BOOK 3: CRUSH
Chapter One
“Belle!”
My head snapped up and I saw my roommate and best friend, Alexa, bounding across the kitchen. She grinned at me as she dumped a handful of pasta into a pot full of boiling water on the stove.
“Hey,” I said with a grin. Setting my backpack down on a chair, I did a lazy twirl across the hardwood floor. It felt good to be home – especially considering today had been my last week of classes before finals. I’d worked my ass off this week, and I really needed a break.
“I’m making dinner,” Alexa said dryly. She grabbed a jar of marinara sauce and started unscrewing the lid. “This looks good, right?”
I snickered. “You’re not supposed to put that in until the pasta’s done,” I said as kindly as I could. Alexa had never really been prone to making good meals. In the two-and-a-half years that we’d been living together, I’d done the vast majority of the cooking. But I didn’t mind – that was one of the things that made me and Alexa work so well as roommates. Sure, we were good friends. But we also knew our strengths: I was a better cook, and Alexa wasn’t bad at cleaning…and gossip.
“Thanks, sous chef,” Alexa teased. She set the sauce down on the counter and sighed dramatically. Her big blue eyes widened as she slapped her hand against her forehead. “I had the worst day,” she added.
I frowned, knowing a story was coming. “Oh, yeah? Tell me about it,” I replied. Moving my bag from the chair to the floor, I slid down in the chair, making sure to keep one eye on the stove. Alexa’s dramatics were nothing new, and I knew from experience that it was a good idea to keep track of time. Knowing my best friend as well as I did, I knew her story could take hours.
“Well, I ran into Jared,” Alexa said. She paused for dramatic effect.
“And?” I rolled my eyes. “What happened?”
“Only the worst thing ever.” Alexa pranced from one end of the kitchen to the other, swinging her graceful arms through the air like she was practicing dance.
I giggled. “He ignored you?”
Alexa’s nostrils flared. “Worse,” she complained. “He made this huge thing about how we hadn’t talked in forever! And he tried to hug me!”
I snickered. “Heaven forfend, a man try to touch you.”
Alexa smirked. “Well, I could tell he missed me.” Irritation spread over her features and she flopped down into another kitchen chair. “But that’s not the point.”
I stood up and walked over to the stove, poking at the pasta with a wooden spoon. It was still a touch too stiff for my liking, so I set a lid down on the pot and watched the cloudy water swirling around. Cooking had always been soothing for me, even though I hadn’t done much of it growing up. We’d always had a maid, and a cook, and usually a sommelier…although my stepdad, Mitchell, had been talking for years about how he wanted to learn more about wine himself.
Even though it sounds like I grew up really rich, the truth is a little more complicated than that. When I was twelve, my mother Anne married Mitchell Rhodes – real estate mogul and consulting pro. He’d made billions from New York City real estate over the past few decades, and he lived like a king. Before Mom met Mitchell, our life was pretty boring. We’d lived in Buffalo, in a little apartment with bad insulation and no heat in the long winters. Mom had fallen for Mitchell when she’d met him in New York, on a trip with her girlfriends. He’d swept her off her feet, and they’d married within the year.
Mom had teased me when I was younger. I could still see her happy face now as she stroked my hair and pulled me into a tight hug. “I named you Belle because you were my little princess,” Mom had said. “But now you’re really going to be a princess!”
In reality, things had been a little murkier than that. Mitchell had always been kind to me, but it was clear that he didn’t have much interest in being a stepfather. And his son, Jackson, my stepbrother, was an asshole. There weren’t any other words I could use to describe him. He was a perfect, smug, gorgeous asshole.
Just thinking about him made me want to shudder. I hadn’t spoken to him in years – Jackson is nine years my senior, and thankfully he left Mitchell’s house as soon as he turned eighteen so we never even lived under the same roof. The last time I’d seen him, when I was sixteen, he’d spent the whole afternoon flirting with me. I’d been so taken by his charms that I hadn’t even noticed that my period had started. But Jackson had, and he tricked me into exposing my bloodstained butt to a roomful of people…. everyone waiting to wish Mitchell a happy fiftieth birthday.
It had been the most embarrassing moment of my whole life.
“Belle?” Alexa snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Hello? What happened? You just like, totally faded on me!”
“Sorry,” I mumbled, blushing hotly. “I was just thinking about…well, never mind.”
Alexa crinkled up her nose and giggled. I guessed she was used to it – I’d always been kind of spacey, after all.
“I was thinking about my family,” I confessed. “I really miss Mom, you know? I haven’t heard from her in weeks.”
Alexa nodded, but I could tell she didn’t understand. Unlike me, she’d never been close with her mother. Alexa had come from money, too, but she’d never been the outsider of the family like I had. To look at me now, you wouldn’t have been able to tell where I’d lived as a teenager. Most of my clothes came from Target, and I never wore makeup. I’d never been a real “girly girl” – Mom had told me that I’d probably grow into it, but I never had.
“Yeah, I bet,” Alexa replied. She grabbed the boiling pasta from the stove and gestured for me to help her. As I held the plastic strainer over the sink, I braced myself against the hot steam. Still, it felt good – winter in Alfred, New York, was almost as bad as winters in Buffalo had been as a kid. And even though Alexa and I lived in the nicest building of student housing, it was still student housing…right down to the painted concrete blocks of the walls.
“So,” I said casually. “You gonna date him again? Or not?”
Alexa bit her lip. She set the empty pan back down on the stove. “I don’t know,” she confessed. “I mean, he’s super-hot.” She raised her eyebrows. “Hey, why don’t I get Jared to ask his roommate Steve if he’ll come out with us? Steve’s really hot, too,” she added kindly. “I bet he’d totally wanna date you.”
I swallowed. Just the mention of a date was enough to make my heart flutter.
“I don’t know,” I said shakily. “I don’t think he’d like me.”
Alexa put her hands on her slender hips and stared at me. “Belle, come on,” she said. “You know you’re gorgeous!”
I shook my head. “I’m not,” I protested. I glanced down at my body and sighed.
Alexa grabbed my hand and shook my arm through the air. “Yes, you are,” she insisted. “You just don’t see that about yourself for some reason.”
I sighed, knowing there was no use in arguing with Alexa. She’d always been like – bossy, insistent, and usually, one hundred percent correct. But this time, I knew she was wrong. There was no way I, Belle Harrington, was anything even close to beautiful. I had boring brown eyes, even more boring brown hair, and pale skin that would have been pretty on anyone else but somehow just made me look more washed out. When I was younger, Mom always told me that my eyes were “hazel” and my hair was “chestnut,” but I knew she was just trying to make my looks seem less boring than they really were.
I’d never enjoyed working out (or eating healthy), and as a result, I had a figure that most would call “curvy.” I didn’t mind – I actually kind of liked the fact that I wasn’t a stick figure. But men had never really paid attention to me, and the few times they did, I always thought they were messing with me. I mean, who would want to ask me out? Especially when I was standing next to a knockout like Alexa.
“I’m not beautiful,” I said flatly. “I know that I’m not.”
Alexa rolled her eyes. She dropped my hand and it fell limply to my thigh. “Well, you’d better say yes. I know Steve would really like you.”
“I can’t,” I said. I shook my head. “Are you totally forgetting about finals? I have to study, Lex!”
Alexa blew a hank of hair off her face in frustration. “Belle, come on. You know you’re getting a four point this semester! And at this rate, you’re gonna be a virgin for the rest of your life!”
My cheeks flushed hotly. I hated the fact that I was a virgin, that I’d never really had any kind of experience with the opposite sex. It was totally embarrassing, especially as a girl who was more than three quarters of the way through her college experience. But there wasn’t much I could do about it – I wasn’t like Alexa. It wasn’t as though I could walk into a room and come out with five phone numbers, the way she always did.
“Shut up,” I mumbled. “I am not. I just…. haven’t found the right guy yet.”
Alexa snickered. Reaching forward, I grabbed the wooden spoon from the counter and smacked her on the shoulder.
“Yeah, yeah,” Alexa said. “And pigs can fly, what else don’t I know?”
I slumped down into a kitchen chair and crossed my arms over my chest. It wasn’t fair. I felt like a normal girl, but it was almost like there was something wrong with me. I obviously wasn’t normal. I’d never been kissed, much less had an actual date with a guy. But I still had needs. I still had crazy fantasies and dreams that made me wake up blushing.
Why wasn’t anyone able to see through me and realize how badly I wanted a boyfriend?
Just as I was about to ask Alexa what Steve looked like, the doorbell rang. Alexa’s head snapped up and she grinned. Turning to me, she pinched her cheeks and hurriedly tidied her hair in a knot.
“Expecting someone?” I raised an eyebrow. “Like, maybe Jared?”
Alexa licked her lips and shook her head. “Definitely not,” she said. “At least, I don’t think he’d try showing up without calling.” She rolled her eyes. “He knows that’s a bad idea.”
I bit my lip. I couldn’t think of who would be at the door – especially without calling. It wasn’t like I had a ton of friends.
I knew it must be someone for Alexa.
“Can you get it?” Alexa asked. “I have to run to the bathroom.” Without waiting for my reply, Alexa darted off, grabbing her cosmetics case from the kitchen island before disappearing down the hall.
With a sigh, I plodded towards the door and yanked it open.
“Belle?”
The sound of my mom’s weak voice was enough to break my heart. I gasped when I saw her standing there. She was shivering against the cold, and wearing a black jacket that I didn’t recognize. When I looked over her face, I felt my heart plummet. Her eyes were rimmed with red and her cheeks were bloodless, pale. Her normally full mouth looked thin and saggy, like she’d aged ten years overnight.
I knew she wouldn’t just show up for no reason at all. There had to be something wrong – something really, really wrong.
“Mom?” I said tentatively. “What are you doing here?”
Mom was shivering uncontrollably. She wrapped her arms tightly around her body and hugged herself.
“Come in,” I said quickly, wrapping an arm around her thin shoulders and pulling her inside the apartment. “How long have you been outside?”
Mom looked at me with mournful eyes.
“Mitchell’s dead,” Mom whispered. “He was in a car accident.”
And with that, she collapsed against me.
“Alexa!” I screamed loudly. “I need your help!”
Fifteen minutes later, Mom, Alexa, and I were sitting together in the kitchen. The pasta had long been forgotten and I’d made tea for all three of us. Mom was clutching her mug with both hands, like it was some kind of magical, life-saving device.
“I can’t believe it,” Mom said hoarsely. “One minute, we were talking about plans for dinner.” She blinked and a tear rolled down her cheek. I was close to crying myself. My chest ached and my heart was pounding, but somehow, the tears wouldn’t come. It was like I couldn’t be sad about Mitchell when I had Mom to take care of. She was, and always would be, my first priority.
“I’m so sorry,” Alexa said. She leaned in close and put an arm around my mother. “I wish there was something I could do, Mrs. Rhodes.”
My mom shook her head sadly. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered. When I looked at her, I realized that she looked like a scared little girl. “Belle, what do I do? What happens now? Who’s going to take care of us?”
“We will, Mom,” I said softly. I reached across the table and took her hand in mine. As I squeezed Mom’s fingers, her hand felt limp and cold in my grip. “Mom, everything will be okay. I promise – we’ve always survived, and that’s not going to change now.”
Mom stared at me like she wasn’t even hearing my words.
“Belle, I’d like you to come home for a few days,” Mom said in a strangled voice. “Just until everything’s taken care of. You can do that for me honey, can’t you?”
I nodded, thinking of my finals and how much harder I was going to have to work now that I would be missing the last of my classes.
“Of course I can come home,” I said. I squeezed Mom’s hand again. “I can stay for however long you need.”
Mom nodded. “That would be great, sweetie.” She nodded slowly, like I was still talking. Just looking at her was enough to punch me in the gut – she looked like a shell of her former self, a husk of the confident woman I’d always known.
I could tell she was still in shock.
“Come on, Mom,” I said gently, pulling her away from the table and leading her over to the living room. “Why don’t you lie down for a little while? We can make some plans when you wake up.”
Mom nodded. “That’s a good idea, Belle,” she said dreamily. “You’ve always been the best daughter.”
As I watched my mom drift off into an uneasy sleep, I felt conflicted. Angry. Scared. I knew that everything was about to change.
If only I’d known how much things would change, maybe I could have done a better job preparing myself for what was going to come next.
But there was no way of knowing, and now I was coasting off into the void like a missile off course.