The Price of Love (A Price Novel Book 1)

by Craft, Maggi

  “Yes, married, that’s what people do when they love each other and can’t live without each other. They get married,” he said as he kissed me.

  I didn’t know what to say. I had barely gotten used to the idea of dating Slayde Price. I wasn’t sure I could wrap my head around being married to him.

  We spent most of Saturday being lazy, but Slayde had decided it was time to introduce me to his best friend. “I’ve been back for a little while, and you still haven’t met Kevin. So let’s go over to his place tonight and grill with him and his girlfriend,” he suggested as we sat by the hotel pool.

  “OK. Is she nice?”

  He laughed. “Not really, but he’s my best friend.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “So I get stuck with her, and you don’t even like her?”

  “I’ll be there. Kevin’s fun. It will be fun, I promise. Do it for me?” He smiled.

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks, babe.”

  For the rest of the day I was filled with anxiety. I had never met Kevin, so I was nervous about that. What if he didn’t like me? I was also really nervous about meeting his girlfriend. She had to be really bad for Slayde not to like her.

  He had said it was just a cookout at Kevin’s house, but I still had to go back to the dorm for clothes. After trying on five different outfits, I opted for khaki shorts, a white tank top, and my favorite gladiator sandals.

  When Slayde picked me up, he smiled. “You look cute.”

  I felt my face getting warm. “Thanks,” I said quietly. I had never been good at taking a compliment.

  He talked about filming and also told gave me a little background on Kevin on the way over.

  When we got there, Slayde didn’t knock — he must have been there a lot. He grabbed my hand and I followed him.

  When we stepped out the open back doors, I could smell the lit charcoal, but I didn’t see anyone.

  “Hey,” I heard a man’s voice say from inside.

  We both turned around and saw a person who must have been Kevin walking toward us. Oh man, Kevin is smoking hot! He had a gorgeous, perfect smile and pretty blue eyes. He wore his auburn hair a little long and curly. It looked like he probably just ran his hands through it a few times after getting out of the shower and let that be it. His face was a little stubbly, and he appeared to be a few years older than me. He had a fit, perfect body like Slayde’s.

  He held his hand out to me, smiling. “Nice to finally meet you. I’m seriously sick of hearing your name. No offense.”

  I laughed and shook his hand. “None taken.”

  He walked to the fridge. “Beer?”

  “No, thanks. I’m fine.”

  He handed Slayde a beer, and we followed him back out. Kevin started putting the steaks on the grill. “Where’s Kimberly?” Slayde asked.

  Kevin didn’t look away from the steaks. “Upstairs. You gonna be at the gym in the morning?” It didn’t seem he wanted to talk about her.

  I heard someone screaming from inside. “Kevin!” Obviously Kimberly.

  Kevin rolled his eyes and kept talking to Slayde. “Five thirty?”

  “Yep,” Slayde answered, looking toward the house, then at me, and then back at Kevin. I could hear her coming down the stairs, and my stomach felt full of anxiety.

  “Good. I have you a whole new workout ready.” He looked up and smiled at Slayde.

  “Oh yay,” Slayde replied sarcastically.

  “Kevin Kyle!” We all looked up to see a furious Kimberly in the doorway. “Where in the hell did you put my wine opener?” she shouted.

  “I haven’t seen it,” he responded without raising his voice.

  However, she continued to scream at him. “Yes, you did! You brought me wine last night!”

  “From an open bottle. I didn’t use the corkscrew. Look in the drawer.”

  “Idiot,” she said and stormed back inside.

  I looked at Slayde, who was looking at Kevin, who was still messing with the steaks.

  “How bad is it?” Slayde asked about the workout.

  “Let’s just say you’ll be sore a few days.”

  “Fun stuff! You doing it too?”

  Kevin closed the grill. “Of course. I can’t make you look better than me Slayde. Damn.” They both laughed.

  “Here you go.”

  I looked up to see that Kimberly had remerged in a strangely better mood. She was standing next to me, holding out a glass of wine with a huge smile on her face.

  “Thank you,” I said, taking the proffered glass. I felt a bit caught off guard by her kinder behavior.

  “So, you must be Arden. I’ve heard so much about you.”

  Really? Because all I’ve heard was that you were a bitch, but my two-second diagnosis would lean more toward bipolar. I smiled but kept my thoughts to myself.

  “Kevin, honey, did you put the potatoes in the oven?” Kimberly smiled up at Kevin and wrapped her arm around his waist.

  “Yep,” he said and smiled back.

  What was wrong with this picture? I stared at them for a few minutes, trying to figure it out, while everyone around me engaged in conversation.

  Here was Kevin, seemingly normal, with this very obviously not-so-nice girl. Why? She was very attractive, but that seemed to be it.

  She looked a few years older than he did. She had long blond hair that if I’d had to guess I would say was partly extensions. Long, fake eyelashes and too much makeup. I might not have recognized her first thing in the morning. Her body was almost flawless, with perfectly perky breasts and a tiny little waist that you could see when she moved because it was partly exposed. She looked cheap, but she had expensive taste, judging by her clothes.

  Either way, my brief knowledge of Kevin told me he could definitely do better.

  “What do you say, Arden?” Kimberly asked, startling me.

  I hadn’t heard the question. I had been too busy critiquing her. “Ummm,” I looked at Slayde for help.

  “Arden doesn’t really like to shop, Kimberly,” he said, clearly trying not to laugh.

  “What? You’ve got to be kidding!” she squealed, looking at me like I was from another planet. “Everyone likes to shop.”

  “Not me,” I said.

  “Well, maybe you just don’t know how,” she said, giving me a strange look. Was this chick saying I had no fashion sense?

  “Or maybe she doesn’t need all that,” Slayde said a little defensively.

  Aw! He’s sticking up for me. I thought he was trying to imply that I wasn’t fake like her.

  “Or maybe she has better things to do with her time,” Kevin said.

  Obviously that was the wrong thing to say, because she immediately flipped back to crazy Kimberly. “What the hell is that supposed to mean, Kevin?” She pounded her empty wine glass down on the patio table.

  He didn’t seem the least bit fazed by this behavior. “Not a thing?”

  “So, you’re saying I have no life?” she shouted.

  Still calm, he took a swig of beer. “No, I only said she’s busy. She’s still in school, Kimberly. Calm down.”

  “Whatever,” she said and stormed inside.

  I was expecting some kind of explanation about her crazy behavior, but Kevin just started talking about protein shakes. Really? Hello, dude, your girlfriend’s in serious need of medication!

  The rest of the evening went just like that. Kimberly would come back and be super sweet and pleasant and then jump all over Kevin for nothing. I really didn’t understand their relationship.

  On the way home, Slayde said, “Thanks for going with me. When he and I first talked about this, she wasn’t even supposed to be home.”

  “I like Kevin, but frankly I think that Kimberly should be evaluated by a professional. She’s all over the place. Is she always like that?”

  He smiled. “Always.”

  “Why is he with her?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Where’d he meet her?”

/>   “The gym.”

  “His gym?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, lesson number one: don’t date your customers.” He laughed, but said nothing.

  *****

  Slayde decided to go ahead and buy the house. It had been on the market a while, and Slayde was able to speed the process up so that we could move in as soon as possible. Slayde headed back to work after the weekend was over, so it was up to me to meet the decorator at the house after class. She was supposed to get it all ready so that when Slayde got back in a week, we could move in.

  The week flew by, and before I knew it, it was moving day. Since I lived in a dorm, all I really had to move were my clothes and personal things. I was in my dorm getting the last few things together when Eric walked in. “Can we talk?” he asked.

  “I don’t really have anything to say, but I guess I can listen,” I said.

  He sat on my bed and put his face in his hands. “I don’t know how we got here. I can’t believe you’re all leaving. Have you really thought about this? Is this really what you want?”

  “Eric, I’m not in the mood to go through this with you today. I’m a big girl, and I’m capable of making my own decisions. If you can’t respect that, then please leave.”

  He looked at me with a hurt expression. “You know, you’ve really changed. You aren’t the same person you were before you left for Paris.”

  “I don’t think I’ve changed at all. Maybe you’re finally seeing me for who I really am, and not who you want me to be.”

  “No, that’s not it. You don’t speak for yourself anymore. You just do what he wants you to do. The old Arden wouldn’t have kicked me out of her room anytime I said something she didn’t agree with.”

  “Eric, I don’t think you see what you’re doing that makes me act that way. You aren’t treating me with the respect you should. I wouldn’t stand here and allow anyone to talk to me that way. I don’t do what Slayde wants me to do. I do what I want to do. However, I do consider his feelings when I make decisions because I love and respect him.”

  “You’re setting yourself up for heartbreak, Arden, and you don’t even see it,” he shouted. He had stood up and suddenly seemed close to my face.

  “How is that, Eric?”

  “Arden, come on. He’s a freakin’ underwear model. Every woman in America is staring at your boyfriend in his underwear every day. Eventually someone will come between you two,” he said.

  “You’re saying, because he looks good in his underwear, he is going to cheat on me?” I laughed.

  “I don’t think it’s funny, but yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. He’s a man, and he won’t put your feelings before his own desires forever. Eventually, there will be someone he wants more than you. Even if it’s just for the moment, and you probably won’t ever know.”

  I paused for a moment. I was truly taken aback. “Wow, you really are something. Thank goodness I fell in love with Slayde and not you.”

  Hearing a noise, I looked up to see Slayde standing in my doorway. I wasn’t sure how long he had been standing there, but I could tell by the look on his face he had heard most of our conversation. He walked up to Eric. This isn’t looking good. “Dude, I am really sick of you butting into our relationship. You don’t know shit about me or my relationship with Arden. This is the last time I ever want to hear about you talking to her. You stay away from her.” He was inches from Eric’s face.

  “Hey, what’s going on in here?” Milly said, walking in.

  “Eric was just leaving. Weren’t you, Eric?” Slayde didn’t break eye contact with Eric. Eric didn’t say anything, but shot me a hurt puppy dog look when he walked past me on his way out of the door.

  “OK, enough with the drama. Let’s get this show on the road.” Milly looked annoyed.

  After we put everything in the car, we headed across campus to the new house. Milly drove my car since she had wrecked hers, and I rode with Slayde. He didn’t say anything to me until we pulled up at the new house.

  “You aren’t worrying about what Eric said, are you?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, reaching for the door handle.

  He reached across me and stopped me from opening the door. “A, I love you, and I would never do anything to hurt you or ruin our relationship. I’m not stupid. I know how lucky I am to have you. I wouldn’t throw that away on a fling with some random girl. You have to know me better than that.”

  “I know that, Slayde,” I said, and climbed out of the Range Rover. But do I really know that? Eric was right. I would never know if he did something like that. Damn Eric, he’s such a jerk for even putting that doubt in my head.

  I knew Slayde was worried about what was going on in my head, but I couldn’t deal with that right now. I just wanted to keep busy for a while until I could figure out what I was feeling. I followed Milly into her room and started helping her put her clothes away. “What, you don’t have clothes of your own to put away?” she joked.

  “Slayde can do it,” I said.

  She stopped folding and looked at me. “All right, what’s going on? Are you two fighting?”

  “No, we’re fine.”

  “Bullshit, you’re fine. You’re quiet, and you’re in here with me, when you should be excited and out there making out in your new house with your hot boyfriend. So, what the hell is going on?”

  Tears started running down my cheeks. “I don’t know. Eric just said something that got me thinking.”

  “Oh, Arden, you shouldn’t let anything Eric says make you upset. He’s an ass. I thought we had already established that fact. What did he say?”

  “He said Slayde was going to find some other girl and have an affair, and I would never know,” I cried.

  “Arden, that’s crazy. Slayde loves you more than he loves himself, and Eric — well, he loves Eric. Eric just wants to get into your head, and it looks like he did. The thing about love is, no matter what career you have or what amount of fame you may have, it doesn’t change who you really are, deep down inside. A cashier at In-N-Out Burger can cheat just as easily as a movie star can. It doesn’t matter how many girls drool over him, Arden. It won’t change who Slayde really is and what he wants. He’s a good person. Give him more credit than that. For your own sake.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “I am right! Now go in there and kiss and make up.” She pushed me out of her room and shut the door.

  When I walked into our room, Slayde was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling. He looked depressed, and I hated that. I lay beside him and put my head on his chest and closed my eyes. He didn’t say anything. He just wrapped his arms around me, and I relaxed and fell asleep.

  After everyone was settled, we decided to have a little cookout to celebrate our first night in the new house. Slayde and Josh handled cooking the meat, and Milly, Karen, and I took care of everything else. We all relaxed and enjoyed not having anything to do. That seemed to be the theme of the weekend. No one studied at all until Sunday night.

  Slayde decided not to go back Sunday night. He figured he could get up and leave by 5:00 a.m. and be there in plenty of time. I sure wasn’t going to argue with that. I knew I would hate sleeping in that big old bed by myself the next few nights while he was gone.

  Monday was our last real day of class, and finals started Tuesday. I wasn’t sure how much sleep we got the next few nights, because the only time I recalled going to sleep was in the middle of studying. I was the only one who had an exam on Friday; everyone else would finish on Thursday and go home to their families. I would stay in the house and wait for Slayde to get back Saturday. The thought of that made me sad. At least at the dorms there would still be other people there, and I wouldn’t be so alone. Maybe I would go stay there.

  Wednesday night, Milly and I sat outside drinking wine. “I was thinking about waiting and flying home Saturday,” Milly said.

  “I thought your parents had already sent you your ticket.”

&
nbsp; “They did, but I can always change the ticket. I don’t want to leave you here by yourself.”

  “You don’t have to do that for me. I’m sure your family is ready for you to come home.”

  “You’re my family too, and I think I need to stay here with you,” she said. That’s why I loved Milly. She always knew what was really going on with me.

  After my exam Friday, I was so excited. I grabbed my backpack, put in my earbuds, and rocked out to my favorite playlist all the way home. I was singing along with my favorite songs, not caring who heard. I was a free woman. I had four weeks of no school, no tests, no serious thinking — nothing but time with Slayde, and I was going to enjoy every minute of it. Milly and I decided to go out for a girls’ night. Slayde wouldn’t be home until the next morning, and Milly and I hadn’t done anything just the two of us in a while. We needed this.

  We got all dressed up. It was always more fun to go out when you looked pretty. I wore my favorite skinny jeans, a light sweater, and some Louboutins I’d borrowed from my mom’s closet the last time I went home. Who cared if they were last season’s — they were still gorgeous. The only genetic thing I seemed to have inherited from my mother was a love for beautiful shoes.

  Milly had on a dress that I thought was a little shorter than I’d have worn and possibly a size too small, but she still looked cute. Even though Milly had her own bathroom, we got ready together in mine like old times. “Maybe we can find you a man tonight, Mills.” I wanted to go on the hunt for her, just like she used to for me.

  “I hope not.”

  “OK, maybe we can find you a woman.”

  “Sorry, the woman for me is already taken.” She winked at me, and we laughed.

  “Why are you so hell-bent on being alone, Mills?”

  “I don’t want to be alone. Nobody wants to be alone. I just don’t want all of that drama until I finish school. I’m not as blessed in the brains department as you. I can only focus on one thing at a time.”

  That was a good point. Milly was a good student, but I knew she had to work hard. I had never really had an issue with grades. I almost felt guilty that it came so much easier for me. I liked to study, so it just seemed to come easy for me. It always had. That’s why testing out of high school at seventeen and starting college a year early was an easy choice for me. I wasn’t sure if I had been in a hurry to get out of high school or my mother’s house or both. But in college I even took classes in the summer because I hadn’t wanted to go home. School was my real home. It was the only place I was accepted for who I really was.