First Love: A Superbundle Boxed Set of Seven New Adult Romances (136 page)

I think about going in there and threatening all that. Show them I’m not any old pawn in their game. But I can’t do that to Colt. He is so earnest. Thinking about that kiss, that soul-baring connection. I know I can’t say anything that might hurt his career.

I push out the door. Colt’s Harley is in its usual spot.

I want to do something. Leave something behind. But I don’t know what. I don’t have much on me. My hoodie, my check, the flyer.

Then I remember how he pulled my hair down. I tug the ponytail holder off and hold it for a moment. It’s not much. Nothing, really. But it’s one of the few things in my meager life I can spare. I roll it onto the handlebar. He’ll notice it when he fires up his bike later. Maybe he’ll think about me for a second or two.

I glance at the cafe across the street. Zero is over there. I could use a best friend right about now. I could even sit in the window and watch how Colt reacts.

But I’m not up for being in public. Instead, I take off down the sidewalk. It’s strange walking with my hair down, blowing and loose. It’s like I’m somebody else.

I’m pretty sure I’ll never get back to my old
status Jo
.

Chapter 2

I wake up a few hours later, surprised I’ve crashed on my bed. My knuckles are so swollen from hitting Brittany that I can barely straighten my fingers.

Maybe I’m not the fighter I think I am.

When I roll over, I hear the crinkle of the paper in my hoodie pocket. I pull out the flyer and the check. Colt’s image stares at me, smiling. He’s wearing gloves, shiny black shorts, and nothing else. My throat closes up. I drop the flyer on the floor on the far side of the bed.

I unfold the check. It won’t be for much. I just got paid a few days ago. I’ll have to stretch it carefully. Rent is due in two weeks. Plus electric. My old life settles around me, painful but familiar.

But Buster’s done all right by me. It’s a couple hundred extra.

I decide, screw it, I’m going to go get my grandma’s necklace from the pawn shop. No telling how much that jerk will try to charge me to get it back. But I won’t pay a whole lot over what he gave me. I understand interest and all that. But I have nothing to do and nothing to lose. I’ll park myself on his front step until he turns it over out of annoyance.

I feel a twinge of sadness when I pass the Sac ’n’ Pac where I first saw Colt. The parking lot is empty. No Harley. No hot fighter guy in designer jeans and leather. I stop for a moment on the spot where he pulled over and dragged me away from those punks who were messing with me. My eyes spark a little like I’m going to cry. I have to conjure up some anger to make it stop.

The pawn shop hasn’t changed. Still the same kiddie bicycles out front. Same barred-up front door. The owner is inside on his stool. Today he’s reading a gun magazine.

He narrows his eyes when I come in. “Got something else to sell?” he asks. His voice is gravelly, like he’s swallowed rocks.

I shake my head. “I want to buy back my necklace.”

He scratches his nose and grimaces at me.

I’m ready to launch into a spiel about him not charging more than five bucks extra for it when he says, “Don’t got it.”

“What?” I ask, startled.

“Sold it.”

Now my eyes really sting. “You said nobody would want it.”

“I stand corrected.”

I lean against the glass case filled with jewelry. “Maybe you’re confused. It was a necklace with a frog pendant.”

“With the diamond chips on the crown. I know the one.” He sets his magazine on the counter like it’s a trial. “Some girl came and bought it.”

“A girl?”

“Cute gal. Black hair. Said it was perfect for her kid. She was a princess in some play.”

“When?”

He shrugs. “Yesterday, maybe. Maybe the day before.”

My eyes dart through the glass case anyway, hoping he’s wrong. But it’s not there.

My only tie to my family. Gone. Grandma’s necklace. Sold.

“For the record,” the man says, “when you think you might come back for something you sold, you can give it to me to keep for a loan instead.” He sniffs. “I make lots of loans.”

This doesn’t help me now. I back up a few steps, then turn and run from the shop. I can’t seem to fly fast enough along the sidewalk. Everything is a blur. My feet pound the pavement in a steady rhythm. I’m not sure where I’m going. I just go.

Chapter 3

Sentimental mush.

When I see where I’ve ended up, I’m annoyed with myself. With my legs, for walking me almost three miles to this place. With my head, for not recognizing my destination.

With my heart, for being stupid.

The front of the dance hall looks different than it did the night Zero and I approached it all decked out in glamour and drag for the charity show. I tug on the front door, expecting it to be locked. It opens.

The foyer is empty. Dust floats in the sunlight coming through the window, disturbed by my entrance. I can see Colt striding through here in his suit. The press of the crowd. Shimmery gowns. I’ve never had a night quite like it.

I walk through the foyer, holding tight to that evening. I was so nervous then that I didn’t see how pretty this room is. The wood on the staircases and molding is carved. Everything looks fancy, like a fairy tale could happen here.

I hear voices on the other side of the doors leading to the ballroom. It’s too far to make it outside, so I squeeze in a far corner.

The maître d’ who took us to our seats that night comes out. “It’s no problem,” he says over his shoulder.

He’s followed by a very tall man who seems familiar. Then I see what he’s holding. A pair of white wings.

Angel Wild. The stalker boy who’s in love with my best friend Zero.

I want to laugh. Zero would positively die if he knew I saw Angel. Zero has been trying to avoid him for months.

Angel clutches the feathers to his chest. “Thank you. I can’t believe I left them behind.”

Light fills the dark foyer as Angel opens the door. I think I’m going to get caught, but the maître d’ turns to the right and heads up a set of side stairs that go to the balcony. When he’s out of sight, I dash back to the door. What the heck am I doing here anyway, acting like a lovesick schoolgirl? Fairy tales don’t happen to people like me. Getting fired, that’s more like it.

When I’m outside, though, I can’t help but turn back to the doors. I’ve never left anything behind that I wanted to see again. It’s different this time. I’m different.

“I know exactly how you feel.”

My chest seizes. It’s Angel.

He’s standing off to one side, looking at the doors too. “I thought it was going to be the best night of my life, but it all crashed and burned.” He turns to me. “Were you there?”

When I look at him in panic and confusion, thinking maybe he recognizes me, he shakes his head. “Of course not.” He turns back to the doors.

Angel is lean and dark skinned. His hair is buzzed close to his head, with just a bit of an edge to it, like a stylized flattop. His face is smooth and unlined. He makes me think of the models I see on billboards. The ones always gazing off like something soulful is on their minds.

He isn’t quite as refined as Zero. His jeans have some bag to them, and his shirt is loose and wrinkled. I’m not sure why Zero is so against him.

I turn away. I don’t glance back until I’m well down the block. Angel is still standing in front of the door. Two weeks ago I would have totally scoffed at that behavior.

But now, I totally get it. You’re not supposed to hang on to the bad stuff, the struggles, the times you fail. Life is really about the parts you want to remember. The happy times. You should hang on to those even if there’s lots of hard stuff in between.

Chapter 4

My apartment feels empty when I get back, footsore and exhausted. Once again I haven’t eaten much of anything. I run my hands along my arms, taut and muscled from working at the gym. I guess I’ll lose all the strength I’ve gained.

I might be able to find a job at another gym. But I don’t know. Even the clang of the weights would probably make me all teary-eyed.

I’ll start searching tomorrow, some place far from Buster’s.

My ramshackle room doesn’t have many diversions. The TV works, but without a cable box, nothing comes in. I have one of those cell phones you buy minutes for. But I haven’t been able to afford any in a while. And it doesn’t do Internet anyway, just calls and texts. Zero is irritated it’s not working, as the only way he can get me is by coming over.

Anyone else I’ve ever talked to was tied to one job or another. We might see each other a while after I’m gone, but it never lasts.

I try to imagine what my dad would tell me to do right now. It’s been twelve years since I heard his voice, that final good-bye before the oil-rig accident. Even when he was alive, he was gone for huge chunks of time. Maybe if he hadn’t worked offshore, our lives would have been different. He wouldn’t have died, for one. At least not that way. And he wouldn’t have felt like he had to marry someone just to give me a mother.
 

My own mom ran off from the hospital the day after I was born. She was a wild child, Dad would say. Blew in and out like the wind.

Most times I’m pretty sure my hurricanes come from her, those crazy bouts of power and rage that completely take me over.

My grandmother helped raise me. Dad was her only child, since my grandfather died in Vietnam and she never remarried. And Dad was gone a lot working offshore on oil rigs. We had a pretty good time, Grandma and me. She was a hippie love child, on account of the war.

Despite all those years of school, Grandma taught me the things I remember most. How to make a daisy chain. That singing to a strawberry plant was the best way to make the berries sweet. And that no matter what, nobody should ever hurt anybody else on purpose.

When she got frail and could no longer watch me during my father’s absences, he felt pressure to put someone stable in my life. It’s the staple of every evil-stepmother story. Kind father marries a conniving woman, then goes off and dies.

To his credit, my stepmother, Retta, was nice enough when he was around. She just didn’t know what to do with me when he wasn’t. And after the accident, she resented getting stuck with me.

Then there was her son, another problem entirely.

I don’t want to think about that, so I go to the kitchen to wash some plates. Anyone who knows me understands that if I’m cleaning house, stay far far away. I’m brooding over something.

Zero knocks at the door with his usual pattern. I glance at the battered clock. Weird. He should be working.

But when I fling it open, it’s not Zero.

It’s Colt.

My throat closes up. I can’t do anything but stare at him. It’s like he’s a ghost, except in jeans and a navy jacket.

“Someone will steal your Harley” is all I can think to say.

His brows move together, like he can’t believe that’s what I’d say first. “I’ll risk it.”

“You knew Zero’s knock.”

He leans against the door frame. His face has never looked more beautiful. I’m stupidly lost in it already.

“He told me that’s the only way you’d answer.”

“You met Zero?”

“He saw the commotion outside and came over to the gym when he got a break.”

“Does he know I got fired?”

Colt nods. “I told him. He planned to cut his shift and come over, but I said I would.”

I back into the room.

Colt comes in and closes the door behind him. My heart races.

He looks around. I see the room through his eyes. Cracked walls. Rumpled carpet. A sagging sofa by an armchair half destroyed by a previous tenant’s cat.
 

“It’s not much,” I finally say. “But I don’t need much.”

In two big steps, he’s got me. I’m crushed against his chest. I don’t know what it is, pity or what, but I decide not to fight it. Not yet.

He smells of outdoors and a little bit of exhaust. It’s masculine, and I breathe it in. His arms squeeze me even tighter. I relax into him, although inside, a tingle has begun to thread its way through my body. This isn’t the gym with other people around. It’s just us.

He presses his lips into my hair. “I talked with Brittany,” he says. “She’s spinning it. A crazed fan trying to break my comeback.” He huffs a rueful little laugh. “She’s good at that.”

“Do they know who I am?”

“Nobody even knows your name but Buster, and he’s not talking.” Colt pulls back, and the entire front of me shivers at the loss of heat. “They’re calling you the Kettle Belle.”

I snort. “That’s the most ridiculous name ever.”

He rests his hands on my hips. “I kind of like it.”

I’m having a hard time breathing. If he knew I’d spent the day mooning over him, I’d die of embarrassment. “So, what’s going to happen to Kettle Belle?”

“She’ll get her fifteen minutes of fame.” He’s looking down at me like he can’t get enough of my face. I feel a flame licking inside me.

“And then?”

“Everyone will forget about her.”

“Everyone?”

“Everyone except me.” He grins, and I see that his dimples are lopsided. One is deeper than the other. I resist the urge to touch them.

“Should I hide for a while?”

He shrugs. “Your hair was down and kind of wild.” He tilts his head. “You haven’t seen the pictures?”

“No.” I leave out that I don’t have a computer or a working phone.

He tugs his cell from his pocket. “I’ve made my own private gallery of them.” He’s smiling, as if those images didn’t just make a huge mess of his career.

He angles the phone toward me. The first one is the almost-kiss. I look so small next to Colt. We’re staring at each other, just inches apart. But it’s true about my hair. It’s everywhere, and since it’s a profile shot, I’m not super visible.

He flips to a quick collage of others. Me peeking around the brick wall. My wide eyes, hair all a whirl. There are a couple of Colt carrying me. Still, I’m barely recognizable to myself. Even the ones that show my face have hair half covering me.

“Buster came out and threatened the lot of them. Let’s just say a few lenses got cracked.”