful, large hands hanging helplessly at his sides.

  I swallow hard, fighting the sensation that Landon's helplessness is my fault. And I’m frozen, not sure what to do. Unable to believe he’s actually inviting me up to the house.

  But finally, I shake myself and scurry after him.

  Back to being the tag along little sister, always trailing unwanted in the big boys’ wake.

  He lets us in through the kitchen door. The house is the kind of massive thing I’d never have expected from him when we were kids, but it’s fitting for the owner of a prestigious company. It’s somewhere between Mediterranean and Doric. Really open and spacious with a floor plan that avoids feelings of claustrophobia, feelings of being shut in – arched doorways and large windows and white marble tile flooring give a welcoming sense.