Authors: Autumn Doughton
Megan’s grey eyes follow mine. “You got it.” She breaks into a mega-watt smile and runs her manicured fingernails down my arm before stalking away. I will say one thing: the girl has a fine, plump ass on her.
I watch, amused, as Megan bats her eyelashes and works her ample curves to scare off the other girl. In two minutes flat she has her arm hooked around Daniel’s waist and is dragging him out with her to the dance floor.
“She’s got skills,” I mutter and take another sip of my beer.
“Cole, man,” Nate yells over the music. He comes up beside me and slams his empty beer bottle down on the bar top. “Ready for another one?”
I move my head sharply to one side. “Naw, I think I’m going to call it. I’ll get myself a cab or see if I can catch a ride back to the house with Adam.”
“What the fuck? The night’s still young!” He chants, throwing back his head and howling toward the ceiling.
“It’s almost two in the morning.” I take a final swig of my beer and signal to the bartender that I’m ready to close out my tab. “Anyway, I’m just not feeling it anymore, and don’t forget that we have an early practice tomorrow.”
Nate laughs, his white teeth flashing against his dark skin. “I never thought I’d see the day that you’d be the one reminding me about a morning practice.” He jabs his elbow harshly into my ribs. “Before you go, at least tell me where I can find that pretty little number that was wrapped around your leg earlier.”
“Ahhh, I’m pretty sure that Daniel’s got his hand halfway up her skirt by now but you’re certainly welcome to go for his sloppy seconds.”
I sign the credit card slip the bartender sends my way and I push off from the bar. That’s when I see her. Perched on a chair at a corner table with her long, slender legs crisscrossed beneath her and her head propped up on her upturned palm. She’s with another dark-haired girl. The other girl leans in and whispers something in Aimee’s ear and they both smile.
My eyes trace the outline of her body—over the shiny skin of her bare shoulder, down the soft curve of her breasts, all the way to the valley of her waist—and everything inside of me amps into overdrive. My heart starts pumping blood faster, my fucking pores get all tingly, and I feel like the club just got a couple degrees hotter. Damn it. I need to get my dick and my pulse in check or this girl is going to think I’m some kind of deranged creep. It’s already becoming apparent that I’m going to need to go home and take the longest cold shower of my life.
Before I can think too much or talk myself out of it, my feet eat the distance separating us and I’m tapping my fingers on the corner of her table, waiting for her to notice me.
Four
agonizing seconds later, Aimee’s head comes up and it’s like watching an entire film reel of reactions play across her features. First her eyelids widen a fraction and her jaw drops open, and then this small, barely-there smile plays on her lips. I have to shove my hands deep in my pockets to keep from reaching out and brushing my thumb along the pink skin that lines her mouth.
I say the first thing that pops in my head. “I thought you said that you had plans with your parents tonight.”
With half-mast, unfocused eyes, she studies me for a long moment. Then she tips her face to one side and says, “And I thought that you said that I should have more fun. Maybe I’m just taking your advice.”
Aimee
Cole. Everly.
God
.
I ignore the ripple of chills moving over my skin and the slosh of the alcohol churning fiercely in my stomach, and I lift the short glass tumbler and take another sip from the thin red straw. Swallowing hard as the vodka burns my throat, I straighten my shoulders and narrow my eyes at Cole. “Are you following me around or something? You keep showing up everywhere that I go like a stalker. I’m starting to wonder if I should be worried.”
“Me? A stalker?” He laughs and folds his arms across his chest. I will myself not to stare at the prominent biceps straining against the sleeves of his shirt.
Don’t stare. Don’t stare.
“If the shoe fits…”
“I think you might be the one doing the stalking, Aimee. I just happened to be out with my friends and I looked over and here you were. Either you’re stalking me or it’s a crazy coincidence.” He smiles. “The third option is that fate is playing a hand.”
I let my head loll back. “I don’t believe in fate. It’s stupid.”
Cole watches me for a long moment while he works out what to say. Mara uses the pause in our conversation to pipe up and flash her sorority-worthy smile. She extends her hand to Cole like they’re being introduced at a political mixer instead of under a set of pulsing purplish strobe lights at a loud club. He laughs at something she says and I want to punch him in the face. Or maybe I want to punch my sister in the face. I don’t know.
The house music is a strange mixture of synthetic pop and garage rock. It’s loud and fast and the beats sizzle down my neck and slice under my skin. My eyes start to turn fuzzy so I close them and duck my head to my bent arm.
I don’t want to listen to what Mara is saying to Cole. I don’t want to hear about how much they have in common and how they’re both fun and alive and everything that I’m not. I don’t want to stare at his full mouth or wonder what it would be like to run my fingers through the strands of sunny hair falling into his green eyes. I don’t want to think about my parents, or about Jilly, or about school, or that night back in June when it all slipped away from me.
For five minutes, I want to forget this half-life. I just want to push all of the phantoms away and get completely lost in the gaping beats and the burn of vodka moving through my veins.
But when I open my eyes, I’m back in that car with the salty, dark water spilling in all around me.
Do you hear that sound? It’s the sound of the world ripping apart.
The water covered my shoes and weighed down my arms. Everything was shifting and dark. How long had we been like this? Minutes? Hours? Only seconds? I coughed, choking on the fear and the bile creeping up my throat. “Help!”
My hands flailed out violently and smacked into something solid and slimy.
Jilly…
I was weak. I groaned loudly and tried to move. It hurt to breathe.
“Jilly?”
Her limp body was thrown forward over the steering wheel. Her head was angled toward me but her wet, dark hair was splayed across her face so that I couldn’t see her eyes—just the tip of her nose and her chin. Her right hand was curled stiffly on the dashboard. One shoulder was bare where her blue shirt was ripped. I could see red but I didn’t know if it was her blood or mine
.
I gripped the edge of the open window. Glass crunched beneath my fingers.
Oh my God. My brain chugged to life and the fuzziness began to clear. Oh my God.
“Help!” I gasped and pulled frantically against the slippery metal of the seatbelt clasp with numb fingers.
“
Jilly?”
I waited for her to lift her head. I waited for her fingers to uncurl. The seatbelt buckle gave way and I ignored the fierce crack of pain that ripped up my arm and I scrambled forward through the sloshing, heavy water, reaching and—
Cole’s voice pulls me back to the present. His cool fingertips are resting on the hot skin of my neck, just beneath my ear. “Are you alright, Aimee?”
I can tell by the strained look on his face that it’s not the first time he’s asked the question. I close my eyes again but the lights are too bright. It’s like I can feel them through my eyelids.
“Damn it. You’re completely wasted. How much have you had to drink tonight?”
I push him away, blinking and muttering under my breath.
Cole picks up my discarded glass and sniffs it. He looks angry and I cringe. “Jesus Christ, Aimee. There’s enough vodka in this drink to obliterate me and you weigh about twenty-five pounds. What the fuck were you thinking?”
When I don’t respond, he starts asking Mara questions about what we’ve been drinking and whether or not we’re planning to drive home. I dip my head back into the cradle of my arms and breathe in through my nose. The world slows down around me—it goes dark and soft and strangely mushy. With a breathy sigh I close my eyes and feel the table and the chair and the ground beneath my feet fall away.
I am a raft.
I am falling.
I am floating.
“I don’t drive.”
Did I say the words out loud or in my head?
Hours pass. Or maybe it’s seconds. Who knows? Who cares anymore?
There’s a flicker of blinding light and I realize that I’m being picked up. Cole shifts my head against his solid chest and quietly directs me to put my feet down on the ground. I teeter to one side, but his powerful arm is wrapped firmly around my waist. He’s talking over my head to some guy that I don’t recognize. He says something about a car. Then he’s smoothing the loose hairs away from my face with his thumb and telling Mara to pick up my purse.
Hmmm… I let my whole body sink into his.
It registers that I should probably be embarrassed that I’m such a disaster, but more than anything, I think about how nice Cole smells. I nuzzle my face deep into his shirt. I make a sound. “You smell really good.”
He glances down at me with those star-bright green eyes and I can’t help but smile. “Oh yeah? I told you before that I use Ivory soap.”
“No, that’s not it… It’s not soap.” I wave my hand and flutter my eyelids. “You smell a little like… chlorine. Did you know that?” I sigh. “I miss it. I love the smell of chlorine.”
He laughs and the sound of it moves over my skin like liquid. “I’m training for a triathlon in Gainesville in a few weeks, so I did swim this afternoon. Maybe I didn’t take a long enough shower?”
“Hmmm… I like it. A lot.” I twist my fingers in the fabric of his shirt. “And you’re tall, aren’t you? I didn’t know that track stars were so tall.”
He chuckles some more.
Encouraged, I continue, reaching up to pinch the swell of muscle at his shoulders. “And you’ve got very nice muscles, Mr. Everly. I kind of want to bite them.”
“Miss Spencer, you are extremely drunk right now,” he replies, a wide smile busting open on his face. “But you’re a nice and very flattering drunk so I’ll take it over sullen and mysterious any day.”
My hands move higher. I gently brush his lips with my fingertips. “Do you have to use the smile with the dimples? It’s too… too
much
.”
“What does that mean? Too much of what?”
“Too much of everything.” I roll my eyes and sway to the right. “It means that it’s distracting. It means that I think about your dimples way more than I should.”
Cole closes his eyes and captures my hand in his. He bends his head so that I feel his breath, hot and tingly against my ear. “Then maybe we’re even because I think that
everything
about you is too much.”
I scrunch my nose, but before I can work out the words to respond, Cole moves his arm and instructs me to duck my head.
Confused, I look around.
Black upholstery. A windshield. This is a car.
Mara is leaning back on the seat next to me with her legs crisscrossed underneath her body. I peer out of the open door. Cole’s arms are on the roof of the car and he’s looking down at me.
“I’m in a car,” I say to him.
Cole chuckles and nods his head slowly. “Yes, you’re in my friend Adam’s car. We’re taking you home now.”
“How do you know where I live?” This seems like the question that I’m supposed to ask in this situation.
“I told them,” Mara says and lets her eyes fall closed. “I think we should have stayed away from those shots, Aimee.”
I vaguely remember the shots of tequila but I’m not sure how many either of us had. “Huh. I’m not usually so… I don’t know…
unsafe.”