Justin's POV
It was a mistake, coming here tonight with Cole. Yeah, he was attractive, and, yeah, I couldn't even think straight when he touched me or kissed me, but I didn't like who he was. Cole Williams moved in a circle I had avoided my whole life: fights, out-of-control parties, drugs, alcohol... Those were all things I didn't want to be a part of. I was still trying to get used to my life here. I only left home two weeks ago, and literally everything had changed. I was still messed up over Maddie, and starting a relationship with Cole made things worse because I was perfectly aware of what a guy like him would want from a person like me. Maybe I was old-fashioned or weird or whatever, but I liked to do things the traditional way. I wanted to be a guy who wants to be with his lover every day. I liked to do sweet words, kind gestures, and that just wasn't Cole. I wasn't ready for my heart to be broken again before it had begun to heal. I wasn't even sure I had a heart anymore, just thousands of little pieces I kept trying to glue back together.
I told myself I would have to try to have a normal relationship with Cole. We couldn't be together, but that didn't mean we had to hate each other. The fights with him, the push and pull since we'd met, all that was exhausting. We lived together, so we should try to be friends, if it even was possible to be friends with someone who stirred you up in that way.
I stayed by the door waiting for Logan's fight to be over with. I couldn't watch. I hated physical confrontation. It was upsetting that people could enjoy it; they were even making money betting against the fighters. It was gross and humiliating.
Cole had walked past me to go stand with Jenna and their friends. There must have been two hundred people in the crowd. Logan won his fight after fifteen minutes, but unlike Cole, he had bruises from blows to the chest and an ugly cut under his left eye. Jenna threw herself in his arms when she saw him and kissed him while everyone cheered. Was that what Cole had wanted? For me to throw myself at him just because he'd left some guy laid out on the ground? Ridiculous.
Cole came over to me, took my hand, and walked me out. It was strange to feel his fingers intertwined with mine but somehow distant, as if this were just something practical a way to keep me from getting lost — and there was no affection in it. Something had changed since our last conversation. He seemed mad at me, as if he didn't even want me there. It hurt, but what could I expect?
I looked at his wounded knuckles. There was dried blood on them where he'd struck his opponent. I felt nauseated, and I needed air. What the hell was I doing here?
When we were close to his car, he left me to talk to his group of friends. Jenna was gone, and I felt lonely. I decided to get an Uber and started to pull up the app. But Cole hurried over and tore it out of my hand.
"What are you doing?"
"Getting an Uber."
"Are you crazy? This is illegal. You can't give away our location. We could get arrested."
I didn't care. This place was dangerous, and I wanted to avoid trouble. However good he looked, he wasn't worth it.
"I need to leave," I said.
"Why?"
"Because I don't like your world, preppy."
He didn't seem offended. If anything, he seemed indifferent.
"You're not built for this. I shouldn't have brought you."
I wasn't built for this? His response didn't bother me per se; it was the tone he said it in.
"I'm the one who decided to come here. And now I'm the one who's deciding to go."
He laughed.
"I don't know what I expected, but this definitely wasn't it. I thought you were tougher, Justin Bieber. You didn't flinch when you and Aggie got into it. I sure didn't think a couple of guys punching each other would do this to you."
What he couldn't see, as we stood there looking at each other, was the cold sweat coating my body, the soft tremors in my hands...
"I guess my bravery comes and goes," I said, opening my palm so he'd hand me back my phone. But he kept toying with it, and his mind seemed elsewhere.
"I wanted to ask you. Where'd you learn to race like that?"
"Beginner's luck. Phone, please."
He grinned.
"You've got more secrets than I would have imagined, Justin Bieber." He stepped toward me, and I stepped away until my back touched the door of his car.
"We've all got secrets," I said, quieter now.
"I should warn you, I'm a pretty good detective," he said, leaning in for a kiss. I stopped him as best I could.
I woke from the spell he cast on me. My pulse started racing.
"Stay away from me, preppy," I said, more serious than ever.
Discovering my past was the last thing I wanted. The mere thought of it made me panic. I'd always kept my demons in check no one knew anything — but with just a wall between him and me, there were things that I wasn't going to be able to hide. I hardly knew him, and already, he was unearthing things I never let anyone see.
"You want me to stay away from you? That's not what your body seems to be saying..."
Damn him. Nobody has ever gotten to me like this before. Seeing him there before me, so hot, so masculine, I felt like a cornered animal someone was getting ready to slaughter at any minute. And I didn't like that, that sensation of feeling so vulnerable.
He placed a hand on either side of my head, almost like a cage.
"What are you so scared of?" he asked, his mouth close to mine, his breath heating up my face. His eyes were so blue, with bits of aquamarine in the pupils.
"You make me scared of you," I whispered.
Cole grinned. Maybe he liked my answer. It was as if someone had tossed a jar of ice water over my head. I shoved him and got away from his grasp.
"Asshole," I said. I couldn't believe I'd been sincere with him.
"Why? Because I think it's funny that you're scared? That's normal, Bieber. If you weren't, it would have worried me."
"I'm scared you'll get me into trouble," I lied, hoping he'd forget what I'd just said. I didn't want him having any power over me.
"I've got a talent for wriggling out of it. You don't need to worry there."
"That's exactly it. I don't want to worry. Now give me my phone so I can get out of here."
Cole sighed, but his expression didn't change.
"It's too bad you're so stiff. I thought we could have some fun together."
"There is no we... and there never will be."
Twenty minutes later, Jenna had dropped me at home. I was breathing easy again, and I promised myself I wouldn't fall into any more traps. Cole and I needed to keep our distance from each other.
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I spent the next day washing my car. Cole stayed inside doing God knows what, and we barely crossed paths. My Jeep had been on the sales lot for a long time, so no one had taken care of it, and it was covered in dirt and grime. It was funny to me that all my new neighbors with their Chanel clothes and their stuck-up attitudes were eyeing me as I washed my own car in shorts and no shirt and with my hair brushed back. I looked like hell, but why should I care what my neighbor thought of me?
"You do know that car washes exist?"
I slowly turned my attention to Cole, who was leaning against a pole smiling at me.
"I don't care," I said rolling my eyes. But before
I knew it, Cole walked up to me. He grabbed the water hose from the ground by my Jeep and he started pouring it on hisself. The water ran through his white shirt, showing his abs.
"Tequila," he said with a stupid teasingly grin. I guess he saw me when some random girl licked tequila from my abs. But before I could press on, Cole walked away. I decided to not thing about his abs, and the muscles and veins on his arms, wishing they would caress me...
As I blew a strand of hair out of my face and leaned over the hood with a sponge, trying to get out a particularly stubborn spot, I heard the last voice I would have expected to hear at that moment.
"I see you still hate the drive-through car wash." I froze. It couldn't be true.
I turned around and looked at him. He was standing next to Cole's car looking no different from when we'd said our goodbyes three weeks ago. His blonde hair was disheveled, his chocolate eyes projected a self-assurance I'd always admired, and he had the build of a hockey player. I had to catch my breath.
Dylan, my best friend who kissed my girlfriend, was now standing in front of me.
I stopped what I was doing, holding on to the dripping sponge and letting my other hand flop to my side. I couldn't move. Just having him in front of me hurt, and all the memories I'd shared with him flooded into my mind like a slideshow: when we'd met; after we'd win our football games; when we became best friends...
Then I remembered the image of him and Maddie hooking up, and everything else vanished.
I struggled to find a voice that wouldn't let him know how much his being there affected me.
"What the hell are you doing here?" I asked, dropping the sponge in the bucket. Water droplets splashed my bare feet.
"I missed hanging out," he said.
I scoffed.
"You don't miss me. You've had company, haven't you?" I replied, turning around.
"Justin...I'm sorry," he told me.
I shook my head, wishing this wasn't happening. I wasn't ready to confront Dylan. There was a part of me that still wished everything was as it had been before. Even for just a few seconds, I wanted to be the Justin Johnston I had been before getting into a car and heading off to a new city to live a life I didn't want.
"Justin...," he said, coming up towards me.
My heart had already broken into a million pieces. Was he going to stomp on them now, crush them into dust?
"Don't call me," I said. Everything about Dylan brought back so many memories — memories that now stung unbearably.
He looked nervous. I knew him well enough to know this was harder for him than it was for me.
"It's true that I miss you, Justin." He took another step towards me and I took another step back. "Please forgive me. When you left, my whole world fell apart. I didn't know what to do, where to turn. You have to forgive me. Justin."
There was desperation in his voice. I closed my eyes. This shouldn't be happening. Why? And why was his presence making me so sad? I should have gotten over him kissing Maddie already. He shouldn't have come here, asking forgiveness, but still...seeing him again, having that piece of my old life back, was comforting when it shouldn't have been.
Just then, I felt his arms wrap around me. It was unexpected but at the same time felt normal. That had been something I was used to, something pleasant, even necessary, something I'd wanted from the moment I got into that car to leave and never come back.
I was so shocked, so overwhelmed by the thousands of contradictory feelings I was having that all I could do was hold still.
"Justin, please, don't be like that." He tried to hug me again but I wasn't going for it. There was a missing warmth from his touch when he hugged me but there was also something different. Something had changed. My body seemed to be expecting something more powerful. I craved the flames, not just mere warmth.
I heard someone make a noise, trying to get our attention. I stepped back, and Dylan looked at me with sadness on his face. Then we turned to see who had interrupted us.
My mother and Richard had just appeared. I'd been so wrapped up in my thoughts that I hadn't even heard them pull up in their car.
She looked at us with a big smile on her lips and turned to Richard, who had a bright-eyed, satisfied expression on his face.
"You like our present?" he asked.
It took me a moment to realize that my mom and her new husband but Dylan here. I was not happy about that.
"You were just so moody, Justin," Mom said, coming over and giving me a hug. "I knew Dylan was the one person who could make you smile, so what was the harm in inviting him to spend a few days with us?"
Oh, Mom. You've screwed up now.
I forced a smile, hard as it was, while Richard shook Dylan's hand firmly. My mother gave him a hug in turn, and they both stood back to look at us.
"We'll give you some privacy, " Mom said. "Dylan, I'm having them prepare the guest room. Anything you need, do not hesitate to ask. I know you will."
Dylan chuckles then nodded politely, and my mother and Richard vanished through the front door.
When they were gone, I looked at Dylan, enraged.
"I can't believe you had the fucking balls to come here," I shouted, picking up the bucket and soap I'd brought out for my car. I wouldn't be able to finish now. I had much more important things to do — like get away from Dylan.
This was wrong. Dylan couldn't stay in my home. I didn't want him there.
"It was the perfect opportunity to say I'm sorry in person."
"You can't stay here, Dylan."
"I know you're still mad, and I know you'll need lots of time before you can forgive me, but just let me be with stay these few days, Justine. Whatever the problem is, we'll solve it like we've always done."
That phrase struck home.
"I fixed the problem the moment you hooked up with my girlfriend." I said that knowing that would leave me feeling worse than I already did. "You can stay here because I'm not going to upset Richard or my mother, and I don't want them to have to know what you did to me. But when that time's up, I never want to hear from you again."
"I know I hurt you, Justin. But I love you and best friends get through everything together. When you told me you were leaving, I tried to make a plan in my head to be able to deal with it, but it didn't work. Justin, the thing with Maddie meant nothing to me. I just leaned on her because she reminded me of you and our friendship. You two were always together when you both started dating. You were spending so much time together, you both picked up each other's habits.. I know I've been an asshole, but I can't let what years of memories end this way."
I looked down, trying to suppress the tears that wanted out. I wasn't going to cry. I wouldn't cry.
"This is where we are now." he said. "You not looking me in the eyes."
"I need some space." And it was true; I needed to think, needed to not have him in front of me.
"Fine," he agreed. "Can I at least leave my things in the guest room?"
"It's a somewhat free country, so go ahead." I walked away from him, trying to keep my tears under-wraps. I couldn't spend another minute with him, so I walked off to my room, thinking I would just climb into bed and sleep until the next day. I didn't care how early it was. I needed to think and get my feelings in perspective, but then my body made me stop at a room that wasn't mine, and before I could stop myself, I was knocking at Cole's door.
I didn't know if he would answer or not but I didn't care. All I know was I heard a noise and went inside.
He was sitting in front of his laptop at a desk in the corner. When he saw me come in, he closed it. He spun his chair around to look at me, and I observed every inch of his anatomy as if it were a work of art. He was shirtless in gray sweatpants — I see he changed after running water over himself. I could tell he wasn't expecting a visitor, especially not me. It was the first time I'd ever knocked at his door since I'd lived there, but something in me told me my stepbrother would be able to console me, even as I was trying to grasp why I'd chosen to torture myself by being in his presence.
He must have seen something in my face because he immediately asked what was going on and approached me cautiously, not sure what to do. Just as with every other time we'd been alone together, an irresistible attraction crackled in the air. In a way, I was happy to realize Maddie couldn't make me react that way — happy but at the same time confused.
Those eyes of Cole's only promised darkness.
But without thinking twice, I grabbed the back of his neck, pulled him close, and kissed him desperately.
At first, I thought he would t react — be surprised. But I was wrong. He reacted instantly as he grabbed my waist, and his mouth and tongue took over. He made me forget why I'd even come there, forget everything but him. I had to pull away a second to catch my breath. When I did, he asked me what I was doing, and then his teeth bit into my earlobe before his mouth traveled down to my cheek, my neck... Any notion of pain, loss, or nostalgia vanished from my mind. But then he pushed me away.
"What happened?" he asked.
Why did he have to ask that? Why couldn't he just kiss me and let me enjoy his undoubted abilities? Since when had Cole cared why someone wanted to hook up with him?
Now I found myself thinking about Dylan again.
That wound of being betrayed by someone I had loved so much — and I had loved them both, him and Maddie reopened again. That, and the wound of knowing I'd lost them both forever because I will never be able to forgive them because they didn't deserve it. And the worst thing was the fear — the fear that I wasn't strong enough to keep away from him.
I rested my head on Cole's bare shoulder, and he held me. This was the first time we'd ever shared a moment like this. His smell was entrancing it must have been one of those fancy colognes models advertised on TV — and his chest was warm and comforting, and even though I felt frozen, somewhere deep inside me, a small fire had started to burn.
"It's not like I don't love holding you, Bieber, but if you don't tell me what happened, I might draw the wrong conclusions, and I'll wind up pounding the shit out of the wrong person."
Despite my mood, those words got a smile out
of me.
I started to pull away, but he walked me backward and sat down at his desk with me in his lap.
"Please God tell me you didn't fuck my other car up, too, and now you've come to me because you feel bad about it because I swear, all the kisses in the world won't help that..."
I didn't know this side of the normally cold and standoffish Cole Williams — the side that cracked jokes, that tried to get people to laugh and I admitted that I liked it. A lot.
So I decided to tell him why I'd come to his room. Because, believe it or not, I hadn't planned to hook up with him or anything like that.
"Dylan's here," I said. He took a second to absorb what I'd said. Then his body tensed.
"That motherfucker that kissed your girlfriend is here? In Palm Beach?"
"He's here in this house." I knew as I said it how pathetic and ridiculous the situation was.
Cole seemed to be waiting for the punch line. I tried to explain.
"Apparently My mother invited him. She doesn't know anything about what he did but he's here, Cole , and I feel like I'm completely losing it..."
I got up and started pacing around the room. I had no idea why I was telling preppy this, but Cole was good at getting you to think about other things.
He didn't say anything. I didn't know if he was angry or disappointed.
"Why are you telling me this?" he said. That old coldness in his eyes was back, the one I'd seen many times before, the same one that made us hate and insult each other. Trying to put aside my feelings for him, things that I myself didn't understand, and I told him what I really needed.
"As soon as he sees you, Dylan will know who you are," I said, trying to hide behind that armor I always used to defend myself, even if it seemed to have disappeared since Dylan arrived. "He'll recognize you from the photo of us, from when we kissed. I know for a fact Maddie showed him."
Who'd have thought a simple photo would bring me so many headaches? If I'd known that kissing Cole would mean that the desire to do it again would invade my body and mind, I would have avoided it from the beginning.
Cole looked at me with contempt.
"What do you want, Justin?"
"I want him gone and to never have to see him again." It was true; that was what I wanted, no matter how much it hurt. I didn't want to be around someone who had deceived me.
That seemed to has relaxed Cole, and I continued:
"But I don't know how to make it happen." I wiped my forehead with my hand. "He came here for the sole purpose of getting me to forgive him... and there's a part of me that wants to, but I know I can't, I shouldn't..."
"So this is where I come in?" he asked.
I nodded.
"It's just a couple of days. If he sees that I've moved on, that I'm not interested in what he has to say, maybe he'll leave."
He nodded, leaning back in his chair looking sexy.
"So we've got to make out in front of him," Cole concluded.
I was ashamed of what I was asking for, but he had already offered to do the same thing, basically, when he took that photo of us kissing. What made it strange was that we'd now hooked up a couple of times recently for very different reasons.
"You want him to think we're together." He got up out of his chair. "Wouldn't it be easier if I just broke his face and got it over with?" There was anger in his eyes, and something else, something dark, that I couldn't quite place it.
"My mother can't know," I murmured. I felt trapped by the hand he'd suddenly reached out to grab my chin. One of his fingers softly stroked my lower lip.
"You owe me big-time," he said, and even though his voice was sour, he kissed me. His kiss was powerful, not sweet, and I couldn't help comparing him with Maddie. She wanted delicate and caring — whereas Cole was cold and dominating. I never knew what he was thinking. His hands weren't even touching me then. Just his lips.
"I hope you're not stupid enough to let that asshole brainwash you into forgiving him."
He turned around, grabbed a T-shirt and the car keys on his desk, and left me there, trying to figure out if I would pull myself together.