“I don’t think your brother would share that sentiment,” I muttered. “Speaking of your brother, there’s something you should know. Cole is…”
“Here!” she stated, jumping to her feet and waving. I turned around to see Cole coming toward us, and I hopped out of my chair so quickly it went tumbling backward into the floor. Suddenly feeling a little nauseated, I leaned down to pick the chair up and braced myself for a confrontation.
“Hey, sis,” Cole said when he reached us, grabbing my hand and tugging on me. “Will you excuse us a minute?” He pulled me over to the corner and out a side door near the back of the building without looking at me or saying a word. I had already caught his wrath once today, and I had a feeling this would be ten times worse. Deciding to be proactive, I started talking as soon as he turned toward me.
“Cole, I didn’t mean for this to happen. Jake walked in and immediately started introducing me as your girlfriend, and I wasn’t sure what to do. You were right: you have to live in this town, and I should have said something, but I didn’t. I will say something, right now – I’ll go in there and make it right. This is all my fault. I don’t…” Cole reached out and put his index finger on my lips and I stopped talking, eyes wide with anticipation of what he would say next.
“Just…calm down,” he told me, leaning his back against the building and chuckling softly. “I decided to come over here and save you from Jake, and then while I’m on my way, I get this.” He held out his cell phone, and I hesitantly reached out to take it from him, looking down at the screen containing the text message: Parker, your girlfriend is hot. I returned the phone to him and looked down at the ground, biting my lip.
“This is completely my fault,” I said.
“No, it’s my fault. I was the one who asked Jake to bring you here.”
“Okay, that kind of was your fault,” I admitted with a grin. “What do you want me to do? Go in there and tell them the truth?” He stared at me silently for a minute, and then he finally smiled.
“No, that would be even worse. Just leave it alone.”
“Leave it alone?” I mumbled with a scowl. “What do you mean? You want me to pretend to be your girlfriend? That’s going to be rather difficult, now that you’re here. It’s one thing to say you’re in a relationship with someone, it’s something completely different to act like you are.”
“I am willing to suffer through it for a couple hours,” he stated with a smirk. “Just don’t embarrass me.”
“Embarrass you!” I said with a laugh. “I’m sorry, have we met?”
“I’m not talking about knocking your chair over or falling in a ditch,” he explained. “I’m talking emotional embarrassment. Don’t tell any lies or make up things that I’ll have to explain later.”
“So it’s okay to lie about being in a relationship, but don’t lie about the relationship. Got it.”
“You made that sound terrible,” he said with a smile.
“No, you made that sound terrible,” I countered, opening the door and slipping back inside with Cole two steps behind. It took all of thirty seconds for Rachel to find us and pull me back to her table while Cole talked to the guys in the band as they set up. She peppered me with all sorts of questions about my life, and then proceeded to tell me about her daughter, things she liked to do, and everything I should know about the area where she lived. She was so bubbly and pleasant, it was impossible not to feel at ease talking to her. When Cole finally came to the table and sat down beside me, she gave him a huge smile and then turned to me again.
“How did you two meet?” she asked. “I only know bits and pieces.”
“Well,” I started, glancing at Cole and reminding myself not to lie, “I guess you could say Cole was my knight in shining pickup truck. I was stranded in the rain, and he showed up to rescue me.”
“Oh, how romantic,” she sighed, resting her chin on her hands.
“As it turns out, he has quite a knack for rescuing me,” I told her. “I’m not the most graceful person.”
“Definitely not!” Cole stated with a laugh, smiling at me. “Tell her what you did this morning.”
Don’t embarrass me, huh? I guess that rule doesn’t cover me too!
“We were jogging, and…” I glanced over at Cole, who was wearing that smile that melted my brain, “…I fell in a ditch.”
“I feel completely terrible about that, too,” Cole teased, “but you did say the bruises were worth it, right?”
“Shut up!” I whispered, laughing.
“This is so great,” Rachel stated, grinning at me. “I totally get why Cole sent me that text message in the middle of the night.”
“What text message?” I asked innocently, turning to stare at Cole, who looked every bit like a deer in the headlights.
“Nothing,” he said quickly, motioning to Rachel with his eyes.
“What text message?” I asked again, smiling at Rachel. She stared at me in silence for a minute and then wrinkled her nose.
“I don’t think he wants me to tell you,” she stated. “It was something he texted me the night he met you, nothing really.” I looked over at Cole, who wasn’t about to offer up anything. He shrugged his shoulders as if to indicate that the story was over.
“Do you ladies want something to drink?” Cole asked, standing up. I told him I would take a water, and Rachel indicated that she wanted a cola. As soon as he walked away, I turned back toward Rachel.
“Come on, Rachel,” I pleaded. “Didn’t you say we were going to be best friends? What did he text you?” She looked from me to Cole and then back again.
“Ugh…” she said with a look on her face of inner turmoil, glancing back again from Cole to me. I could tell she was scared to fail her brother, but was equally worried about disappointing her new friend. Finally, she leaned close, put her mouth near my ear, and whispered, “I just met the girl of my dreams.”
Be still my heart! I could pass out! Okay, whoa, the way my heart is pounding, I actually might pass out.
I smiled at Rachel as if that was the most normal thing in the world to say, but inside my heart would not stop doing acrobatics against my chest cavity. I turned to look at Cole, standing by the bar, noting how incredibly handsome he looked in his gray v-neck t-shirt and distressed jeans. How could I possibly be the girl of his dreams? Just that morning he told me he had to overlook things in order to like me, so those two statements could not mesh.
Not possible.
As he started to walk back toward us, I realized I was staring at him and quickly turned around, taking a deep breath to calm my nerves before he came back. He handed Rachel her drink, set the water down in front of me, and then lowered himself into his own chair. We sat in silence for a minute, and then Cole let out a loud sigh.
“You told her, didn’t you?” he asked Rachel.
“Are you kidding?” I retorted quickly. “I tried to get her to tell me, but she is like a fortress.” I winked at Rachel, and she tried to smile, but she had guilt written all over her face.
“In the future, you might keep in mind that Rachel is incapable of hiding anything from me,” Cole stated, shaking his head, “and she is definitely not a fortress.” Rachel looked down into her cola, and I started to feel badly for her.
“I’m sorry, Rachel,” I told her. “I shouldn’t be so pushy. I wouldn’t want to bring the fury of Cole upon you.”
“Fury of Cole?” she asked, giggling. “That’s funny. Cole’s so laid-back, I can’t even imagine him being angry.”
“Really?” I said incredulously, turning to look at Cole. “Wow, I must bring out the worst in you.” He smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“You definitely invite a passionate response from time to time,” he said with a smirk.
We sat there talking for a little while longer, Rachel and I, while Cole chatted with a couple guys from the band. Eventually Jake came over too, and they all started discussing things that had happened in the past. I became very aware
in those moments that I was an outsider, no matter how welcome they tried to make me feel. All of these people had this very tangible history together that I knew nothing about, and I felt like an imposter. Each story that began with, “Hey, do you remember that time…” left me feeling a little further out of the circle, until eventually I felt like the circle was drawn around them and I was sitting on the outside. I couldn’t even count the number of girls who stopped by our table just to say “hey” to Cole, and tell him it had been so long since they’d seen him. I fought the urge to be annoyed over their overt flirting, since I wasn’t really his girlfriend and had no right to feel irked about the situation.
Still, as much as I hated to admit it, I was terribly bothered by the whole thing, especially when a few of them decided to bring up the fact that they had seen me on TV, which I knew was a sore spot with Cole. When a couple of ladies actually brought their chairs over and sat next to him, I knew the ugly green monster was about to burst forth, so I politely excused myself and began wandering around the building. After only a minute I spotted Lily, the younger librarian I had befriended earlier in the week, who waved and motioned me over. She asked if I was there with Cole or Jake, and I told her a little of both, actually, which she thought was hilarious. Soon the band started playing their first song, a Bon Jovi cover, and they were surprisingly good. Lily and I continued to chat as we watched people move to the dance floor, and after a minute Rachel found me.
“Hi, Lily,” she said, linking her arm through mine. “I was wondering where you went, Camdyn. You and Lily know each other?”
“Yeah, from the library,” Lily said. “She spent hours researching historical records, long enough that I would have gone crazy!”
“Won’t you girls come and sit by me?” Rachel implored. “I am over there by myself.”
“I don’t know,” I told her with a grimace, “I’m having a hard time taking the flirt patrol.”
“Come on then, dance with me!” she begged. “You too, Lily.”
I let her drag me out to the dance floor, where we finished out the song and then they launched into another. It wasn’t long before Jake joined us, taking my hand and spinning me around.
“He asked me to bring you, so he can’t get mad if I dance with you, right?” he asked with a grin, spinning me again.
“Definitely not!” I smiled. “Besides, I think he’s pretty preoccupied at the moment.” I glanced over at Cole, who currently had two girls sitting to his right and two more standing behind them. Jake turned and looked over at them too, shaking his head.
“They just keep sitting there talking to him while he stares off at you,” Jake said with a laugh. “Totally clueless. But you are definitely the center of attention tonight. Some of them are fascinated by you, and some are going crazy with jealousy.”
“It’s just because I’m new,” I told him, as the band began to play a slow song. Jake gently took me by the waist as we kept dancing.
“Man, if I could go back in time, I would have made sure I met you first,” he said with a wink. I looked down and smiled, and I was about to return a witty comment when he abruptly stopped dancing and released me. I looked up as Cole was suddenly standing before me, a smirk on his face. He slowly slipped his fingers through mine with one hand and grabbed my waist with the other, pulling me closer. I forgot to breathe for a second as I felt his warmth against me and inhaled his cologne, and I fought the desire to melt against him.
“What do you say we not dance with Jake?” he asked, those deep brown eyes burning into mine.
“He didn’t think you would mind, since you asked him to bring me,” I explained.
“I probably shouldn’t mind, but I do,” he said as I became completely absorbed in staring into his eyes.
“Okay,” I breathed, “I won’t dance with Jake, if you stop letting those girls flirt with you.”
“Not a problem,” he told me, flashing a fantastic smile. “You’re not jealous, are you?”
“I don’t know,” I stated sheepishly, “are you?”
“Immensely.” He pulled me closer and I felt the smoothness of his cheekbone against my temple. His breath was silently moving through the hair around my ear, and I closed my eyes to try to take it all in. I was instantly taken back to the night we met, when we danced in Rosalie’s living room. It felt like a dream I had replayed in my mind.
When the song ended, he pulled back and took my hand, lacing his fingers through mine.
You know he’s just pretending that you’re his girlfriend.
It felt so real, though, the way he kept holding my hand and didn’t let go, even once we were sitting at the table again. And why would he care if I danced with Jake?
Because he told you not to embarrass him, that’s why.
It was too loud to talk being so close to the band, so we sat there silently, Cole holding my hand and my brain working on overload. Every so often I dared to sneak a peek at him, and he would look back at me with that incredible smile, leaving me even more confused. When the band took a break for a few minutes, I leaned close to him.
“Cole, that voice message you left me earlier…” I started, pausing as he slipped his arm around me.
“You mean the incoherent ramblings?” he stated with a laugh, resting his head against mine.
“Yeah, that,” I said, glad that I couldn’t see his face. “What did you mean, exactly?” He started tracing his index finger against the back of my hand, and my heart started pounding again.
“I’m not sure,” he told me softly. “It’s almost like…”
He didn’t finish his sentence, because suddenly Rachel and Lily were back at the table, and Rachel was determined to tell Cole something about a band tryout. I will admit I wasn’t really paying attention. Between wondering what Cole was going to say and him running his finger across my hand, my mind was absolutely racing. They kept talking while my thoughts were off in a daydream somewhere, until finally the band was back and playing another song. Rachel and Lily set off dancing again, and Cole and I were left alone. I looked up at him, and he winked at me, smiled, and hugged my shoulders against him. I nestled against the man pretending to be in a relationship with me and driving my emotions absolutely bonkers.
Does he not see what he’s doing to me???
Before long Rachel was back, telling me emphatically that this was the best part of the night, all giddy with anticipation. Cole and I sat up a little straighter as we listened to the band’s front man.
“This is the part of our set that we call ‘band tryouts,’” he stated. “You all have been putting names in this hat of the person you want to see tryout for the band. Normally we have to draw straws to see who comes up on the short end of the stick, but this time it is nearly unanimous and we have a clear winner. Cole Parker’s girlfriend, you’re up.”
I’m pretty sure I turned white as a ghost. I looked from Cole to Rachel mouthing the word no, but Rachel would only look at me sympathetically while Cole stifled a laugh. Neither one made any motions in my defense.
“Come on, Parker’s girlfriend,” I heard again from the stage. I took a deep breath and stood to my feet, hearing cheers and laughing behind me. I made my way to the stage, willing myself with every step not to trip or do something idiotic. Once I was on the stage and turned to face all those people, I decided the only plausible thing to do was play it off as a joke.
“I’m Tony,” the mohawk-rocking front man told me. “I assume you have a name.”
“Camdyn,” I stated when he pointed the microphone to my face.
“Camdyn,” he repeated. “I’ve got to tell you, I feel like I have just been granted access to Area 51 - like I have discovered there is alien life. Cole Parker’s girlfriend; I didn’t think I would ever see the day.” People started snickering, and I looked out at Cole with wide eyes, but he seemed to be taking it in stride.
Don’t embarrass Cole, I reminded myself.
“So, Camdyn, you’re probably not familiar with
what we do,” Tony stated. “We are going to let you try out for the band. We’ll start the song, let you sing a while. If you’re good, we’ll let you keep going. If you’re terrible, we will cut you off so fast it will make your head spin.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding.
“Basically, it’s public humiliation,” he told me.
“Well, luckily, I am no stranger to public humiliation!” I explained, earning hearty laughter from the crowd who had presumably seen my video earlier that evening. I dared to glance at Cole again, who was smirking and shaking his head.
“Then today is your lucky day,” Tony told me, handing me an extra microphone.
“Wait, wait a minute,” I said, trying to think of something clever to say to hold back the process while I fought off my embarrassment and nerves. “Don’t I get an instrument?” I heard the band behind me chuckling.
“The lady wants an instrument,” Tony stated to the crowd, widening his eyes for effect. “Which instrument would you like?” He turned around and waved to the band behind him.
“His.” I pointed to the lead guitarist, who was shaking his head emphatically.
“No way, man,” he said.
“Give the lady your instrument,” Tony told him as several in the crowd giggled. The guitarist sighed and dropped his head down, slowly extending his guitar. I looped it over my neck and looked down at it as though I wasn’t sure what to do.
“Does it have to be plugged into that sound box?” I asked Tony, pointing at the amp. I saw Cole put his hand over his mouth, and I looked down so I wouldn’t laugh.
“Yes, honey, it has to be plugged into the sound box,” Tony said with a laugh.
Without a word, I looked down at the guitar and fumbled around with it for a few seconds, playing a couple horrible chords that left the owner of the guitar wincing.
“Tony, I wonder if you might indulge me for just a minute?” I asked. He looked confused, but told me to go ahead. I put the microphone in the stand and stood before it, locking eyes with Cole.
“Mr. Parker,” I began, “I do believe you and I have a friendly wager to settle.”
A Reason to Run (The Camdyn Series Book 1) Page 14