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CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
Aspen
I heard it from my mom about leaving campus without telling anyone, but considering how far away she was, she couldn’t really do anything. I got a stern warning, and I appeased her because I didn’t want her uprooting me back home. Things would go back to the way they were, and I wasn’t ready for that yet.
I just wasn’t ready.
I needed time, and with it, I knew I would be okay. I would wake up every day and be who I used to be.
I would.
I held solid to the notion, but tried not to think about it too much. If I did, it’d rattle me, so I let go and moved on. I decided that was the best course of action, but blocking my mind from those thoughts meant others could drift in. Thoughts about Thatcher and his family and how he suddenly seemed human. A big, large human with problems just like me. I had problems, and he did too.
And his were heart-wrenching.
I couldn’t imagine someone I cared about forgetting about me. I had a grandmother, grandparents on both sides. My dad may not have been in the picture, but his parents were. My dad was absent in the sense that he had another family, but his family actually gave a shit. I saw his mom and dad on holidays and my mom’s parents too.
I just couldn’t imagine.
And then all that with the coma and his dad… It was just tragic, and yes, it humanized Thatcher in ways I wished I didn’t know frankly. It was easier to hate him when he was just insane for no reason.
But people always had reasons, didn’t they?
Maybe I was giving him more credit than he deserved. I still held that trauma he inflicted on me when we were kids, but today’s Thatcher may not be so easily written off. I wanted to write him off. Fuck had I wanted to just toss any sympathetic thoughts for him aside, but that was hard.
Especially when he showed up at my door.
He startled me actually. I was leaving and heading to a class, but there he was, his fist mid-knock. He wore a cutoff tee that showcased his big muscles and broad shoulders. He’d never been one of those guys who was cut in the ways you saw every muscle, but he was huge like he didn’t go to the gym but lifted boulders for sport instead.
Or trains…
Okay, trains was a bit over the top, but this guy could easily bench-press a dude or two. Then there were his thighs that hugged his dark jeans like sin. Thatcher Reed gave emo energy depending on what day it was. He looked like a country-club pretty boy with his dad, but today, he opted for the bad boy. He had a couple nails painted black again, and he used those large hands of his to juggle coffee and fast food. The Jax’s Burgers logo was stamped onto the bag, and the two coffees in his hands were in a carrier.
“Morning, snowflake,” he said, then completely threw me off by handing me one of the coffees. He smiled at it, his cross earring dangling. “Didn’t know what you liked but decided to play it safe. It’s just coffee with artificial sweetener and almond milk.”
I blinked. That was exactly how I took my coffee. I brought the coffee to my chest. “Thanks?”
He bumped a laugh at the clear question mark that was on the end there.
“No problem.” He sipped his remaining coffee, looking like a complete god in the hallway, and I wasn’t the only one to notice. Since people did know I lived here now, I’d get the occasional lurker. They usually wanted autographs, and I always did because I loved that part of the job. I truly enjoyed meeting fans, but I wasn’t getting their attention today with Thatcher Reed in my hallway. A couple of girls giggled at his jean-clad ass, and I bristled in a way that surprised me.
“Ladies,” he said to them, oozing the same charisma that got me to fuck him in a dark club… in a mask. I’d had no idea who he was, but he’d done that. Not to mention, he hadn’t even spoken.
The giggles erupted from those girls like a volcano upon being acknowledged, and when Thatcher tipped his chin at the guys a few paces behind them, they tripped. Like full-on tripped in the hallway over themselves.
“Hey, Thatcher!” One of the guys waved like he was trying to take off in flight, and after he cleared Thatcher and me, he held his head and cursed. I literally heard him mumble to himself that he was a fucking idiot, seemingly chastising himself for his greeting.
Holy fuck, the power Thatcher Reed had. I mean, I knew it. He had gotten me to fuck him in that club.
But had he…
I guess I needed to acknowledge the fact that I’d kind of thrown myself at him. But that had been before I knew who he was and our history.
It scared me that my brain didn’t automatically think about that anymore. Whenever I saw him, fear used to be the first instinct, not anger that he said hello to other girls or sexual frustration because he probably had the best ass I’d ever seen on a guy outside of a porn star. I’d stared at it a little too much in his kitchen when he’d been making cocoa.
“Up here, snowflake.”
