Where We Left Off (Phoenix Falls Series Book 1)

“I can’t believe that we’re going to be submitting our college applications soon. We’re, like, literally adults now,” Kit says as she affixes her sweat-guard wristbands.

I pull up my Gym socks, frowning. “I don’t want to go to college,” I say. “I want to live on a farm.”

She nods in agreement and we head out onto the track field. Mud squelches onto our trainers as soon as we step onto the grass. We hop across it like it’s quicksand until we reach the paved track, scraping our heels against the side of the path to get the dirt off.

“Have you picked your colleges yet?” she asks.

I shake my head as we set off round the trail. “Anywhere with good scholarships,” I say. “But I wasn’t kidding about the farm.”

“I know. I just want to be a housewife.”

The ultimate feminist win: thriving off the patriarchy for our own evil gain.

“You’ll be a senator or something,” I say, my breathing a little heavier now. My brain is picturing my inhaler with little pink love hearts around it. “You’re the kind of person our nation deserves.”

She snorts lightly. “I hate public attention almost as much as you do. I want to live in the shadows like a vampire.”

I glance over at her and see that she’s biting the side of her lip, an anxious expression on her face as our soles slap the track.

Changing the subject, Kit asks, “Are you helping with the Halloween dance this year?”

I chew it over. “I’m not sure,” I say slowly. “My living situation just got a little weird.”

She points her laser eyes on me. “Do tell.”

Now I’m gnawing on my lip too. “My mom and I just moved in with her boyfriend. It’s only temporary, and he’s fine, but…” I trail off. I don’t know if I should mention Tate. For the entire duration of our friendship Kit and I have barely ever spoken about boys, for the solid reason that if our lives were a movie we would die if it didn’t pass the Bechtel test. Plus I hate thinking about Tate, simply because it hurts that I have to hate him.

I stretch my back as we jog. “Actually, maybe I should help out – and not just with the design stuff. Maybe this is a great excuse to get out of the house.”

“And it’ll look good on your college applications,” she adds.

College applications that I don’t even want to apply for, I don’t add. There’s a palpable pain that comes with not living your life for yourself but I know better than to go against my mom. She’s done well in her life – stable job, nice home, semi-normal daughter – and, let’s not forget, she’s the reason why I’m running around this track right this very second. I owe her my life. The least I can do is try to give it to her.

I change the subject back to the Halloween dance, and we talk about it until my thoughts about college applications and Tate Coleson are almost forgotten.

Almost forgotten.

*

I thought that temporarily moving into Mitch’s house with my mom would result in awkward encounters and forced politeness, but it hasn’t required any adjusting at all. My mom and Mitch are out at work all day, and I eat dinner in my room, so we rarely even cross paths. I’m basically a lodger in my new little attic-cave but I love the space so much that I don’t really mind.

By Friday this feels normal.

The sky is ominously overcast this evening. My mom and Mitch are staying at his brother’s place tonight and they offered me to join but the thought of being introduced to another step-something made my stomach curdle, so I shook my head and told them that I needed to work on some homework.

In my warm, yielding bed.

I’m fully unpacked now, which was easy considering the fact that I didn’t bring much to begin with. I don’t have much to begin with. My clothes are in the drawers under the bed and my books are piled in miniature stacks around the border of the room. My mom retrieved my bath stuff from the house, so they’ve been stored in the cabinets by the headboard. I kept the black bed sheets because I’m emo – or maybe I kept them because I’m a weirdo. Either way, I kept the sheets, and I found no incriminating items belonging to the room’s previous resident as I worked my way around it.

Trust me, I checked.

And I was very thorough.

I put my drink on the nightstand and shimmy my pyjama pants down my legs so that I’m just wearing my top and underwear, before sliding beneath the sheets with my book. The cotton quilt feels cool on my bare skin and I shudder as I slink further into the mattress, the rain thudding repetitively on the window pane outside.

I’m almost unconscious when I hear it. Loud voices outside. Getting nearer. And then the sound of the front door being unlocked.

The sound of the front door being unlocked.

I shoot up in bed, shoving my glasses back up my nose as I try to ease the crick in my neck from jolting so suddenly.

There are voices in the house.

I didn’t even think to shut my bedroom door because I’m home alone tonight. I can hear multiple male voices, fanning out downstairs. Loud and clear.

Obviously it’s not going to be my mom and Mitch, but whoever is here has a key…

I tighten my grip on my book, pause for a moment, and then gently extrapolate myself from the duvet. I pull my pyjama pants back on, and then check outside the window for any familiar trucks. I catch sight of a large black Ford and my tummy clenches.

Fascinating.

Time to investigate.

I pad out of my room with stealth and grace. No one has ever moved so silently. When I reach the top of the stairs to the ground floor I see shadows moving across the living room. They’re playing music through someone’s phone and I hear the hiss of bottles opening. I look down at my healing fist contemplatively.

“River?”

I snap my head up and my breath gets caught in my throat.

Tate is standing at the bottom of the stairs in nothing but a pair of denim jeans and his silver crucifix. His torso is the best colour I have ever seen, like piping hot caramel. He has one hand shoved in his front pocket, and the other is running through his hair.

And, unless my brain is glitching, there is a large dark tattoo – something like a cross and storm clouds and maybe some scripture – enveloping his swollen bicep.

I haven’t seen him since he deposited me in his former bedroom, so this feels like a lucid dream.

I put on my annoyed face and cross my arms. “Breaking and entering?”

His eyes trail down my body, a somewhat reluctant look in his gaze as he takes in my outfit, and then he lets out a breath, eyebrows pinched. He glances to the living room and then back to me, warily. He advances one step forward so I take one step back.

“I thought you were at Jason’s tonight,” he replies.

Who the hell is Jason?

“I do not know anyone by that name,” I say in a dignified voice.

He bows his head and breathes out a laugh. His abs ripple. This feels like a test from Satan. I want him to lift his face so I can see his smile, but he hides it from me until the laugh has passed.

He grips the bottom of the banister with one hand, the tendons in his arm flexing. “Jason is my uncle,” he clarifies. He glances down my outfit once more and then suddenly looks up at me with heated, taunting eyes. The corners of his lips twitch. “Our uncle.”

Did he-

Before I can think of a retort, one of Tate’s friends rounds the corner and pulls up to lean on the other side of the staircase. He’s just as tanned as Tate and most likely the same age but his hair, peeking out from a backwards baseball cap, is light gold, surfer style.

He folds his arms across his chest.

“Sup,” he says, jerking his chin at me before surveying my outfit. I think that it gets worse every time someone sees it. Then he looks over at Tate. “Who’s that? If that’s your dad’s girlfriend I’m gonna lose my shit.”

Tate is still looking at me. “She’s not his girlfriend.”

His friend nods, sated. “Who is she then?”

One second.

Two seconds.

Three.

I cock my eyebrow at Tate and he narrows his eyes.

“She’s living here whilst we do her refurb.”

I smile like the smug little bitch that I am. I feel like I just won an argument.

His friend looks back at me. “I’m Caulder. You legal?”

Tate spins around. “What did you just say?”

Caulder laughs and takes a sip from his bottle, eyes glinting playfully. “We should see if she wants to come down for a drink is all.”

In the space of one second Tate starts ascending the stairs looking like a serial killer. I instantly start walking backwards, double-speed, and we reach the back of the landing at almost the exact same moment.

“What are you doing?” I ask, breathless with confusion.

He’s ushering me without touching me, the demand radiating from his exposed skin. I acquiesce partially because I don’t want to get trampled, but also because I’m the same height as his solid pectorals and this arrangement gives me time to perv.

“You’re going upstairs.”

I reply “I am upstairs” because I’m a wise-ass.

“You’re going up-upstairs.”

“What if I want a drink?”

I stop abruptly at the bottom of the attic stairwell and he has to catch himself on the frame of the entryway to prevent us from toppling body-into-body.

Tate is blazing with frustration when he looks down at me. “You’re not having one. I’m going to make everyone leave. I didn’t know that you were home tonight.”

Back to the ushering.

“Stop herding me,” I grit out, irritated. When I get no response, I choose violence. “Are you inviting girls over or something? Having an orgy on the sofa? Some saint you are. I expect a fucking deep clean by tomorrow morning.”

His voice is rougher than gravel. “You want a deep clean?”

This time when I whip around to face him he actually does crash into me. His chest knocks against my left shoulder, but before I can stumble backwards he hooks his right arm around my waist to prevent the fall.

There is a heart-stopping split-second wherein we look at each other, wide eyed, in disbelief over the past five seconds. That he just said that. That our bodies are touching again. It isn’t even skin on skin but I feel his rigidity and heat seeping through the fabric of my top. My glasses are slipping down my nose so I shove them back up with a shaking hand.

Then I’m furious.

I bend my arms up and thrust my elbows into his chest, hard. He doesn’t budge but I manage to claw my way out of his arms anyway. I’m sprinting up the stairs and my heart is thundering in my chest because I can hear him racing on my tail. I push into my room and purposefully spin around so that I can look at him whilst I slam the door in his face but he drives his arm out, stopping it.

“You can’t come in here,” I say quickly, and I raise a so-there eyebrow at him.

He glances over my shoulder. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

He knows that I haven’t changed a damn thing since he was last here. I narrow my eyes on him.

“Thanks. Your visitation’s over now. Tell Caulder I said hi.”

He glances down at my pyjama pants. “Are you cold in here? You’re dressed for Antarctica.”

I pause for one stomach-sinking moment because with that comment he’s hit a nerve, but I quickly shake it off. “I’m toasty. Did you know that you’re naked?”

He’s eyeing up my little stacks of books. Thank God he’s far enough away from them to make the titles illegible. Then he glances over at the bed, a crumpled mess with my current read enthroned on the pillow like a little smut shrine.

Tate looks down at me and folds his arms across his chest in an attempt at male modesty. His biceps bulge against his nipples in my peripheral vision.

“Are you staying in tonight? It’s Friday.” He sounds genuinely concerned.

“I am very busy,” I reply.

“What are the little tabs for?” His eyes are back on the book stacks, much to my horror.

“I tab the useful bits of information. Vivid and grotesque murder scenes, for example.”

He runs his hand through his hair. “You just keep them out on the floor like that?”

I scowl at him as he continues surveying the room. What is he still doing here?

His breathing becomes a bit weird and I notice that he’s looking at my laundry pile. It’s topped off with the little baby pink bra that I need to hand wash because of the black lace trim. I can smell thunderstorms and pheromones radiating off his hot damp skin and he drops his eyes and swallows, a subjugated blush spreading across his cheekbones.

He takes a step back, avoiding my eyes. “I’m… sorry about tonight. I’ll get everyone out of here, five minutes tops.”

Then he turns around and begins trudging down the stairs, hands in his pockets.

When I put my hand on the door to finally close it, a thought crosses my mind as he reaches the last step.

“I want a lock on my door,” I call down the stairs.

He pauses with his back to me for one moment before he looks back over his broad shoulder and meets my gaze, under a veil of wet tousled hair and stunning black lashes. His eyes twinkle with something that I can’t put my finger on.

Then he rolls his shoulders and exhales deeply.

“Trust me, I’ll fit one.”