Wrong Side Girl (The Girl Series Book 1) (3 page)

But even after I realized that Cole would never feel what I felt for him and accepted that we would only ever be friends, watching him with other girls or hearing about his conquests never got any easier.

After our initial little tiff over the phone earlier tonight, we were having a great night. Until skanky bitch number five thousand four hundred and twenty-three made an appearance.

No, I didn’t really believe that Cole had had that many women, but sometimes it felt like it. I really didn’t need to know that he had fucked her all night. She was gorgeous of course, but I could smell bitches from a mile away. Why did he always hook up with those worthless pieces of ass? I knew he didn’t even like them. He had told me. So why did he waste his time with them? And why couldn’t he give me what he was giving out freely to most of the female population of Boston? Was I that unattractive to him? Was the thought of having sex with me that revolting?

Tonight showed me once more that I needed to get my head out of my ass and let someone else into my heart. Yes, I dated. But more often than not, nothing ever came of it. Most of the guys I went out with never made it past first base.

I had had sex with three guys.

Again. Pathetic.

I was twenty-five years old for Christ’s sake!

Now that I had escaped that hellhole I had grown up in, had finished my degree, and had a job that I loved, it was time to work on my personal life and find someone to be happy with.

I looked over my shoulder to see if Cole was still busy with that bitch, but couldn’t find him anywhere.

Figures.

Didn’t take him long to drag that skank somewhere for a quick fuck. Still, he usually didn’t do that when he was with me. If not subtle, he had always been respectful enough to not hook up right in front of my eyes.

Guess times had changed.

I heard the bartender put the beers on the counter in front of me and turned back around to give him a smile.

“Thanks, looks like I only need one of those now.”

Not knowing the rules to this new arrangement of Cole hooking up while we were out, I decided to enjoy my beer at the bar instead of going back to the pool table to wait there for him like an idiot. The bartender was kinda cute and, following my own advice from a few seconds ago, I started chatting him up in an effort to be more open. His name was Mike and bartending was only his sometimes job. He was a cop and was helping out his buddy from college, who had inherited the bar from his dad two years ago. While we were talking, he was called away a couple of times to serve drinks, but we kept a pretty good conversation going. He was a funny guy and his intensive over-the-top flirting had me laughing out loud a few times.

During one of those times, I felt a light hand touch the small of my back, then felt lips at my ear and heard whisper, “Looks like you’re having a good time without me.”

It was Cole.

I was, actually. And why shouldn’t I? He had gone off to enjoy himself with the skanky bitch and left me hanging.

“I am, actually.”

The clenching of his jaw told me he wasn’t happy about that, but right now I honestly couldn’t care less. He had thrown a fit when I was running late because of my job and then he went and got himself laid in the bathroom in the middle of a game of pool. In my eyes, he had no grounds to stand on.

“Your new conquest gone?” I asked, annoyed.

“She’s not my new conquest,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Your old conquest, then.” What was his problem? Nobody forced him to fuck everything that moved, so why was he in a bad mood all of a sudden? You’d think he would be sated and mellow after having just gotten off.

He looked at me sharply, then caught sight of Mike and narrowed his eyes at him.

“Yeah, she’s gone,” he said darkly. “You make a new friend while I was in the bathroom?” Ah, so he had taken her to the bathroom. Very classy.

“I did. That’s Mike. He seems like a real nice guy.”

“You were laughing just now. He make you laugh?”

What the fuck? Why was he so angry? Did he know Mike?

“You know him or something?” I asked.

“Nope. Never seen him before.”

“Then what’s your problem?”

Cole caught Mike’s eyes and tipped his chin up at him, indicating he wanted another beer. Mike tipped his chin up at Cole in answer and reached under the bar.

“My problem, honey, is that I came back from the bathroom to find you flirting with the bartender instead of waiting for me over by the pool table like a good girl so we can finish our game.”

He could not be serious. Was he trying to piss me way the fuck off? Well, mission
fucking
accomplished!

“Are you fucking shitting me right now, Cole?” My voice was getting loud. There was no way Mike hadn’t heard what I said since he was only a few feet away with Cole’s beer in his hand. He placed it on the bar in front of Cole before he looked at me and asked with concern in his voice, “You okay, Lizzy?”

I opened my mouth, but before I could assure him that I was fine apart from the fact that I thought my head was about to explode, Cole threw his arm over my shoulder, jerking me roughly into his body while he growled, “Yeah. She’s fine. Move along.”

Oh. My. God.

I didn’t only think it. My head
was
exploding. Here he was, leaning against the bar, freshly fucked by one of his walking vaginas, and he was staking a claim on me because a guy had made me laugh?

My elbow shot out and connected with Cole’s side while at the same time I got up from the stool I was sitting on so that it was now between us, dislodging the arm he had around me. My hands landed on my hips as I leaned over the stool into his space to hiss into his face.

“What the fuck is your problem, Cole? You’re not my boyfriend! You have no right to tell me whom I can and can’t talk to! Drop the overprotective big brother attitude! I’m twenty-five years old and perfectly capable of choosing the people I want to spend time with! Which, right now, is not you! So maybe
you
should move along!” By the end of my tirade I was breathing hard. I didn’t think I had ever been this mad at him before.

Cole was watching me, anger flashing in his eyes. “Believe me, Lizzy, I am well aware of the fact that I am not your boyfriend! What pisses me off is that as soon as I turn my back for five minutes, you’re making goo-goo eyes at the first asshole that catches your fancy! Really? You’re gonna hook up with the bartender? I hadn’t pegged you as trashy!”

My head jerked back as if he had slapped me across the face.

Pain sliced through me, obliterating everything in its path.

Tears were pooling in my eyes—too many—and they overflowed and silently ran down my cheeks.

Cole had never talked to me like that. He knew what it did to me, knew how it made me feel when people I cared about treated me like shit, knew how deeply words could cut me.

Since I was ten, he had been the one person in my life that I knew with absolute certainty wouldn’t talk down to me.

But he had just literally called me trash.

He was right, of course, I had been born into that life, had grown up surrounded by trash, had lived on the wrong side of town my whole life before I could finally escape, but Cole had never let me feel it.

Until now.

“Shit, Liz, I didn’t mean that. I—” I cut him off, moving my hand in front of his face, palm out, my eyes cold on him. I didn’t want to hear any of his apologies. I dug some money out of my pocket and threw it onto the bar, ready to leave. I needed to get the hell out of here before I lost my hold on my emotions. But Cole stepped in front me and kept talking, his voice slightly panicked, “I don’t know what’s going on with me. You’re right. I don’t have any right to tell you who to hook up with, but you have no idea how frustrating that is for me. You know how possessive I am of my time with you. Maybe that’s why I lost it on you just now. I missed you. Please, baby—”

“No,” I interrupted him again, my voice filled with rage and pain at the same time, “Don’t you dare call me that! You just lost every right to ever call me that again!” My bottom lip was quivering and I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold it together for much longer. I tried to walk around Cole to get to the exit, but he grabbed my arm and pulled me back to him.

“Shit, Liz. I never meant to hurt you. I—” he was pleading with me, but I couldn’t deal with that right now. I was too hurt to even look at him. With a hard twist, I wrenched my arm out of his hold, turned around, and bolted. I made it to my car before Cole could catch up to me. When I heard him come to a stop right behind me, I whirled on him and let fly. All the pain and hurt and disappointment he had inflicted in the last ten minutes curled up in my stomach and turned in to an anger so hot I could feel my eyes alight with it.

“Leave me alone, Cole! I don’t want to hear it! You can take your remorse and shove it up your ass for all I care! You think you can treat me like you just did, talk to me like you just did, then give me a bullshit apology and expect me to forgive you? Not gonna happen! You were the one person in my life that knew everything about me, everything that happened, and has never judged me for it! I won’t let anyone ever treat me like trash again! And that includes you! You know damn well how hard I’ve worked to leave that life behind, Cole! So go to hell!” Without giving him a chance to respond, I got into my car, cranked it up, and shot out of the parking lot and headed home.

By the time I got to my apartment, I had three missed calls and two messages, all from Cole. I turned my phone off and collapsed onto my bed, too emotionally drained to even get undressed before I climbed under my blanket. I didn’t cry, but instead stared blindly at the wall in the dark, trying to push down my pain, to not feel anything.

But for the first time in my life, I was unsuccessful.

So I let the tears fall while big sobs shook my body. I don’t know for how long I cried. What I did know was that, for the first time in fifteen years, I cried myself to sleep.

Cole

In the breezeway outside of Lizzy’s apartment, I could hear her heart-wrenching sobs. On my way over here, I had thought of nothing but finding a way to make her hear me out, of letting me apologize. She must know that I hadn't meant what I said, that I could never consider her trash. I had just been so frustrated and angry that I could never make her mine when that’s all I wanted. But of course, she wouldn’t know what that felt like.

Hearing her crying was breaking my heart. I had seen her cry silently often throughout our childhood and during our teen years, but that sobbing… God! It was killing me! Lizzy was the strongest woman I knew. She didn’t let anyone beat her down, although lots of people have tried. I had made it my job to take care of her, to console her when things at home were bad, to build her back up when she was down, to protect her from the assholes in our town. She had always let me, had expected me to be there for her.

But tonight was different. She had needed to get away from me, hadn’t wanted to talk to me. For the first time in our lives, she had pushed me away. And that left a gaping hole inside me that was tearing me apart. I couldn’t lose her. Not ever.

She was my everything.

And I would show her exactly that.

I didn’t know for how long I sat leaning my back against her door, my head in my hands, the fear of losing her so strong I was shaking. I couldn’t lose her. I just couldn’t. And if nothing else, tonight proved that I wouldn’t be able to watch her fall for another guy. Just seeing her talking and flirting with another guy, a guy who had made her laugh, drove me absolutely insane with jealousy. I couldn’t stand it. What would I do when she eventually found someone she was actually going to date long-term, move in with, marry, have babies with? No. Absolutely not! That was not going to happen! Ever!

Yeah, I was a selfish bastard but that laugh was mine, those bright green eyes were mine.

She
was mine.

The crying had stopped. She must have fallen asleep. I shouldn’t wake her. I would give her the space she needed from me tonight.

But tomorrow, things would change.

Tomorrow, I would show her exactly how I felt about her.

Lizzy

Fourteen Years ago.

Lizzy is eleven. Cole is thirteen.

Cole is taking me to get ice cream. I love ice cream. It’s one of my most favorite things in the world. Getting ice cream with Cole makes it my most, most favorite thing in the world.

Cole is my best friend. We do pretty much everything together. Every day, as soon as I come home from school, I dump all my stuff in my room and go to our special place as fast as I can. Then I wait for him. Sometimes I don’t have to wait long, sometimes I have to wait longer, and sometimes he doesn’t come at all. But I’m never mad at him for not showing up. He explained to me that sometimes his mother won’t let him go outside and keeps him with her inside all day. First I thought his mother must really love him if she wanted him around so much, but he told me that wasn’t it. I didn’t know what it was, he didn’t share that with me. And I didn’t ask. He will tell me if he wants me to know. And then I will be there for him like he is always there for me when my mom makes me cry or when I can’t stand the fighting anymore and need to get out of the house.

I will always be there for him, because I love him.

Today, I don’t have to wait for him at all. He is already lying down in front of my cave, looking up at the sky, when I get there, waiting for me, smiling up at me when he sees me standing above him. I love it when he smiles at me. It gives me butterflies. He takes my hand and leads me out of the woods to the ice cream shop in town and I love that, too. Him holding my hand. It feels nice and I smile the whole way there.

I know exactly what I want: an ice cream sundae with chocolate sauce and whipped cream and sprinkles on top. When I give the lady at the counter my order, Cole grins and says, “That’s my sweet Lizzy.”

That gives me butterflies, too.