That was something I didn’t need to see.
Another girl hanging all over him, his hands touching her in places that I wanted him to touch me.
I had accepted the fact that that would never happen, but that didn’t mean I wanted it shoved in my face that he wasn’t interested in me that way. Currently, he was single and I was supposed to meet him fifteen minutes ago at a bar down the street from my apartment. It had been a few weeks since we’d had a chance to actually meet up for more than a quick coffee because I had been so busy at work. At my last evaluation meeting with my supervisor, Taryn, I had presented her with the idea of setting up regular tutoring sessions and career info meetings for our street kids. She had loved the idea and told me to go ahead with it. That meant I had to set up interviews with tutors and career counselors, get flyers printed, go out on the streets and talk to the kids about it, head staff meetings to fill everyone in on what was going on, and get a team together to support me. I had been so busy that I’d had to cancel on Cole a few times.
On that thought, my phone started ringing. I checked the display and saw that, yes, it was Cole. Speaking—or thinking—of the devil.
“Hey,” I answered after the third ring.
“Where are you?” He sounded really angry. Rude much?
Taking a deep breath I told him, “I’m on my way to the car. Something came up at work and I had to stay a little longer. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Held up at work again, huh? You think you could have called?” Very angry now. His attitude was starting to piss me off. What the hell was his problem?
“Are you serious right now? You know I don’t work a nine to five job, Cole! I’m sorry I’ve been so busy lately and you’re upset, but I’m not sorry I stayed to try and get through to the kids that worry me. My job is important to me. You know that!”
“Yeah, believe me. I know that.” It sounded like he had a hard time keeping his annoyance under control. That incensed me even further. What? He was mad at me for being passionate about my profession? He could not be serious.
“What the fuck is your problem, Cole?” I practically shouted at him. I was ready to just head home. It had been a long week and I didn’t need this shit.
I heard him sigh at the other end of the line. Then he said in a calm voice, “Nothing, baby. I just miss you, is all.”
Just like that my anger evaporated and my heart melted. I loved it when he called me ‘baby’. I’m the only person I’ve ever heard him call that. For his babes he usually reserved ‘gorgeous’ or ‘sweetheart’. But I was his only ‘baby’. Call me stupid and naïve, but I liked it. I liked the fact even more that he was possessive of that endearment.
We’d gone out with our significant others together once, which had been huge for me because I never brought the guys I dated to meet Cole. I don’t know. It just felt wrong. When Peter had called me ‘baby’, Cole had totally lost it on him. He was furious and threatened to beat the shit out of him if he ever heard him call me that again. His date— for the life of me I cannot remember her name now—had given me weird looks and had turned into an even bigger bitch after that. For the rest of the night, Peter had been kind of distant with me. He had ended it the next day, mumbling something about encroaching on somebody else’s territory. I had tried to explain to him that it wasn’t like that, but he hadn’t listened to me.
That had been the first and last time I had introduced any of my boyfriends to Cole.
It kinda pissed me off that Cole got away with almost anything as long as he called me ‘baby’, but I couldn’t help it. It showed me that I did have a special place in his heart and that on some level he considered me his. Call me crazy, but I needed him to own that part of me.
I closed my eyes and said quietly, “I miss you too, Cole. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” We both knew that everything was forgiven when he said, “All right, I’ll see you in ten. Drive safe,” and hung up. I closed my phone and threw it on the passenger seat, then started my car and went to meet Cole.
Cole
I was going to beat the shit out of that guy if he didn’t stop ogling her ass. “Yo!” I called and stared him down when he lifted his eyes to mine. He got the message loud and clear and trained his eyes on the tits sitting on the stool next to him at the bar. I took a deep breath in the hopes of keeping my shit together. It wasn’t easy. I felt like every guy in the bar was staring at either Lizzy’s tits or her ass and it was driving me fucking insane with jealousy and possessiveness. I knew I had no right to those feelings since she wasn’t mine in that way, but that didn’t change a goddamn thing. The problem was that I wanted her to be mine in
every
way possible, but I knew I had no right to make that so.
She was totally out of my league.
She could come across as rough and arrogant, especially when she didn’t like someone, but really, she was sweet and funny and loyal to a fault.
That was my Lizzy.
I had taken her under my wing when she was ten and I was twelve. Even as young as I was back then, I had known that she needed someone to care for her and I had wanted that to be me. One look at the sad little, red-haired girl with bright, green eyes sitting in a hole in the woods behind my house, tears running down her face, but trying so hard to be tough, and I had been a goner. I had fallen in love with her right then and there. And my feelings for her haven’t changed since. On the contrary, they have only grown stronger over the years. I knew she had had a crush on me when she was still in high school and I had started college, but I’d chalked it up to her missing me because I only came home every other weekend or during breaks. It hadn’t lasted long and shortly after, she had started dating. It made me a damn pussy, but that had been hard to watch and I had been grateful to be away at college so there wouldn’t be a chance to run into her and her boyfriends.
I never let on how much in love with her I really was.
Yes, she knew she held a special place in my heart, knew we had a bond that nobody would ever be able to break, that I considered her my best friend. But she had no clue that I was head over heels in love with her.
And I would never tell her.
I was too scared of losing her.
My track record with women wasn’t the best. None of the women I had hooked up with could keep my interest for long. The longest period of time I had ever been with the same woman was four weeks.
Pathetic, I know.
In college, I had pretty much fucked everything that had a vagina. Most of the time, I hadn’t even known their names or remembered their faces the next morning. I had slowed down a little after I graduated and started my job as an architect at one of Boston’s most successful companies, but I was still a bastard and treated women like shit. I wasn’t capable of giving them more than a good time in bed and I didn’t want to do that to Lizzy.
I couldn’t lose her.
Not ever.
And if my mother ever found out that I acted on my feelings, she would destroy Lizzy and I couldn’t let that happen, either. I didn’t want that bitch anywhere near my girl. So I stayed away from her and told myself to be grateful for being able to call her my best friend.
That it was enough.
But tonight, I had a hard time convincing myself of that fact. I didn’t know what it was. I hadn’t lied to her earlier when I told her that I missed her. I did. Terribly. Yes, we called each other almost daily, but I had missed looking at her, smelling her, hugging her, being close to her. I was two years ahead of her in school, and when I had gone off to college, it had been like this for a while until I buried that feeling with my cock in any girl who would have me.
But now it was worse.
Lizzy was like a drug to me and I had been forced to go cold turkey for the last few weeks. Taking a different woman to bed every other night had only made it worse. None of them were her.
Not even close.
It had gotten so bad that I’d had to close my eyes and imagine I was fucking her to be able to come. I was pathetic, and the fact that I had no solution to this dilemma pissed me off and freaked me out at the same time. That’s why I had lost it on her when she was running late.
I had really missed her.
I turned my eyes back to the pool table and watched Lizzy take her shot. Her ass pointing in my direction when she leaned over the table made my dick twitch.
Jesus, Cole, get a handle on it. You’re not a fucking teenager
.
She pocketed two of her striped balls and threw me a smirk over her shoulder. God, she was sexy. And the fact that she didn’t even know it made her irresistible.
Never had I seen her play those games women play to get a guy’s attention. She didn’t strut—well, she did, but not in the fake way that ninety-five percent of the female population did. To her it came naturally. She didn’t flick her hair, she didn’t make big sexy eyes at anyone, she didn’t show off her goods. She was classy and hot in a way that every guy knew she was the total package. To be honest, I was surprised that nobody had snatched her up yet, but I didn’t complain. I knew it would be impossible and incredibly painful for me to watch her fall in love with some guy that wasn’t me. My heart wasn’t ready for that yet. Only a dick would be so selfish, but hey, I never said I wasn’t a dick.
This way, I could at least pretend that she was mine.
Her next shot went wide, which made her narrow her eyes at the ball and straighten up with an attitude.
Fucking adorable.
I chuckled. “Your glare is too cute to magically make that ball jump into the pocket in fear. You gotta at least try and mean it,” I teased her.
She transferred her glare to me, and my dick twitched again. As hard as it was to appear unaffected, I succeeded by giving her a wide grin. I walked toward her and crowded her body so she had to move out of my way to let me set up my shot. She walked over to the table to take a sip of her beer.
I was focused on my shot when a body pressed into my side. The smell of an awfully sweet perfume almost made me gag. I turned my head and laid eyes on a busty brunette that looked kind of familiar.
Shit. Had I fucked this one?
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Lizzy watching us. It annoyed her when I got hit on during our time together. I couldn’t blame her. I was just as possessive of her time as she was of mine. If it had been just me out alone or on the prowl with my buds tonight, I would have taken this one up on her offer. It was always easy to find someone to fuck. But tonight was about getting my fix of Lizzy.
“You mind?” I rumbled in the brunette’s direction.
“Come on, baby, I know you like it when I touch you. You said so last month when I took you home and you fucked me all night,” she said in a put-on seductive voice that had the opposite effect while she was running one of her long fingernails down my arm and biting her lip suggestively. The half hard-on Lizzy had given me shriveled into nothing.
So I
had
fucked her.
I searched her face, trying to spark a memory, but I couldn’t come up with a name or even the faintest recognition. I must have been completely blitzed when I hooked up with her.
Lizzy caught my eyes when she was passing behind the skank’s back. Her face seemed impassive, but her eyes were flashing, which told me she was anything but.
“I’m getting us some fresh ones,” she told me in a bored voice while waving our empty beer bottles at me. She walked over to the bar where I witnessed two guys automatically making room for her to reach the front.
My teeth clenched.
Yeah, it was real hard tonight to keep my possessive streak under wraps. Those guys better not ogle or touch her.
A hand on my chest reminded me of the woman that was pressed into me, and I turned my head back to face her. I never dipped in the same pond twice. Once I was done with a chick, I was done and never went back. Seeing this one standing next to Lizzy made me wonder how I could have gotten it up for her a month ago. She didn’t hold a candle to my Liz.
My lip curled in self-disgust.
“I’m not interested in fucking you again. You need to get lost.” Yeah, I was a dick, but I needed her gone. Looking at her reminded me of what I would never have and it pissed me off. The skank narrowed her eyes at me then swung her head to look at Lizzy. She hadn’t missed my focus on her and the bitch came to the forefront. Turned out she wasn’t as stupid as she looked, though. Her smirk was downright evil when she hissed, “Forget it, asshole. A stuck-up bitch like her will never end up with a guy like you. All she’ll ever see in you is a friend. Call me when you’ve figured that out for yourself,” the distaste and incredulity was clear in her voice. As if she was disappointed in me for being stupid enough to think I could ever have a chance. Yeah, she was smarter than she looked, but she had also just insulted my girl.
Poking a riled lion was a mistake.
“Listen, bitch, if what you’re saying is true, you must have been a damn lousy fuck, seeing as I don’t remember a fucking thing about you. Not even your fucking face. Now leave.” My voice was cold and threatening and she flinched. With one last nasty look in Lizzy’s direction, she turned to leave and got lost in the crowd of the bar. My body was shaking. Fucking bitch had nailed it right on the head. I didn’t need any more reminders that Lizzy was too good for me. What I needed right now was time to cool off before Liz came back with our drinks, so I decided to take a quick piss break to get myself under control.
Lizzy
This was exactly what I didn’t need. Time and time again I had watched girls and women throw themselves at Cole. It started during his first year of junior high. Being two years younger than him, I had still been in elementary school, but we lived in a relatively small town and I always knew when he had a girlfriend. He never told me about them or introduced them to me, but the fact that he wasn’t around that much always clued me in pretty quickly. I also saw him around town with his babes. And girls talk.
It got worse when I started my freshman year and he was a junior in high school. Two years of pure torture. Of watching him make out with girls in the school hallways, during games, and at school dances. Of hearing all the girls talk about his skills in the sack. Judging by the amount of girls that had bragged about their experience, he had been a total pig. That had killed. Thinking badly about him was new for me and I had had a hard time reconciling the two Coles: my partner in crime, my best friend, my protector, and the love of my life, with the player who had no compassion for the feelings of the girls he screwed, who was an arrogant prick. During that time, I felt like a pathetic little girl with an unrequited crush on her best friend. Still, I couldn’t not be his friend. I was the only person he let get close, the only person who knew he had feelings and whom he would share his soft side with. He meant everything to me. Still did. And deep down inside I had always kept a spark of hope that as soon as I was old enough, he would make his move and claim me as his. A stupid little girl’s dream that got crushed when I was a junior in high school and Cole had come back home from college for Thanksgiving.