“There won’t be a second, third or fourth,” he whispers, his lips beside my ear. His hot breath tickles my skin. “It won’t happen again, I promise.”
Promises from Connor Cobalt are like oaths spilled in blood.
Translation: I will die for you.
I smile widely.
I will die for you.
That will never get old.
CHAPTER 40
CONNOR COBALT
1 month and 20 days – Mom I read the text on Rose’s phone after it buzzes on the desk. She’s downstairs cleaning the kitchen with Daisy. It was taco night, which meant the entire place exploded in cheese and chips, only adding to Rose’s neurotic hysteria.
I’d be helping if it wasn’t for this damn term paper. I can almost see the finish line for the first semester, but papers and finals stand in my way. I doubled my Adderall dosage last week just to concentrate.
The door swings open, and I swivel my chair to watch Rose walk into the bedroom. She glares at Brett who stands in the hallway. “I’m in the no film zone. Run along, now,” she waves him off and then shuts the door. She’d never be as rude to Ben or Savannah, but Brett and Rose get along about as well as her and Lo.
When she turns to face me, I notice a…bulge where her breasts are. No wonder Brett followed her up here.
Curiosity compels me to my feet, and I cross the room to Rose. “Something’s a little off about you,” I say and my eyes drift up to her hair as if I’m focusing on her nonexistent bangs.
I reach towards her breasts, and she slaps my hand away.
“I’m a lady,” she chides. “I don’t let boys touch me there.”
Fuck. My cock stirs at her words. I grab her waist and pull her body against mine in one swift motion. She sucks in a sharp breath when her hips knock into me. She’s still in her five-inch-fucking-heels. Almost the same height as me, a few inches off.
“What about men? Do you let them touch you?” I ask, holding her tight.
“Definitely not.” Her eyes drift to my mouth.
I lick my bottom lip, moving my tongue slowly, as I watch her chest inflate with the motion. I slide my hand up her leg, her thigh, between them—her lace fabric already wet to my touch.
“And here?” I ask.
“Never,” she says in a whisper.
When she’s sufficiently distracted with my hand, I take the opportunity and reach down the top of her dress, grabbing whatever’s hidden in her bra.
“Hey!”
I already have the baggy in my possession, and I hold it above her head.
She doesn’t make a pass to retrieve it, just pushes me in the chest for tricking her. I’m too fixated on her contraband to respond.
“Why do you have a bag of marijuana?” And where did she get it? Four messily rolled joints fill the plastic. The papers don’t have neat creases, which means that Rose didn’t roll them. It takes her two hours just to meticulously fold her panties and place them in her drawer.
My eyes fall to her with interest.
She stays quiet, twisting her diamond necklace in her fingers.
“Care to explain?”
“I thought we could do something different tonight…” she says. “I usually don’t try new things, and with you…” she trails off, lost for words. This must annoy her because she rolls her eyes.
“I accept,” I say instantly.
Her eyes brighten in surprise. “Really?”
I nod, willing to try anything with her. I want her to experience as many firsts with me as she possibly can. I’ve smoked only once—my first and only foray into illegal drugs. It was strategic. Boarding school. Trying to gain a connection I needed for Student Council.
“On one condition,” I reply. “You tell me who gave these to you.”
“Daisy.” She doesn’t even hesitate. “If I have the drugs, then she doesn’t have them. They’re much safer in my position.” She grins.
Devious and intelligent. I like this side of her.
My face suddenly falls as I remember something important.
I’m on Adderall.
And I’m not a hundred percent positive it’s safe to smoke pot on the stimulant. The small percentage of doubt is not something I’m willing to live with. I’ll never forgive myself for impairing my brain or my body over something so stupid.
“What’s wrong?” She touches my arm in concern.
The one question makes me frown even deeper. I’m getting worse at hiding my emotions from her. Or maybe…maybe I just don’t care if she’s sees this part of me anymore.
For the first time, I really want to be honest with her.
Not just my half-assed attempt at honesty. I want her to know me as well as I know myself. So I prepare to admit the one thing that could cause her to storm out, pack her bags, sleep in Daisy’s room and maybe even sling my clothes out the window.
“I’m on Adderall,” I let it go. One sentence. One breath.
She drops her hand from my arm, and her I’m-going-to-rip-your-dick-off glare heats her eyes. “Bullshit,” she says. “You would never take Adderall.”
“I wouldn’t,” I agree. “But I was losing sleep, and I wasn’t putting a hundred percent into Wharton or Cobalt Inc., so I decided to start taking it.”
“For how long?” Her collarbones sharpen as she holds in a breath. I remember what Frederick once told me when I was only eighteen and I thought I was finished discovering who I was and what I wanted to be. He said, “Lies tear at relationships until they’re nothing but unwound threads.”
I hate that my own has begun to unravel.
I hate that, in this moment, I am ordinary.
“The end of January.”
“Almost four months,” she says, dumbfounded. But she doesn’t attack me, doesn’t throw up her hands and call it quits. Her eyes are on the ground as she thinks it over.
“You would’ve given up something if you didn’t, right?” she asks, her eyes flitting to mine, so many questions swimming in them.
“Not you,” I tell her. “I would have never given up you.”
“Wharton?”
I nod, and she shakes her head in dismay. “I don’t want you to choose me over your dream,” she says. “But I can’t stand here and be okay with you choosing me over your health.”
It’s not fair for me to put her in a position, to trap her into giving me an ultimatum. I know what I have to do. Even if the semester is almost over, I still have a year and a half left. I’m not even close to graduating and earning this final degree.
I notice the space between us. Five feet away. Five feet too much. I imagine that space so much further if I make the wrong decision right now.
Frederick is right.
My mother is right.
I can’t have everything. So I’m going to have to fucking choose.
“I’m withdrawing from Wharton,” I deliver the lines with finality. It hardly topples me backwards. It doesn’t even make me sway. In fact, a weight rises off my shoulders—a heaviness that I didn’t even know was there before. Dragging me down.
It’s not as earth-shattering as I once believed it would be. Sometimes the dreams you construct for yourself at ten, twelve-years-old aren’t the same ones you thought they would be at twenty-four. And it just takes a while to finally make peace with that.