by Hazel Grace
I swallow. “Yes.”
He scoffs. “You’re not going.”
“What?”
“I said...you’re not going. I don’t want you near Gavin.”
My face skews in confusion, was there a permission slip Gavin needed to sign? If Colson was afraid I was going to hurt him, I wasn’t going to do anything to him. Maybe he’s had a bad relationship prior to me? I’ve even politely turned Gavin down a few times already because I felt it was too soon after Logan.
That, and I wasn’t ready to date such a popular guy who could compare me to more experienced girls. Even though he did look like he enjoyed our kiss at Moonlight Ridge.
“Why?” I ask. “I’m not going to hurt him or—”
“Because I said so,” he alludes quickly. “I don’t need you fucking shit up.”
“What do you mean? I’m not going to mess anything up.”
He stares right into my soul with his scowl. “You already fucking are.”
“I—I…” Stop stuttering. “I’m not doing anything to hurt anyone. It’s just a movie, Colson.”
“That’s how it starts though,” he professes, inching a little closer to me. “First, it’s a movie, then it’s dinner. Then you’re whining about wanting more of his time and making scrapbooks of—”
“Scrapbooks?” I rebuke with furrowed brows.
“Scrapbooks,” he repeats confidently. “You’re going to be a distraction, and Gavin gets easily sidetracked from things. Do yourself a favor...and just call it off. He isn’t what you’re looking for, trust me.” I tsk, sliding along the door to get around him, but he moves with me. And this is why I didn’t kiss him in the first place.
“I’m late for class, Colson.”
“I really don’t give a shit if you’re late or not. Not until we’re done here. ” I eye him, meeting his angry gaze with mine that’s filled with exasperation.
I don’t know why he cares so much, I have things of my own to accomplish. I’m not going to be planning a wedding in the upcoming months.
“Listen,” I profess. “Softball and working keep me busy enough, and I’m not looking to add on to it. Gavin has been nothing but—”
He rolls his eyes. “I don’t give a shit what you have going on. Call the date off.”
I bite the inside of my lip, his antagonizing is grating at my nerves. We’re never going to stop doing this if I don’t start sticking up for myself. From the heated conversations, mostly on his side, to the way he thinks he can just drag me around in the middle of school just to tell me what to do. I don’t want to make a spectacle here, but I need it to be known, loud and clear, that Colson can’t order me around.
I’m not his puppet.
“We’re done here,” I bite out. “Now, let me by or I’ll scream at the top of my lungs, and you can explain that to Principle McMahon.” His mouth hovers close to mine, his scent enveloping me. A caress of his breath swipes over my chin.
“I’d love to hear you scream, Bases. But under completely different circumstances.” His eyes land on my lips. “And I have a reputation here, as you well know, I think I’d just drag your perfect little veneer right along with mine. You’ll have every girl in this school wanting to take you down when I tell McMahon how hard you sucked my dick in an empty classroom.” He meets my eyes again. “I think the word ‘slut’ will start magically appearing next to your name on the bathroom stalls very soon.”
I drop my book and shove my palms into his hard chest. He stumbles back a little, allowing me some space and air that my body desperately needs. His threats are fueling my fears. Things I think about constantly with being in a new town, making new friends and just surviving here without being a social outcast.
“I want you to stay away from me,” I fume, my face in flames. “You have no right to threaten me. I haven’t done anything to you.”
“Not yet,” he counters. “But when you fuck up my chances for a scholarship, then we’re going to have a huge problem.”
“When did this interrogation suddenly turn to you?” I shoot back. “I thought we were talking about Gavin.”
“We are talking about him,” he bites out. “He’s coming with me. I’ve spent years keeping him on track, tutoring him, making sure he makes it to practice. We have plans.”
“He sounds like a burden,” I transmit. “And you’re a lunatic for hunting me down in the hallways of school to talk to me about some stupid date.”
“So it is a date.” I didn’t think his brows could furrow anymore or that his face could turn a deeper shade of red, but they do.
“You could’ve approached me differently,” I say as calmly as I can. “And maybe I would’ve listened. But now, you’re just a brat who thinks you can get whatever you want whenever you want. Next, you’re going to stomp your foot like a two-year-old throwing a temper tantrum.”
Colson doesn’t answer, instead, he takes a steady step toward me, his face weakening from ire, which heightens my senses. And he doesn’t stop until he’s so close to me that I can feel the heat rising from his body.
I don’t want to like him this close but, God help me, my body reacts to it. Even when angry and irritated, I like the way his chest brushes against mine, his height lofting over me. He’s danger made up of flesh and blood, a perfect temptation that’s so intoxicating it should have its own hazardous sign with a list of side effects.
“Care, Bases,” Colson commands in a gruffled tone. “It’ll do you a world full of good.”
“You don’t scare me.” I retort with zero confidence backing that statement. “You’re just a jerk.”
“I’m a lot more than that,” he rumbles deeply in his chest. “I could be your wildest dream or your worst fucking nightmare, so choose. If you want to have a good senior year...back...the fuck...off him.”
Anxiety and apprehension course through my body as his blackmail seeps into my brain. Colson could destroy me in one sentence. He could cripple my whole senior year within seconds. All over a stupid movie that Gavin asked me to go on.
I have two options; let Colson dictate the rest of my year or stop this now.
Meeting his honey-brown eyes, I see that he’s smirking now, probably seeing the wheels turn in my head over my choices. But I’m not going to choose the one he thinks. I’m not going to be bullied by a boy who pawns his antics on kids who aren’t popular or who think it’d get them some street cred around here just so he doesn’t get detention.
So instead, I counter his step with one of my own, taking on the full heat in his gaze in this cool classroom.
“How about you back the fuck off,” I oppose. “You’re pissing me off, Colson.”
“Damn.” His smirk reaches his eyes as he bites down on his lower lip. “Those words sound so fucking sexy off your lips. I knew you weren’t so Stepford housewife perfect on the inside.”
“You don’t know me,” I quickly pledge. “You will never know me.”
“I know that you wanted to kiss me over Gavin.” His fingers graze my forearms before clasping over my skin. His contact is fire, scorching through my shield. “And that you’re too much of a pussy to admit that my touch makes you shutter.”
He steps forward, forcing me backward, and I’m entranced by the truth in his words. I’ve thought back about what it would’ve felt like to kiss him. Not that I was missing anything with Gavin, but the mystery of Colson intrigues me. While the girls at school talk about how he sleeps with multiple females at a time in one week or that he’s always messing with someone new, I’ve never seen him with anyone. He’s like the lone wolf with Gavin as his sidekick, roaming and reigning the school.
My backpack hits the door as his chest presses against mine.
And I’m screwed.
I know my face gives me away by the blush that covers my face. Gosh, my whole body. Colson’s pinning look has me melting into the cheap paneled door, and I’m hoping I’ll just seep through a crack in the floor.
“I would’ve kissed you te
n times better than that asshole,” he breathes. “It would’ve changed everything.”
I slowly shake my head. “No. I didn’t want to kiss you...hence why I chose who I did.” He studies my face, looking for my lie.
Because it was one.
I’m attracted to Colson, whether I want to be or not. But his attitude is the turn-off that brings me to my senses. The cocky I-can-do-whatever-I-want thing, I can live without.
“How about we test that theory?” he challenges, removing his fingers from my arm then tipping my chin toward his mouth. Alarm bells ring in my head, screaming at me to abandon ship and get out of this room.
Nothing good would come out of this.
He’d have one more thing on me if my body moltens to his lips or if he thought that I kissed like crap. It would be another nail in my coffin.
“Don’t worry,” he mutters softly. “I won’t get fascinated or spellbound by you.”
And just like that, he breaks the spell.
“Oh wow, now I’m definitely regretting my right decision,” I remark sarcastically. I grasp his wrist, yanking the soft caress of his fingers away from me, regaining my pride and composure.
“Cancel the date,” Colson reiterates, a slow scowl making its way back to his face. “Or not only will you regret it, but I’ll make sure you never get what you truly want.”
I scoff. “And what’s that?”
“Your perfect senior year,” he replies leisurely. “How you want to fit in here. How the girls on the softball team still hold you at arms’ length because they don’t know you well enough to let you into their little clique. How you don’t want to be the laughing stock at Alpena’s game.”
My chest compresses, how did he know all of this? The only two people in school that I’ve spoken to about my fears and concerns are Heather and Taylor, and I’m positive they don’t speak with Colson like that. Taylor always scrutinizes him like he is the scum of the Earth, muttering how much of an ass he is. And Heather, now that I think about it, I never heard any awful things leave her mouth.
She wouldn’t do something like that to me, would she?
“Where did you hear that?” I ask, intending to sound unmoved by his revelation, but I know it doesn’t come out that way. I can hear the crack in my tone, the frailty of each word fleeing my lips.
I watch his eyes glisten with confidence and victory, two things that make me feel smaller.
“All you have to do is just listen, Bases,” he alludes. “And all I have to do is have you expelled from this school to make you and Gavin go away.”
I narrow my eyes. “You can’t do that. You have no power to even—”
“I can,” he confirms. His index finger brushes down my arm. “Because I’m fucking Principle McMahon.”
Present day
Myles canceled our date for Saturday night, and I’m seething.
No, I’m not doing only that.
I’m planning ways to torture Colson in every way possible, starting with my insufferable sister. Because I know that he just adores her constant and overly excessive text messages. My subtle, yet clear, text message from Myles pretty much told me to take a long walk off a short pier.
Cute.
Now, not only did I embarrass Taylor because Myles thinks I’m a gold-digging whore, and she’s the one that set us up, but I get to wonder if Myles was something that could have turned into more.
Figures. I actually really liked him.
And Skylar was probably right, I’m going to turn into a hoarder with cats who watches soap operas and reads gossip magazines all day. Screw going back to school because it won’t matter when I’ll be single with no children and a future all alone.
I blow a piece of hair out of my face as my phone vibrates with a notification from Skylar. Clicking on it, I’m half tempted to throw it against my bedroom wall. I’m beyond tired of my sister over the last week. If I hear or see his name one more damn time, I’m going to scream at the top of my lungs, change my phone number, and disappear off the face of the damn Earth.
Skylar: I still haven’t heard from Colson, did you make it worse?
My jaw tightens as I fire off my response. These two morons belong together.
If Skylar wants to chase him around, let her do it, it’ll just serve him right for the bullshit he pulled on me with Myles.
And I’m going to be pulled down straight to hell for the next thing I’m going to do to my own flesh and blood, but at the moment I really don’t care.
Me: Fire off a text to him asking him if he’s still up for those drinks on Saturday that he mentioned to me.
Complete lie.
Skylar: Didn’t you tell me to make him wait?
Me: Decide what you want to have happen, Sky. You either wait or approach him yourself if you want an answer sooner.
Skylar:....What would you do?
My palm smacks my forehead. I did this to myself.
I helped coddle her with Mom, answering the constant little conundrums that she faced pretty much in her daily life. It was always something with Skylar. I’m surprised she didn’t have her own damn reality show yet.
I should’ve listened to Dad when he told me I was going to bury myself in a hole with the both of them and regret it.
And here I am, regretting it.
Evil me: Text him.
I toss my phone on the bed, done with Skylar and her oblivious crap, and start putting back the few dresses I picked out for my now canceled date. It was as though karma gave me a big “fuck you” with Myles’ text arriving at the perfect time.
I hope Colson chokes when my sister sends multiple text messages to his phone, the asshole deserves it.
Turning on the TV, I crawl into bed behind my laptop and open my emails to see if any new listings have come in for this week. The brokerage is staying afloat this month, thanks to the new website and marketing plan I’ve come up with. I’ve expanded our circle of services going into the next few towns over to sell and buy. I’m stepping on a few toes with other brokerages, but this is my parents’ retirement. Mom works as a nanny a few days a week, but it doesn’t make much and I refuse to let my parents stress and work until they die.
I soon get lost in my work, saving pictures and writing cozy descriptions to draw families into an adorable four-bedroom ranch that just came over to me a few hours ago. Words are key to luring in parents who want a comfortable environment for their children. Freemont has a phenomenal school rating, it’s quiet here, low crime rate, what more could you ask for?
My cell goes off, and I pick it up mindlessly to see the status report of my sister’s overly excessive obsession with Satan himself.
But it’s not Skylar, it's an unknown number.
Unknown: I thought we called a fucking truce the other day.
Oh shit.
Me: How do you have my number?
Colson: She’s been blowing up my phone for the last ten minutes, Sawyer. What the fuck…
Me: Truce was called off when my date just blew me off over the bullshit you said.
Colson: If you call facts bullshit, then yeah...I was overflowing with them.
Me: Maybe if you just did what I asked you to you wouldn’t be dealing with my sister.
Colson: Some people have lives and kids to get into college on a scholarship. Your sister can fucking wait.
Me: Lose my number.
Colson: Make your sister lose mine.
Me: Where are those big balls you used to have in high school where you blew girls off all the time? Did they shrivel off?
Silence.
I notice my hands perspiring and my heart thudding in my chest from adrenaline.
God, I hate him.
It only took who knows how many damn days for him to waltz back in this town and flip my whole universe upside down. The one I spent so much time healing and patching up so that I could move on and not feel so vulnerable anymore.
College was a joke, every guy who reminded me of Colson made my lu
ngs ache and my body convulse in a nervous breakdown of sobs. I would purposely avoid any guy who looked my way or showed any interest in wanting to talk to me. I couldn’t hear similar words that would latch on and tug me back into another playboy’s book of names, meant to be forgotten but counted and used as bragging rights.
Colson: I swear to God, when I see you again, Bases…
I bite my bottom lip, intimate memories warp speed through in my head. His hands roaming my ribs, cupping my breasts as he would breathe me in like he always used to do. Our foreheads touching, his lips so teasingly close to mine, testing how long it’d take for me to lunge for them.
Me: What, are you going to bitch me to death?
Colson: I’m going to something you to death.
Me: *raised brow emoji* color me curious, Hayes. Maybe you’ll lecture me about how to hit a ball or how I never listen. Or maybe...how much you hate me. Remind me again how much? I can’t wait to tell you my answer.
Colson: Already know the answer.
I don’t respond, pressing my lips together because this is what we used to do. The back and forth, neither of us backing down, and for what?
He drove me crazy, he always has, in so many ways that it used to be thrilling and dangerous to me. My sheltered childhood opening up to the baffling mystery of Colson Hayes and all the ways he showed me the world. To trust myself and keep hustling toward my dreams, everything else I needed would follow.
But he wasn’t there. He left me in a pile of depression and anguish to go off to college without the person I wanted more than anything in the world to be there to talk to.
Colson: Expect a phone call from your sister. Thanks to you, she’s probably going to be crying.
Then my phone rings, Skylar’s name appearing on my screen, and I fall back onto my pillow.
Geezus Christ, I hate Colson Hayes.
Ten years ago
“Strike one!” shouts the ump behind me. Readjusting my stance, I dig my cleats into the dirt, hearing my name being chanted from my friends in the stands.
And I wish they’d shut up.
It’s the Alpena game, our third game of the season, and Coach Gordon has me beyond anxious with her pacing the dugout mumbling to herself. And to make things worse, our rivals are a bunch of rich snobs who have been talking crap since we got here.