Wicked Tease: A Bad Boy Next Door Novella Page 4

  “Hey, didn’t know you were coming!”

  She shrugs. “Yeah I had to get a head start on the night.” She makes a smoking gesture with two fingers to her lips and winks at me.

  “Did I miss anything good?”

  Definitely not.

  “Yeah, literally the entire party is off hooking up somewhere.”

  She giggles until she sees the look on my face.

  “Wait, seriously?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Huh.” She makes a face. “Dude this DJ sucks. Oh! Did you see that hot guy dressed as Bender from The Breakfast Club?”

  She makes a whistling sound as I grit my teeth.

  “I’d go to detention with him any day.”

  She must see the scowl on my face. “Someone you know?”

  “Maybe,” I grumble. “It’s a long story.”

  “Ugh, jealous.” She takes my arm and starts to pull me toward the room that had the table with beer on it.

  “No, you’re not.”

  Melissa grins. “Making enemies already, huh? A month into school?”

  “We know each other from growing up, actually.”

  “Ooo, juicy!”

  My shoulders slump. “It’s not, really.”

  “Not really like you won’t mind if I go find Bender and give him detention with me?”

  My head whips around to glare at her, and she grins instantly.

  “Yeah, didn’t think so.” She pours a cup of beer and pushes it into my hands.

  “Well, I don’t know if you care, but he might actually be leaving. I saw him outside when I arrived.”

  I keep my face neutral as I take an exploratory sip of beer. “I don’t.”

  Melissa shrugs as she raises her own cup. “Well in that case, cheers.”

  Chapter 8

  Cole

  For a moment, it’s quieter outside. When I first sit my ass down on a bench out in the garden, there’s a moment or two when it’s just me and the night air. No drama, no loud party, no shitty music.

  No Addy.

  And then like a wave it all comes crashing back, rolling right over me in a rushing wall of sound. The DJ kicks on a new track, a side door bangs open, and twenty-odd college kids come tumbling out - laughing, shrieking, and lighting cigarettes.

  Damnit.

  I turn away, still sulking into my beer about the way I left things just now with her. Fuck, with the way I always leave things with her. It seems the two of us haven’t been able to have an instance together that doesn’t end in some sort of blowup or drama since we were twelve.

  All that stuff about coming to college and reinventing yourself? All that bullshit about making a new name for yourself and being someone different and separating yourself from the “you” that you were in high school?

  Yeah, it’s crap. And it’s fucking impossible when you show up to freshman orientation and lock eyes with the one girl you ever had regrets about.

  “Hey!”

  I half-turn at the sound of another girl’s voice.

  “Do you have a cigarette?”

  I shake my head. “Nope, sorry.”

  I wanted to be a smoker, when I was a younger, dumber kid. I stole a few from my dad when I was fourteen or so and tried puffing them down behind the garage.

  Fuck that.

  Hell, I even tried a couple times. I tried after having some drinks, I tried with coffee. I tried after I slept with Mandy Ketting once, because the cool guys in movies were always smoking after sex.

  Nope, nope, and nope. That last time, I basically made an asshole out of myself, too. One, for looking like the opposite of a “cool guy” when I about threw up from coughing, and two, for lighting up a cigarette in her parents' car.

  Suffice it to say, I’ve decided there are other vices out there for me besides cancer sticks.

  “You don’t?” The girl pouts at me, like I’m holding out on her or something. She’s some sort of slutty…something, I guess. It’s a nurse costume, kind of. It’s always a little hard to tell what an outfit is supposed to be when it comes to girls on Halloween.

  “I really don’t, sorry.”

  She sighs. “That’s cool, I’ve got weed.”

  She sits down next to me without any more preamble and pulls out a vape pen. She sticks it between her brightly painted lips and puffs at it, closing her eyes and letting the smoke trail through her nostrils. She opens them and grins coyly at me, letting those eyes trail over me before offering me the vape.

  I shake my head.

  Normally, yeah, sure. I’m not anti-drugs, by any means. But tonight I can’t seem to get out of my head, and I’ve got a sneaking suspicion it’s going to stay like that, drugs or not.

  She shrugs as she takes it back. “I’m Candace, by the way.”

  I nod. “Hey, Candace, I’m-”

  “Oh my God, are you a punk?”

  She gasps exaggeratedly, glancing over my costume.

  “I fucking love punk.”

  I frown. I’m not dressed as a punk. Well, you could probably make the argument that John Bender from The Breakfast Club is pretty influenced by post-punk music in his wardrobe choices, but then again, it’s really more pre-grunge than anything else.

  …Something tells me none of that is going to stick with Nurse Candace.

  “Yeah, cool,” I say instead.

  “Like, fucking Aerosmith, or The Stones? Fucking Pearl Jam? Love punk music.”

  I shouldn’t engage. I know I shouldn’t. Engaging with half-drunk, decidedly stoned, dressed like that Candace leads only one way, and it’s nowhere I feel like going.

  …It’s just that I can’t stand it when people don’t know what they’re talking about with music.

  “Yeah, that’s not punk.”

  She blinks, smiling at me. “Huh?”

  “Aerosmith, The Stones - that’s definitely not punk music. It’s really just rock n’ roll. Actually, both those bands definitely influenced later punk bands like the Sex Pistols, or the Ramones who were basically just dressing like Aerosmith. Oh, and Pearl Jam is grunge, and I get why that could be misconstrued as punk, but it came about ten years after the last great, real punk band. Grunge was more of an answer to new wave pop, you know?”

  Candace blinks, looking at me like I’m crazy.

  No, she doesn’t know. Or care.

  “Yeah, never mind.”

  She giggles. “Oh my God, are you as high as I am?”

  I spread a plastic smile across my face. “Must be.”

  She giggles again obnoxiously, before she suddenly drops a hand to my knee.

  “Do you want to go get a drink with me?”

  No. I want to leave. I want to reset the clock and try this all again without Addison Tanner still tied to me.

  But I don’t, not really. And that’s the fucking problem - that I don’t really want to have nothing to do with her. I've never been able to have nothing to do with her.

  The Candaces of the world are pale, passing imitations of her.

  “Sure. Why not?”

  There are many reasons “why not”, but I’m ignoring all of them right now. Because I need to reset the clock here. I need to start fresh without Addy haunting every damn thought in my head. This is college, and we’re supposed to be new people. And if being new people means making mistakes like Candace, well, fine.

  So be it.

  After all, Addy’s made it pretty fucking clear by now she’s already started the process of wanting nothing to do with me.

  “Yeah, there’s beer inside.”

  Candace makes a face. “Yuck, I really don’t like beer.”

  Yeah, that’ll last.

  I shrug. “I think I saw some prosecco in there, too.”

  “Yeah but it’s awful prosecco.”

  I roll my eyes to myself.

  “Well, I mean, it’s free.”

  “Most things are if you know how to ask, or where to find them.”

  She bites her lip, her hand tigh
tening slightly on my knee and inching slightly up to my thigh.

  Yeah, real subtle, this one.

  I want nothing to do with this, or with her. And yet, here I am opening my fucking mouth.

  “A big place like this must have better wine somewhere.”

  “We could go look?”

  She licks her lips.

  Fuck it.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Chapter 9

  Addison

  “Are you okay?”

  I glance up from the cup of beer I’ve barely touched at Zelda, one of the two close friends I made at orientation.

  “Oh, yeah, fine.”

  She nods at the beer. “You sure? This is not the Addison Tanner I know. The Addison Tanner I know gives me reproachful looks and anti-drug slogans whenever she sees me drinking at a party.”

  “It’s a function,” I say lamely.

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind.” I shrug as Zelda takes a seat next to me, and offer her the cup in my hand. “Want it? Melissa forced it on me.”

  She snorts. “Your crazy pothead roommate Melissa? She came to this?”

  “Apparently.”

  “You going to tell me why you look so glum?”

  I shrug noncommittally again. “Just a lame night.”

  “Oh really?” Zelda plucks the solo cup out of my hands and takes a sip. “I saw you chatting with Jamie Hopkins earlier. Can’t be that bad of a night.”

  I roll my eyes. “Saw that, huh?”

  “Oh, I think daddy would approve, don’t you sweat.”

  I laugh. “I’m sure he would.”

  “Hey, do you know who his father-”

  I groan loudly as I yank the beer back from her and take a big swallow.

  “Dude, what’s up with you?”

  “I told you, nothing.”

  “I see. You know, I also saw that hot Cole dude you went to high school with here.”

  My head jerks up before I can even attempt to play it cool.

  “Remind me what the story is with you two?”

  “Nothing,” I say far too quickly. “There’s no story.”

  Zelda grins as she takes the beer back. “Oh, really? You can’t be that mad about the filing stuff you had to do for Professor Butler after that hilarious incident with your cell phone.”

  “Oh, yeah, hilarious,” I mutter.

  “By the way, I’m curious. Did you have that Backstreet Boys song on your phone, or did he have to put it there?”

  “Pleading the fifth,” I mutter.

  Zelda snorts a laugh.

  “So were you guys friends in high school or something?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Again, the answer comes entirely too quickly, and the raised brow on Zelda’s face says she doesn’t buy it at all.

  “We knew each other when we were younger, but we barely talked until we got here to LSU.”

  I nod as if to agree with my own story, but when I look up, Zelda’s still got that damn skeptical eyebrow raised.

  “Yeah, nice story, but do you want to tell me the grown-up version now?”

  “I sincerely doubt all art majors are this prying. You should switch to pre-law.”

  She laughs. “Story, now.”

  I groan, and drop my face into my hands as if to cover the embarrassment.

  “Okay, okay, we kissed, once.”

  “Oh-ho!” Zelda crows triumphantly. “Knew it!”

  “Yeah, he kissed me when I was super, super drunk after a party.”

  The grin vanishes from her face. “Okay, wow, not fucking cool at-”

  “Wait, wait,” I raise my head up and make a face. “Okay, maybe I kissed him.”

  “Maybe?”

  “I definitely kissed him. There was this stupid party, and I didn’t want to go anyways, I mean parties were not my thing.”

  “Wow, they weren’t?” Zelda deadpans.

  “Oh shut up.”

  She grins.

  “I went out with this guy Mark for all of junior and senior year who was very Senator Tanner-approved. Valedictorian, varsity baseball, debate team, the whole thing. Lost my V-card to him, all of it.”

  I make a face, thinking of my horribly awkward and truncated first time in the back of Mark Atwood’s Audi.

  “Well, like a month before graduation, he tells me we should split because ‘college is going to be hard’, and the whole distance thing. This was like, three days before this party. So, I show up, and immediately see Mark making out with this girl Leah Crawford who was basically the biggest skank in school. I sort of lost it, my ride wasn’t around, so I just started drinking, like, everything in sight.”

  Zelda makes a face.

  “It also may have been my first time drinking.”

  “Sounds like a recipe for grossness.”

  “Yeah, basically.”

  “Some creep teammate of Mark’s started hitting on me and trying to get me to come upstairs with him, and that’s when Cole found me. He told the guy to get lost, helped me to his car, drove me home, and then snuck me in the back gate of my dad’s house so I wouldn’t get busted.”

  Zelda blinks as the story comes tumbling out. “Wow, okay, and then you kissed him? And what happened-”

  “And he kissed me back, but I was super drunk and he stopped.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, then he got me upstairs and put me to bed.”

  I take a deep breath, pulling the beer out of Zelda’s hands and finishing it in one gulp. I turn to see her staring at me.

  “So, you are mad about all of this because…” She raises her brows again.

  “Because I know how he was, Zelda. You don’t know him. This whole chivalry act of making sure I was okay and coming over the next day to check on me, it was just his way of trying to get into my pants.”

  “He came back over to check on you the next day?”

  “Zelda, it was an act. The guy slept with half the female population of my graduating class.”

  “Eww?”

  “I’m exaggerating, but you get the picture.”

  “So that's why you hate him so much? For basically being a super nice guy and getting you home and away from a bad situation? He sounds nicer than any dude I knew in high school.”

  “No, I’m telling you, it’s his thing. Being nice to me was totally his way of getting to me.”

  “Says the girl who kissed him. So what happened after everything?”

  “I might have slammed the door in his face the next day.”

  “Nice. Solid thank you.”

  “Yeah, well, he lived. He started seeing Leah - yes, the same fucking Leah like immediately after that.”

  “The logic surrounding this is…” Zelda shakes her head and rolls her eyes.

  “Trust me, I’m better off for getting rid of him. Cole Grady is, and was, nothing but bad news.”

  The words might sound more convincing if I actually believed them myself.

  Chapter 10

  Cole

  The kitchen is cleaned out of whatever alcohol might’ve been hidden there by the time we make it in there. For the tenth time, I wonder what the real deal is with this party. Addison said it was a faculty-student function, but this has turned into something out of a raunchy sex comedy with people hooking up. Maybe it's the magic of Halloween.

  From the kitchen, I lead Candace toward the den, where I think I can remember seeing a decent-looking liquor cabinet earlier. But the door is definitely locked, and someone is definitely fucking in there by the sounds emanating from inside.

  Candace’s jaw drops as she turns to me and grins and points at the door.

  Right, as if I don’t hear what’s going on inside.

  We end up wandering around to other rooms, but slowly but surely, I start to just plain ignore whatever she’s saying.

  Girls like Candace are a dime a dozen and I’ve met them all. The kind that take countless duck face selfies, the ones that have to define themselves with wha
t they have, or think whatever they do online defines them as humans.

  It’s insane, and a turn off. And yeah, normally I’d ignore that about her. Hell, I already have plenty of times, with girls just like her. But I can’t this time.

  This tends to happen after a run-in with Addison Tanner.

  The girl who’s different.

  The girl that always has been different, and it’s always been a damn thorn in my side.

  Yeah, we played together as kids, but shit doesn’t matter when you’re young like that. We got older, we hit high school, and we just sort of found different paths. I found garage rock bands, and screwing around with motorcycles, and cutting class. She found SAT prep, and advanced placement classes, and private Japanese lessons outside of school. Senator Tanner was creating a perfect little diplomat or whatever.

  There’s no reason for me to have ever thought of her the way I did. This insistent, burning thing that wouldn’t ever get out from under my skin. I never could get her out, no matter how hard I tried or how many girls I found to try and replace her back then.

  And here I am with what to show for it, exactly?

  Her drunkenly kissing me one night, then regretting it I guess, freaking out, and then dating that Mark guy again.

  And it’s fucking insane I’m still bugged by any of that.

  It’s also fucking insane I’m thinking about Addison Tanner when I’ve got Candace - Candace whose last name I have no idea of - right here and clearly down to take my mind off of things.

  It’s insane that I’m comparing the two of them.

  Because one is a fantasy - a dream that never happened, and the other is just…escape. Suddenly, I want that drink more than anything.

  “You know what, I think I have an idea,” I say, changing directions. “Let’s go.”

  Candace follows me until she sees me opening the basement door back by the kitchen, and abruptly stops and makes a face.

  “Eww, I’m not going in the basement.”

  “There has to be a wine cellar in this place, and it’s definitely in the basement.”

  “I’m not going down there,” she says and pouts again.

  “Fine.”

  Fuck this girl, and fuck her lame attitude.