Ruined (Ethan Frost 1)

At least until I see the myriad boxes of hair dye she lays out on the coffee table in front of me and I realize she’s going for rainbow hair. Suddenly I’m not so sure, either. I don’t know why it seems more normal for her to have green hair or purple hair, but it does. Having multicolored hair just strikes me as an inability to commit.

I tell her so, but she just laughs. “Who said I had to commit? I’m twenty-one. If I can’t be fickle now, when can I be?”

She makes a good argument, but still. “Are you sure they’ll let you in the building at work if you do this?”

She waves her hand, and I know what she’s saying even without the words. If her job doesn’t like it, she’ll just quit and find one that does. It’s not like she’s worried about paying the bills or anything. Not that I’m complaining, considering her money is what has made this last week—and all my future weeks at Frost Industries—possible.

In the end, I agree to turn my best friend’s hair the color of Easter eggs—not as though there was ever any doubt. Still, it’s a long, time-consuming process. First because it takes hours to bleach out the dark yellow that is her current color, and then because it takes hours more to

paint individual clumps of hair with every color of the rainbow from fuck-me red to Ethan Frost blue.

When we’re done and she’s washed out all the dye and then styled her hair, I have to admit the look is as beautiful as it is striking. Like she’s been kissed by a thousand rainbows—or fallen headfirst into a bag of Skittles. Either way, she looks amazing.

We finish the night with a pint of Cherry Garcia ice cream around 3:00 a. m. As I take the last spoonful, I start to congratulate myself for going hours without thinking about Ethan, but that thought blows the whole deal. Suddenly I can’t help but think of the disgust in his eyes in those last minutes. The disappointment. Like I was the one who had screwed things up, not him.

Maybe in his eyes I am. Which is just more reason why this thing between us wouldn’t work. We see the world in very different ways. Which means Tori’s wrong. I wasn’t being a coward, wasn’t running away because I felt something. I was just doing what I do best. Being pragmatic. Making a plan.

The realization should make me feel better, but instead all it does is depress me. Which only makes me more determined to not think about it. Sinking deeper into the couch, I lay my head on Tori’s shoulder and watch Cary Elwes storm the castle in The Princess Bride. For the first time ever, it fails to make me laugh.

* * *

I wake up early Saturday morning to a loud pounding. I’m still on the couch, half tangled up with Tori from when our sleeping selves were looking for some comfortable position to sleep in.

“What the hell is that?” she groans as she hefts herself into a sitting position.

I shove my heavy curtain of hair out of my eyes, then immediately wish I hadn’t when the sunlight slams into them, makes them burn. “I have no idea,” I answer, burying my face in my hands in a desperate bid to stop the pain.

The pounding gets louder, and Tori’s the one who finally identifies it. “Someone’s at the door. ”

“Oh. Right. ” That rhythmic pounding was actually someone knocking.

She nudges me with her foot. “Aren’t you going to get it?”

“You’re the extrovert. If someone is knocking this early on a Saturday morning, we both know it’s for you. ”

“Good point. ” She groans a little as she pulls herself off the couch—how early is it anyway?—and stumbles toward the door. The second she’s gone, I fall facedown onto her side of the couch and pull a pillow over my head. If I’m lucky, whoever it is will keep Tori busy for a few minutes and I can go back to sleep.

I hear voices near the front door, notice that my roommate is talking a lot more animatedly than she usually does. Which is a good sign. I close my eyes, start to drift. Then groan what feels like mere seconds later when she starts shaking my shoulder.

“What?” I demand without pulling my head out from under the pillow.

“It’s for you. ”

Of course it is. What are the odds? The one morning I want to sleep in and lounge around pitying myself is the one time someone actually comes to the door for me. Lifting up the corner of the cushion, I blearily stare at a pair of worn jeans with a hole over one knee.

“What time is it?”

“Nine o’clock,” Tori tells me.

“Go away,” I tell the legs that are standing right in front of me. It’s too damn early for politeness. But even as I say it, a frisson of awareness works its way down my spine and into my heart, which is suddenly beating much too fast.

“Hangover?” asks a warm male voice dripping with amusement.

Sure enough, I know that voice. Tossing the pillow onto the floor, I force myself into a sitting position. Even force my eyes to open wider than little slits. The resultant pain makes me grumpy. “Ice cream coma. ” I gesture toward the two empty cartons on the coffee table.

“Nice,” Ethan says with a laugh. “I always go for Phish Food myself. ”

“I wouldn’t go around admitting that if I were you. It’s just another black mark against you. ”