Drawn to Him: A Romance Collection

by Willow Winters

  “We’re not done with you,” he says. “You can’t shake me off that easily.”

  His eyes are dark and far too worldly wise for a quiet night in the local. Too worldly wise for this place, and me.

  He stretches his legs out under the table and kicks back in his seat, burning me up with a gaze that won’t let me go. Smouldering eyes. Stalking. Digging. Making me feel like I’m the only woman in the universe. That I’m the only one who matters in this place.

  Like he’s interested in me.

  And I can’t do this. I can’t make this dumb small-talk while everyone stares and whispers and wonders what the hell someone like me is doing out with someone like him.

  I should’ve known my nerves would get the better of me, that I wouldn’t be up to this.

  “You alright?” he asks. “You look pale.”

  “Fine,” I tell him. Good. Fine. Can’t complain. Same old, same old. “I, um, need the bathroom,” I bluster, “I’ll be right back.”

  He leans to the side to let me pass, and my hand brushes his shoulder as I go, the leather of his jacket surprisingly soft against my fingertips. He turns his head to watch me leave, and our eyes crash into each others.

  His are concerned. Friendly. Beautiful.

  Beautiful enough to make my insides knot.

  “I’ll be right back,” I say again, faking a bright smile. He nods, and I keep that smile on my face all the way to the bathroom.

  It’s only when I’m safely locked in a toilet cubicle that I let out the breath I’ve been holding.

  Fuck.

  I’m fucked.

  Not because I don’t want to make small-talk with Kyle Jordan Prescott over a wine in the Three Feathers. Not because I’m not up for this random night of crazy catch-up in the presence of someone I never expected to see again this lifetime.

  I’m fucked because I do want this.

  I want him.

  As much as I ever wanted him. More than I ever wanted him.

  The years fall away as I perch on a toilet bowl in my local pub with my knickers around my ankles. I’m back in that closet with his mouth on mine, my heart racing now just as much as it did back then – knowing how much I wanted something that was never meant for me.

  Guys like him don’t end up with girls like me. They just don’t.

  Kyle Prescott was never meant for me, and any more of a taste of him would have ruined me for anyone else.

  That’s why I forced myself to break the kiss and pull away.

  That’s why I bailed on him before his fingers had even worked their way inside my bra that night.

  I bailed on him before he broke me. Before I had to face being burned by the beauty of him. Scorched alive by his charisma and his… life.

  Before I had to plunge into the darkness when a guy like him inevitably let me go again.

  We weren’t nobodies to each other, Kyle and me. Not really. No matter how much I’ve played it down in my memory since.

  We had something. I had something, for him.

  And maybe, just maybe. Maybe him being back here again means something. Maybe it means we meant more to him than I ever thought. Maybe we really were friends.

  Maybe we could be friends. Now. Here.

  I commit myself to trying. Hell, I commit myself to giving this everything I’ve got. To be myself and seeing where it goes. Friends or not.

  I could do with a friend, even if his brightness really does burn me up. Better to burn in the sunlight than shrivel in the darkness, right?

  Right.

  I’m pulling up my knickers and feeling a lot better about my prospect for the evening when the bathroom door creaks on its hinges.

  My hand is on the latch when a flurry of giggles and squeals echo around the tiles.

  I pause. Listen. Interested to hear what they’ll be saying when they can form actual sentences.

  But it’s a mistake.

  Oh fuck, it’s a mistake.

  CHAPTER 3

  Kyle

  M y easy confidence doesn’t come nearly so easy here, not that anyone else would know it from the way I lounge back in my seat, my long-practiced swagger an artform by now.

  My smile is open and cocky, legs kicked out under the table like I don’t give a shit as I wait for the cute little librarian to resurface from the bathroom.

  The Three Feathers is still the place to be in this town so it seems, but it doesn’t make it any better than the shit hole it’s always been.

  I feel every pair of eyes, even though I act none the wiser. People stare at my back, whispering. Growing up around these parts sure prepared me for a life in the spotlight. It’s a fishbowl of gossip and slander. Everyone trying to find out your secrets to spill them to their neighbours.

  That’s why I keep my cards close to my chest. Always have.

  The ones that matter anyway.

  I take another swig of beer, trying to ignore the fact that I feel like a fucking idiot sitting here. I’m all of five minutes away from faking an emergency phone call and speeding away in my car for another decade. Any dreams I had of Emily Foster embracing me with open arms have already been kicked well and truly into touch.

  Figures.

  Ten years away have made fuck all difference. I’m still just the dumb cool guy with good genetics and little else. She’s still acting like we’re nothing to each other. Her standoffish politeness brings out all her prissiness – all the good-girl nerdiness I loved so much about her in high school.

  She’s still the same Emily Foster, and to her I’m just the same old Kyle Prescott.

  The thought makes me laugh to myself.

  I’ve had more women than I can count, more women than I’ll ever remember. I’ve made a conquest of every pretty face that’s crossed my path this past decade, and so far my knicker-dropping quest has seen a faultless record.

  All bar one.

  I’d have put good money on her being married off to some professor type with a couple of smart kids enrolled at some posh school somewhere by now – not checking in library books in this sleepy little blip of a place. I’d never have known any different if Mum hadn’t heard on the grapevine that Emily was back at her mum and dad’s.

  My phone is on the table, all set to ring with a fake emergency. My beer is almost empty, ready for a final swig as we call it a night.

  But as she finally appears from the bathroom – all white ruffles and polka dot with the same kind of librarian glasses she’s always been wearing low on her cute little nose – I know I’m not going anywhere.

  My palms feel strangely sweaty as I try to focus on the real reason I’m here.

  This isn’t just about the one who got away. This isn’t just about revisiting the girl who made a sharp exit from Laura Whiteley’s closet.

  It’s like her shutters have come down even further as she slides back into her seat. She takes a sip of wine but her eyes are downcast and her pretty mouth is closed tight. I feel the thump of rejection in my gut, and it’s alien. Unpleasant.

  I feel like that same dumb kid who thought she liked me all those years ago. I hate feeling like the dumb kid.

  I hate being the dumb kid.

  She’s staring at the table top like it’s a fucking TV screen. Like I don’t even exist. She’s fiddling with a beer mat like I’m the most boring evening she’s ever spent. Maybe I am.

  I guess I’m not intellectual enough for a little brainiac like her.

  “I thought you’d have left this place long behind,” I tell her and her shoulders tense.

  “We’re not all as lucky as you, Kyle Prescott.” Her eyes meet mine for just a flash before she looks away. And I get it.

  Of course I get it.

  I’m lucky. Just lucky. Plucked out of this shit hole by fate and not talent.

  My gut is a twisted fuck-up as I stare across at her with my poker face intact. Maybe I should tell her the truth of it, that it’s not all glamour and partying. That it takes more than luck to keep on walking int
o rooms packed with rivals and coming out on top. That I had to work my ass off for every early win, and still do.

  Her eyes open wide as I lean in her direction, and I’m about to fess up, lay it all out on the table and get this shit over and done with. The words are on my tongue when the pub door creaks open and in pile a gaggle of college girls with their skirts up high and their tops down low.

  I look in their direction and they’re already staring in mine. Four of them. Pretty enough. Loud and giggly and clearly planning on making a beeline over here.

  Word travels fast.

  “Looks like your fan club has arrived,” Emily says, and if she’s bothered it doesn’t show.

  I wish she was bothered.

  The girls hook up with a couple of others at a far table and their phone cameras are already pointing in my direction. I’m about to suggest we fuck this shit off and choose another venue when one of the girls makes a break for it and dashes over on high heels, her phone already angled for a photo.

  She drapes herself over me, her blonde curls tickling my cheek as our image comes into focus on her screen. She’s pretty. I’d normally take her home.

  “Can I have a selfie?” she asks and snaps one before I’ve even answered.

  It opens the floodgates. Of course it does.

  Her friends are like vultures on roadkill, pinning both Emily and me in the corner while they take turns to come in for shots. Duck pouts and air kisses. One girl lands her mouth slap on the corner of mine.

  I’m used to this but it doesn’t mean I’m enjoying it. Maybe once upon a time, before I realised all this means nothing.

  I should tell them to fuck off, and I would if it wasn’t for the way Emily stares into the distance like she isn’t even noticing the commotion. Like she doesn’t care.

  Like she didn’t even want to be here anyway.

  She won’t look at me, not even when one of the girls shoves a phone in her direction and asks her to take a shot.

  She points and clicks, barely smiling, unwilling to even meet my eyes.

  And then one of the group opts to sit herself down on a stool to my left, and up strikes the shallow as shit conversation.

  “How’s it going, Kyle?”

  “You back for long, Kyle?”

  “Are you really gonna be in Fifth Avenue Blues?”

  There’s not enough space for all of them, and I’m about to tell them they’re welcome to our table since we’re bailing on this shit hole anyway, but Emily beats me to it.

  “You can sit here,” she tells the girl cramming into her side. “I should be going now anyway.”

  She swigs back her wine and picks up her handbag, squeezing out through the invaders and only just managing to shoot me a limp smile before she runs out on me.

  Again.

  She’s running out on me again, only this time I haven’t even done anything to warrant it.

  I stand up to follow but she holds out a hand. “You stay,” she tells me. “Stay and have fun. It’s no problem, really.”

  But it is a problem.

  “Thanks for the drink,” she adds, making for the door.

  My gut twists harder. Tighter.

  A stranger’s hand grips my arm, tugging me back down, and it would be so easy to fall into the same old same old. A few more beers and a random blonde in my hotel room. A random girl’s pouty lips around my dick as I shoot my load down her throat.

  But that’s not why I’m here.

  I make some half-arsed excuses and head out after Emily without looking back. I step out onto the High Street and she’s already made good distance, power walking back the way she came as though she’s on a fucking mission to shake me off well and truly.

  I should let her go. Fuck her shitty attitude. But the paperwork is burning a hole in my inside pocket and desperation outweighs my pride.

  “Emily!” I call, “wait up!”

  She hears me, I’m sure, but the snotty cow doesn’t even slow up.

  I feel like a fucking stalker as I pound the tarmac after her. She’s easy enough to catch, and I underestimate my strength as I reach out a hand to stop her. My grip lands on her shoulder and tugs her back, and for a split second she teeters, eyes wild as her head crams back to look at me.

  I’m sure mine are angry. I’m on the verge of asking her what the fuck her problem is when I notice the buds in her ears.

  She pulls them out and I loosen my grip on her.

  “You didn’t need to come after me…” she begins. “You had… company…”

  “I already had company.”

  She looks at the floor. “I wouldn’t exactly call it that.”

  I tip my head. “What exactly would you call it, then?”

  The girl I chased up the road shakes her head, and what I assumed was standoffishness doesn’t seem so standoffish all of a sudden. Her smile seems paper thin, like she’s struggling to keep it in place and her eyes are…

  Sad.

  She seems so fucking sad.

  “Are you alright?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “I’m fine. Good.”

  “Bullshit,” I chance, and my hand is still on her shoulder, holding onto her as though she’s about to make another run for it.

  “What is this?” she asks. “Are you really this bored?”

  “Bored?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Oh come on, Kyle. You rock up here out of the blue, wanting to hang out. With me.” She pauses. “Why?”

  The gut twist again. “We can hang out, can’t we? We were friends, right?”

  “Friends…” she says. “Right…”

  “Right,” I insist, hating how she’s still denying it after all these years.

  “We aren’t even Facebook friends. We haven’t spoken in forever.”

  She’s right on that front.

  She smiles the first genuine smile I’ve seen from her all evening. “Go back to them,” she says, “they seemed like fun.”

  But I don’t want to.

  She’s saying goodbye even as I pull the script from my inside pocket.

  “I came here for you,” I interrupt. “I drove back here to see you.”

  I love the way her eyebrows raise so high over her glasses. “Me?” I nod, and then I shove the paperwork in her direction. She takes it in shaky fingers. “What’s this?”

  “The audition script for Fifth Avenue Blues,” I say.

  She’s grinning as she scans the first page. “I love that show. I heard you’d landed the part.”

  But I haven’t landed anything.

  I wait until she’s finished on the page and her eyes finally meet mine.

  “I need your help,” I say.

  CHAPTER 4

  Emily

  M y help? Kyle Prescott, the guy who’s travelled across the globe for exotic location shoots in underwear and little else, needs my help?

  I scan the crumpled document in my hand, trying to make sense of all the red pen squiggles and lines.

  Words spelled phonetically.

  Mediocre. Meed-ee-oh-ker.

  Jeopardy. Jep-er-dee.

  “You need help with this?” I ask, eyes still fixed on the text.

  His sigh sounds pained. “I can’t… I just can’t fucking get it right.”

  I look back at him to find his expression as dire as his voice.

  “The audition’s on Monday,” he tells me. “If I can’t… read…”

  And with that it all comes flooding back. Those afternoons in the library when he’d appear out of nowhere and grimace over his text books. The times I helped him calm down and make sense of the sentences. Sounding out the words over and over. The way he’d get so frustrated.

  “Nobody knows about my dyslexia,” he continues. “I don’t tell people.”

  “Oh, Kyle,” I begin, switching straight into English-teacher mode. “Dyslexia isn’t anything to be ashamed of, so many people have challenges with their reading. Plenty of actors, too. They’ll be able to offer you support, I’m s
ure…”

  I stop speaking as his eyes darken.

  “You think a pretty boy like me is gonna stand a hope in hell when they realise I’m a dumbfuck? I’ll be out of there on my ass before I’ve even read a page. Fuck that.”

  He’s wrong. He’s got to be wrong. But now’s not the time to say it.

  He pulls a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. I didn’t even know he smoked. “Gonna help me or not?”

  I push aside the pang of sadness. The realisation that of course this wasn’t about hanging out with me and never was.

  I take a breath and realise that’s okay. I’m an English teacher, this is my bag.

  “I’ll help.”

  He looks so worried. “You think you can teach me?”

  Confidence. Confidence is everything for someone in his position.

  I smile. “Sure. Definitely.”

  All the tension in him deflates on a breath. “Thank fuck.” He smiles his gorgeous smile. “I’ll pay you, of course.”

  I’m already shaking my head. “I don’t need paying. It’ll be good for me. The library isn’t stimulating in the same way teaching is.”

  “Right,” he says.

  “Right,” I say.

  We’re staring at each other, him puffing away on his cigarette while I keep his script clutched in my grip, unsure of what happens now, when I hear the cacophony of giggles from down the street. Kyle’s back is to them, but I get the full vista.

  My limited confidence shrivels all over again. Overheard words from the pub toilet make my stomach turn. A girlfriend? No, definitely not a girlfriend. He’s with some geeky chubster in glasses. So much giggling.

  “Your fan club is headed this way,” I tell him and he grimaces. I shove the paperwork in my handbag, strangely protective of his scribbles over the text.

  “I’d better get rid of them then, hadn’t I?” he says and in one slick motion he drops his cigarette to the floor and snakes his hand into mine. He grips hard, pulling me into his side only to slip his arm around my shoulder. The heat from him is… intense. His lips press to my ear and his whisper tickles. “Play along.”

  I’m just a ragdoll in his grip as he spins us both to face them. I can’t draw breath as he tips my face up to his and plants his mouth so slowly on mine.