Page 36 of Hot for Her
10
Aiden
-SUNDAY NIGHT-
Itold myself I was sleeping in the Airstream because the bonfire Axel and his buddies were having was closer to the house and might keep me awake. I had class and rink time early in the morning.
It was a bullshit lie and I knew it. The smoke was actually worse out here.
I was in the Airstream because the sheets smelled like her. Because I needed some kind of proof that last night had been real—the parts before all hell broke loose.
She hadn’t texted. No updates on how her friend Drew was doing or how she’d gotten home that afternoon.
Girls did not behave the way she did. Usually they blew my phone up until I considered changing my number. Especially after they knew what I could do with my mouth.
Not this one.
This one vanished without a word.
I checked my phone again. Just as I’d checked it every hour on the hour since dropping her off at the hospital that morning. I was going insane.
Maybe I was truly losing it because no matter how many times I replayed the night in my head, it felt like…like I wasmeantto be with her last night.
Her friend ditching her, her brother being late, even the assault on her best friend…all of it kept leading her right back to me. It was sort of fucked up to think about, and I wished Drew hadn’t been hurt at all, but if she had to have the night from Hell, I was glad I got to be there for her.
After eating some leftover pizza, I decided to hang out with Axel and the guys for a bit and hopefully take my mind off Emersyn Tyler. Sitting by the fire, I drank a couple beers, roasted a few marshmallows, and tried to participate in a conversation about a guy they knew who’d been signed to the Hurricanes.
When a long-legged blonde I hadn’t seen around before moved to sit next to me, I intentionally focused more on the conversation.
She was probably pretty. I didn’t know. I couldn’t see straight without the image of Emersyn assaulting me. Her tentative smiles. The way she held her hair with one hand as she rode in my Jeep. Her silk lips against mine when she’d kissed me the first time. The sounds she’d made when I touched her.
The way she fell apart in my shower. In my arms.
Her hair spread out on my pillow as she slept.
This was pointless. It didn’t matter where I went, she was lodged firmly in my mind.
“I’m heading to bed,” I said, standing and tossing the rest of my beer in the fire.
“Need some company?” the blonde asked.
Seriously?I hadn’t even spoken a word to this girl all night.
And Emersyn wanted to know what was special about her. Fucking everything.
Axel laughed out loud at what I imagined was an annoyed look on my face. “Pretty boy here has been a wet blanket today, Trina. Come over here and sit by me, sweetheart.”
I made my way to the Airstream to the sounds of Meat and the other guys booing me.
What exactly Emersyn had done to me in such a short time, I wasn’t sure. But I was different. Changed.
And kind of pissed about it.
I showered, letting the water damn near scorch my skin as the angry thoughts swirled in the steam.
I wasn’t looking for this. She was just a good looking girl from class. Okay, granted, a fucking gorgeous girl, but still. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. I’d planned to ask her out, maybe hook up once in a while. I wasn’t supposed to lose sleep remembering how she’d called me a good guy and how it made me want to actually be one.
I was never going to be able to use condiments again.
