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Leighton pretends to barf. “Literally can't imagine anything more disgusting than fucking you.”
“Ditto.”
“Hey, Thea?” Sadie whispers, tapping me on the leg to get my attention. “Wanna get out of here?”
“Please.”
With a relieved sigh, I pull out my chair and follow Sadie across the café before she hugs me goodbye to head into the back office.
I take the long way back to Cole's house—on foot because my rental car still won't start—and lose myself in remembering the taste of my old love's lips. How, for those few precious moments, he hadn't treated me like the villain. He'd kissed me like I was the princess. As if the name he's taken to calling me since I've been back in town is really true.
Worst of all, his kiss had made me believe that a happily ever after might be possible in our story. But then he pulled away and I realized that the only happy ending I'll get is one in a movie I star in.
The barren trees of Tupelo wave to me sadly as I pass and I suck in a deep breath of winter air in a bid to calm the nerves stirring in my stomach the closer I get to Cole's. My anxiety is only made worse when my phone dings with a text message.
Leighton
You need to tell Cole what happened.
I freeze, stopping right in the middle of the sidewalk. A mother curses at me under her breath as she's forced to wheel her stroller around me, but I don't even look up.
It's not the first time Leighton's said this. Hell, it's not even the first time she's said thistoday,but it doesn't stop the arctic chill of fear turning my blood to ice.
Leighton
Don't leave me on read. I'm dead serious.
Thea
I know.
Leighton
Promise me you'll tell him? Sooner rather than later.
I don't answer straight away. I can't. All I can think about is the look of disgust I'll see on Cole's face when I tell him. The things he'll spit at me when he finds out what I did.
Do you really think he'll want anything to do with you after this? He's a young man and there are plenty of girls in this town who haven't sullied their reputation like you have. Don't worry about him. He'll move on just fine.
My father's words from six years ago haunt me like a specter of the most dangerous kind. I know I have to tell Cole, but what if Dad was right? I'm not ready to hear Cole repeat every single thing my dad said to me that night. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for that. So, maybe telling him is just something I have to do. He deserves the truth, even if telling him will shatter me to pieces.
Thea
I promise.
The front doorslams shut behind me so hard the house shakes. I'm in a foul mood—have been since the moment I remembered Thea has a boyfriend while my tongue was buried inside her mouth—and my condo is taking the brunt of it.
I kick off my shoes, aiming them at the wall and not caring the slightest that I'm a full-grown man having a temper tantrum because the girl I like likes someone else.
But she was mine first.
Back before she decided I was no longer good enough for her. Before the stars in her eyes grew too big for Tupelo and she left her small-town boyfriend behind to be with big-city movie stars instead…it was me she loved.
“Who pissed in your cereal?” Thea blinks up at me from the threshold of my bedroom, leaning her hip against the doorframe with one leg crossed over the other.
Fuck, I can barely keep my eyes off them.
“Not now, princess. I've had a shitty day.”
