Page 1 of Ice Cold, Red Hot
CHAPTER 1
CELESTE
“This year, you’re having fun.” My best friend Nat declares this from the passenger side of my Tahoe as if it’s been etched on a stone tablet and therefore must be gospel.
“Nope. This year, I’m focusing on getting my Master’s degree,” I remind her. I didn’t come to Coldwater University for fun. I came to work. I worked like hell to get through undergrad and then I worked like hell to secure a teaching position that would allow me to go to grad school at all. I was here to work.
“And you’re also focusing on having fun.” Natalie Wheeler was relentless. She shot me a grin as she dropped her feet from where they’d been resting on the dashboard and began peering out the windows like we were on a sightseeing voyage. “Right up here, then a quick left. We’re about 20 minutes out.”
“Nat, the GPS is still working.”
“You don’t need that. I’m your personal GPS. And I’m more entertaining than he is. I’d never sound annoyed if we needed to reroute, either.” Nat was in her third year atColdwater, but we were going to be rooming together in the mixed-year apartments just off campus. Even though focus was my complete and total plan this year, I was glad to have a friend here. Natalie and I grew up in the same neighborhood and played together as kids. We’d remained tight through school, and hung out whenever we were both back in Columbus during holidays and breaks.
“So you told me almost nothing about your fancy summer resort gig,” she said, pulling a Twizzler from the pack in the center console for herself and handing me one.
“It was pretty low on the fancy.”
“It’s a five-star resort on Lake Miranda, CeeCee. How could it not be fancy?”
I raised an eyebrow at her. Natalie’s family had taken those kinds of vacations, so I couldn’t blame her for not understanding that working your ass off for a bunch of entitled rich people at a resort was not the same as being on an actual vacation at the same resort. “There was one part I didn’t tell you about,” I ventured, wondering if I’d regret telling her anything about the high point of my summer.
She sat up straighter, her dark eyebrows climbing toward her hairline as she shifted in her seat to face me fully. “Now I’m intrigued. You’re giving hot male encounter vibes.”
“Shit, am I that easy to read?”
“Oh, now you’ve gotta tell me.” Nat was bouncing in her seat.
“It was just a fling. Literally no last names, no numbers exchanged. But it was…” How did I explain it? A fling with the single hottest man I’d ever met, and by far the best sex I’d ever had. A week with a guy who told me only his first name, and who had a knack for making me feel seen, special, and alive, even when I was just ‘the help’ and he was there with his uber-rich family? “He was a guest. It was totally against the rules.”
“That’s what makes it so hot!”
“Actually, no. The guy is what made it hot. He was just… this… “ Words really couldn’t do justice to the guy I’d given myself to for a week—just before he ghosted me completely. “It was hot, but it was a fling. And the last night we spent together… he left when I fell asleep. I didn’t see him again.” It still hurt a little bit to say aloud.
“Oh man, that’s so fucking sexy. Anonymous. Dirty…”
Or was it maybe just kind of sad? Like every other man in my life, my summer fling had not chosen me, even though I’d begun to believe the things he said to me when we were together. That I was different. That he wished he could spend his life with me.
Water under the bridge. “Itwassexy. And it was good to get that out of my system. Because I really need to focus this year.”
“Out of your system. Like sex with a hot guy is a one-time need. Your box is checked.” Nat laughed to herself. “I’ve got a few boxes that could use checking,” she said in a breathy voice.
Soon we were turning up the hill toward campus.
“Oh, turn in there,” Nat practically yelled, startling me as the mixed-year apartment complex came into view.
“The GPS never yells at me,” I told her, making the turn into the U-shaped parking lot in front of the building. There was a long curb for unloading, and a completely full lot on the other side of the curb. And a huge black truck with atrailer was parked diagonally, taking up most of the curb that wasn’t red. “Where am I supposed to stop? This guy’s completely in the way.”
We pulled to a stop in the red zone behind the poorly parked truck, which gleamed with more chrome accents than I would have thought were available. There were guys all around the truck and trailer who appeared to be in various states of lounging and pretty much unconcerned with either unloading their shit or getting the monstrosity of a truck out of the way so other people could unload.
“Ah, that makes sense,” Nat said, eyeing the guys.
“What does? You know those guys?”
She lifted a shoulder. “A couple of them. Hockey players. They always live in this building. Act like they own the place, think they’re god’s gift. I mean… they kind of are.” She grinned at me.
I blew out a frustrated breath. We’d been driving for hours. I wanted to check in, unload, and park my car. No way was I waiting for a bunch of entitled jocks to take their sweet time loitering around the loading zone. I pushed open the door and hopped out, moving toward the driver’s side of the ridiculous truck.
Of course there was no one in it.
