Page 1 of This Means War

Chapter 1

Cole

I DON’T MAKE a habit of eating at airports. The lines are always long, the food sub-par, and I swear they are forever out of something I need. Take right now for instance. I’ve been standing here repeatedly hitting the squeeze pump on the mustard dispenser and only tiny flecks of it have dripped down onto my waiting hamburger. Deciding this really isn’t worth it, I give the thing one last hard pump then bite back an expletive as the mustard finally bursts out of it in a massive blob.

“Eech!” A woman’s shrill voice pulls my attention behind me, and I turn to see my mustard explosion has had a casualty. Her shirt. With wide-eyed horror I meet her gaze. She’s glaring at me, her blue eyes glacial, her hands on her hips giving her a very “be quiet” hot librarian vibe. I’m certain this is not what she’s going for.

Yup, she’s beautiful, but ice cold. Like freshly fallen snow. I snort at the irony, and her face contours into an even deeper scowl. “You thinkthis is funny?” she snaps, gesturing to the yellow mustard stain spreading its way across her white blouse.

“What? No, of course not.” I shake my head emphatically. I clearly can’t tell this woman that I’d been thinking about her in terms of freshly fallen snow, the yellow mustard marking her like, well, dog urine. Yeah…no. I’ve spent all of two minutes with this woman, and I can already tell she’s too refined for that kind of humor. She’s styled her blonde hair in a sleek chignon, a term I only know thanks to my ex-girlfriend’s tendency to narrate her outfits for the day to me over the phone, complete with her hair and make-up selections. This is also why I know her gray, knee-length, form-fitting skirt is called a pencil skirt. Then, of course, there’s the white blouse she’s tucked into that skirt. The blouse I’ve just managed to squirt mustard on. Really though, who wears an outfit like that on a plane? I myself am wearing my most worn-in pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Comfortable. Practical. Relaxed.

“Typical. Always the jokester.” Her scowl remains firmly in place, and it takes me a minute to register the implication of her words.

“Typical? Sorry, do I know you?”

Heat—no not heat— anger floods her cheeks. “Do you know me? That’s rich, Cole. We only grew up living next door to each other. You only spent every day after school at my house eating all my peanut-free snacks.”

The ball drops, and I gape at her. I can’t help it. “Lyddie? Lyddie Hamlin?”

Her whole body visibly bristles, my saying her name affecting her like I’m a fresh out of the dryer towel that’s shocked her. “I go by Lydia now. I’m not thirteen anymore.”

Not thirteen indeed. The last time I saw this girl, err woman, she had braces on her teeth, was at least a head shorter, and had an annoying tendency to giggle whenever I walked into a room. It’s no wonder I didn’t recognize her. Not only has she gotten her braces off and grown a few inches, she also hasn’t giggled once.

“Right. Sorry. Lydia.” I can’t seem to find anything else to say. I’m just so surprised to see her after all this time. My family moved to Houston when I was eighteen and, though I’ve kept in touch with Lyddie’s, sorry, Lydia’s brother Josh, I haven’t seen or heard from her in the decade that has since passed. Of course, since I’m currently at the airport preparing to fly to Vegas for the first of Josh’s wedding festivities, I knew I’d be seeing Lydia again at some point; but I hadn’t given the matter much thought. Lyddie has always just been Josh’s little sister, whom I long suspected had a crush on me. Now she’s Lydia, a grown woman whom I now suspect hates me. Though outside of the mustard incident I can’t figure out why.

“Listen, I really am sorry about your shirt,” I tell her. “Can I pay for the dry-cleaning bill?”

She snorts. “I don’t need you to pay for my dry cleaning.” She eyes the bar across the terminal witha thoughtful expression. “But you can buy me a drink instead. I’m a nervous flier.” Without waiting for my response, she crosses through the throngs of people moving towards their respective gates, plops down on a barstool, and gets the attention of the bartender.

I hesitate for only a second before following her. I did, after all, squirt mustard all over her. The least I can do is buy her a drink. Besides, maybe the fact that she wants to have a drink together means she doesn’t hate me.

As I approach, the bartender slides a shot glass of clear liquid towards her, and I watch as she shoots it back in one fluid motion, slamming it down on the counter without even a shudder. “One more please,” she says to the man sweetly, “Oh and you can put these on his tab.” She jerks her thumb in my direction, then leans in and stage whispers, “He may be pretty, but he’s dull as paint drying. Best to drink up if I’m going to survive a flight with him.”

Okay, scratch that. She hates me. Now I just have to figure out why.

Chapter 2

Lydia

THIS IS UNBEARABLE. How could I have ended up on the same flight to Vegas as Cole Jacobson? I didn’t even know he lived here in Michigan. What happened to Houston? This is all Josh’s fault. He never tells me anything. Not to mention, he has a complete buffoon as his oldest friend. I just wish his oldest buffoon friend didn’t smell so good.

We’re sitting at the bar now, and I’ve moved on from my two shots–both of which were actually just water, because thankfully the bartender is a dear who didn’t shy away from my request for subterfuge–to a rum and Coke.

Unfortunately, this rum and Coke appears to be more rum than Coke because it’s going straight to my head, which is the exact opposite of what I want to happen in the presence of Cole Jacobson. Drinking two straight shots of tequila without blinking was supposed to make him see how cool and suave I’ve turned out. Or is suave more of a male term? Whatever, I don’t even care. The point is, I thinkmy plan has backfired because the bartender–who I thought was my friend–has given me a glass of rum with only a splash of Coke, and now I keep having to firmly tell my fingers to stay where they are so that they don’t do what they want to do. Namely, reach up and run themselves through Cole Jacobson’s hair.

Cole says something, and I jerk my attention away from my traitorous fingers and towards him, mentally drawing a unibrow on his face in the hopes that this will make him less attractive. Sadly, the rum has mucked up my usual imaginative powers, and I end up just staring at his eyebrows and lamenting the fact that while I have to shape my eyebrows weekly, his appear to possess a natural arch. Have I mentioned I hate him? And yes, I know Christians aren’t supposed to hate people, but I’m not actually sure he’s even a person. He’s more of an unfeeling robot. Or possibly a cyborg.

“So Lyddi-uh, Lydia,” he corrects himself with an apologetic cough, and I listen for the telltale signs of metal squeaking. Nothing. As far as I’m concerned though, this just means he’s a well-oiled robot. “What have you been up to in the last decade?”

My eyes whip down to meet his, sure he’s making fun of me, but there’s a genuine question there. My posture relaxes ever so slightly. He doesn’t know. Josh hasn’t told him. That’s something anyway. He’ll find out soon enough though, since this weekend is only the first leg of Josh’s wedding marathon. Vegas bachelor/bachelorette parties here we come. Then in four weeks I’ll be flying home againfor the wedding itself, complete with a rehearsal dinner and morning-after-the-wedding brunch/gift opening extravaganza. Since Cole is one of Josh’s groomsmen, he’ll be in attendance at most, if not all, of these events. No way he spends more than five minutes with my mother before my entire disastrous life pops up in conversation. Scratch that, I should have said, before my entire disastrous lifedominatesthe conversation.

You’d think that my parents would be proud of their daughter. I graduated high school with a 3.9 GPA, then earned myself a cross country scholarship to help fund my college education; and sure, it was just a small, division three college, but in my book anytime your child manages to land themselves an athletic scholarship it’s a pretty big deal. Somehow though, the last two years of my life have completely eclipsed any of my previous successes and marked me as a disappointment.

“Oh you know,” I blow a breath up, fluttering my bangs around my forehead, “this and that. High school. College. Adulthood.”

“Right. Adulthood.” Cole sips his drink. “Fun times, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, a real thrill ride.” I take a too big sip and repress a shudder as the rum hits my sinuses. “I love paying bills and cleaning my own bathroom.”

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