Ground Rules

Chapter One

Two YearsLater

Cole

These parties always had a bundle of hotties swarming around, half-dressed, hoping to score one of the Noany Bay football players—or hell, maybe even the mascot or water boy. They were thirsty, high on the need to party their college years away, but fuck me if I wasn’t still uncomfortable when I saw a pretty girl taking drinks from a random dude at a fucking frat party. You couldn’t trust horny dudes. They were ruthless, especially those who desperately wanted to get laid but were too weak to put in the work to actually sweep a girl off her feet.

Though, I was pretty certain that most people thought that about me. The rumors from high school had followed me to Noany Bay. The rumors that were just that—rumors. I will admit, I never openly discussed them or tried to deny what the gossip mill of Wellington Prep, and even surrounding schools like English Prep, had started up. The only person’s opinion that I truly cared about was the one who shared the same dreadful fate.

Regardless, I would never touch a girl without her permission. I may have been a bit disobedient, the ultimate bad-boy (those are not my words, I will assure you of that), but I would never stoop so low to become something so downright fucking disgusting. In fact, I liked the chase. I liked working for it. Maybe that was all because of Mazey. She had always made me work so damn hard for her attention.

Regardless of who I was now, I accepted the rumors and the label. I allowed them to brew and flourish because of her. Deep down, I thought I felt that I deserved the trash-talk. Maybe my dignity was just as ruined as hers was. Guilt was constantly causing me to plow my feet into the ground, gripping me to my spot whenever I’d hear her name.

It’d been almost two years since I’d seen her soft, pink cheeks burning bright when she’d catch me staring. It had been far too long since her baby blues grasped me in place from across the lush green yard that separated us on a daily basis. I missed her. I missed the Mazey that no longer looked at me with the slight glimmer of rebellion in her eye. I missed the tiny smile that would grace her perfect lips when she saw me from her bedroom window.

Fuck, I hated myself. Still. Even to this day.

“Scoping out the bait, my mate?”

I leaned back against the grimy wall of the frat house, holding the warm beer in my hand as if I was going to get just as fucked as everyone else at this party—Reese being one of them. His eyes were red and glossy, which meant he’d just come from the basement.

“Sure am,” I sighed, lying. I wasn’t really scoping out the bait. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with an overzealous girl with heavy hands as she beat my dick. I could get the job done just fine while picturing a set of blue eyes that continued to fucking haunt me.

It didn’t make matters any better that my parents reminded me of her every single time I was home visiting—thus, why I came back to school early this year.

I knew I wouldn’t run into her back in our hometown. Mazey Fuller would never step foot on my property again, courtesy of my parents and their deal with hers. But just the fact that I could see her window in the now empty servants’ house from my bedroom, and not see her face staring up at me, made me irrationally angry.

I never allowed myself to talk to her afterwards. I knew it would only make matters worse. I was in the hot seat. My parents were livid with hers for even suspecting me in the first place, and threats were shared from both parties as Mazey and I drowned in our own fucked-up version of us.

I was angry. I was angry at myself most of all, but maybe even a little angry at her too. Not because I blamed her for anything, but because she thought so little of me that she even had an inkling that it was me. As if I would ever. She knew me better than anyone, and it cut deep that there was even a tiny seed that she allowed others to water with the mere suspicion that I was the one to take advantage of her.

I knew it looked bad.

How did I end up in that room with her?

If I was in that room while something happened, why didn’t I stop it?

Those are questions that continued to rattle off in my brain each time I saw a fair-skinned, sunshiny head of hair on campus, even if she didn’t attend Noany Bay like most of the graduates from Wellington Prep.

“Oh, lookie. Fresh meat.” Reese’s slow, chill, surfer-type voice that belonged on the cast of Laguna Beach pulled me from my depressive thoughts that often made me appear broody and lethal. Not many approached me nowadays unless I approached them first, which was almost never.

“Freshman?” I asked, gripping my bottle of beer tighter. I glanced over top of the sea of half-dressed girls, their tanned and toned legs catching my eye for a brief second because, after all, I did have a dick in my pants. My gaze caught Christian Powell with his long-time girlfriend, Hayley. They had both transferred here a year ago, along with Hayley’s best friend, Piper, when his little brother, Ollie, got a full-ride. Christian and Ollie were the only other guys on the football team—other than myself—that didn’t really enjoy these parties. I’ll admit we started off rocky during our high school years, but with the help of Hayley and my recluse state since leaving home, we came to an understanding that the past was just that: the past.

Except, it wasn’t.

Mazey was my past, and I didn’t want to let her go, even if it brought nothing but regret.

I nodded once to Christian as he wrapped his hands around his girlfriend and skidded my attention elsewhere. I scoffed at Ryan as he was trying to sweet-talk his way into a freshman’s pants. We went to Wellington Prep together, so I’d known him for years, and I honestly lost count of how many girls he’d fucked. He was notorious for fucking a girl, making her think he cared, and then dumping her in front of the entire school. He was the epitome of a fuck-boy, but to each their own. It wasn’t like I had the best reputation in high school either.

“I think I’m out, man.” I tipped my beer to Reese as he continued to stare out into the living room that was beginning to remind me of a rave. I knew what came next at these parties, and I wasn’t in the mood.

“Why are you so down today, dude? Go downstairs and smoke or something. You’re killing my mood.”

“I can’t smoke. We get drug tested. You know that, and you’re gonna be real fuckin’ sorry if they decide to test you.”

Reese shrugged nonchalantly, as if he didn’t care, and to be honest, at the moment, he probably didn’t. But tomorrow he would, when he wasn’t higher than a kite and drunk off cheap, warm booze. “That’s future Reese problems.”

I chuckled, placing my beer on the windowsill that some freshman trying to get a spot in the frat will clean up tomorrow, and began making my way through the party. I fist-bumped a few guys here and there on my way through, feeling antsier the longer I was there. Just as I rounded the corner, wanting nothing more than to fucking shove everyone out of my way, I shoulder-checked someone that was so small I hardly saw them standing there.

“Oh, shit. My bad. I didn’t even see yo—” It was a fucking sucker punch to my tight stomach. My hands were wrapped around her slender arms, and I was rooted to the ground, as if the floorboards beneath our feet had sprouted roots and kept me in place.

Her ocean-washed eyes snagged with mine, and her pink lips parted as a sweet breath floated out and killed me right there.

Everything else vanished.

We were the only two in the house, standing right there in the middle of the entryway. My hands were on her arms, and every finger bone snapped as I refrained from pulling her into my chest.

Her eyes bounced in between mine, and I saw an entire world move behind them. A world that I wanted a part in.

“Mazey?”