10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Cody

“What the actual hell, Cody?”

We don’t make it ten feet from the gym entrance before Stella explodes. She whirls around to face me, index finger jabbing my chest hard enough to leave a bruise.

“You made me look like an idiot yesterday. You better start talking. Now.”

I sigh, gently taking her hand and tugging her into an empty corridor. There isn’t a lot of students wandering the halls at this time of evening, but this discussion calls for some privacy.

“I’m sorry Stel.”

The words I need to say and the words I want to say stumble over themselves in the race to the surface, turning my cohesive sentence into an intangible mess so I’m left with no words at all.

“Is that it? Pretty sure you could have messaged me that.”

Stella rips her hand from mine and takes a step back to increase the distance between us. Every cell in my body wants to counteract the action and close the gap, but the look she’s giving me right now makes the Ice Age seem like a balmy vacation.

“Look, I really don’t want to be near you right now. Say what you need to say then leave.” Stella spits out the words, her topknot slowly unraveling as though it too can’t stand the sight of me.

“When it comes to leaving, we both know you’ve got that move down.”

Ouch.

But not uncalled for.

“I shouldn’t have left the way I did.” My voice comes out gruff as I push past the lump in my throat. It feels like a small victory until I see Stella’s defensive position hasn’t budged an inch.

“No kidding.”

I didn’t think the hostility could grow any stronger, but she keeps proving me wrong.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you for a long time, Stel.”

Stella’s jaw drops, her eyes widening as my admission sinks in.

I shrug, condemning myself to the honest route, “It’s true. Ever since that first day I met you, I’ve wanted to get to know you better.”

My eyes flick to her lips, “I’ve wanted to know what you taste like.”

Stella’s mouth snaps shut, a red flush spreading across her neck as her eyes take on a shine that has nothing to do with post-workout endorphins.

Great. Now we’re both turned on.

So much for having a game plan.

“But you’re my mentor’s younger sister. Mighty Mo’s younger sister.” I swallow thickly, pushing past the urge to abort mission. “We can’t ever be together, Stella. If I were to hurt you, Mo would never forgive me. I would never forgive me.”

A single tear hits her cheek and I hastily wipe it away before it can leave a permanent mark on my heart.

Meeting with Stella tonight, I was expecting anger. Part little man syndrome, part younger sibling syndrome, Stella is a hothead through and through but once she lets off some steam, she’s normally pretty quick to calm down.

What I wasn’t expecting was the vulnerability shining through every pore of her being.

“What if you didn’t hurt me?” Her question is barely above a whisper, as if all the wind has disappeared from her sails of fury and taken her voice with it.

Chest aching with a pain I’ve never felt before, I open up my arms and she steps into the embrace. I pull her close, blinking against the burning sensation building in my own eyes.

“I’m sorry, Stel. That’s not a risk I’m willing to make.”

We stand like that, protecting each other from the outside world for seconds or minutes, I couldn’t tell you.

What I can tell you is it felt like the beginning of the end of something that never truly started.

Eventually, Stella pulls far enough away to rest her chin on my chest. Her tilted face and our close proximity makes it easy to read her expression, but instead of seeing bitter sorrow reflected back at me, I’m met with a calm stare.

A calm stare that makes me think the undertow is about to pull me under.

“So, here’s the thing.”

Here we go.

“When you say you aren’t willing you mean you are choosing not to fight for us, right?”

“Did you not listen to a thing I just said?”

“No, I did.” She ducks out from my embrace, pacing through her argument two feet in front of me.

I try not to notice the way her black leggings cling to her backside, but the thin material leaves little room for the imagination.

“But you basically admitted to taking the easy way out.”

Is she joking?

“Did you miss the part where I said I want to kiss you?” My voice is slowly getting louder, drawing looks from the only person to walk down this corridor in the last ten minutes.

Naturally.

“Mm, I did like that part.” She licks her lips and smiles at me in a way that has me looking at those leggings again, except this time I’m picturing them on my bedroom floor.

Focus, Ellsworth. This is what got you in trouble in the first place.

“BUT that doesn’t change the fact that you’re taking the coward’s way out.”

I cross my arms, our defensive positions reversed from minutes earlier, “How do you figure?”

“Well…” Stella holds up three fingers and starts ticking them off, “First, you are too much of a coward to simply ask my brother if he would be okay with us dating. Second, if you didn’t want to involve the great Mighty Mo, you could have grown a backbone and fought against any objections he might have.”

She rolls her eyes at the mention of her brother’s title but still manages to check off her final finger with a flourish, “And last but not least, you didn’t even ask how I felt or took into consideration what I want.”

Leave it to me to find the only girl who aggravates me as much as she amazes me.

I think I hate her.

Stella

If I took a shot every time Cody clenched his jaw, I would be comatose by now.

Watching him get more and more riled up every time I say the word “coward” has quickly become my new favourite past time.

Sadistic? Maybe.

Truthful? Absolutely.

I’m embarrassed to admit Cody’s little monologue got me to the point of tears – more like tear, singular – but witnessing the honesty being ripped from his body did something to me. It broke a damn inside that I didn’t know existed until a tear slid out from the hard shell I created when I found out my mother was never coming home.

I’ll be the first to admit, I cry over a lot of things, but boys? Relationships? Discussing and ending the theoretical idea of an us?

Let me put it to you this way: there wasn’t a single tear shed when my first serious boyfriend dumped me weeks after the accident.

I don’t cry over failed relationships. Never have and thought I never would.

And then I had to go and meet Cody freaking Ellsworth.

I think I hate him.

“You…” Cody trails off, annoyance seeping through his tone while his gaze searches my face for the answer he’s looking for.

“Yes, Cody?” I beam back at him, adding another shot to the count.

I’ll have to tell Wes about this drinking game. Someone ought to enjoy my ingenious brand of revenge.

He sighs, looking up at the ceiling for the answers my face didn’t offer him.

“You always take the hard road, don’t you?”

“If you don’t challenge yourself, you don’t change yourself.” I quote the words without thinking, the O’Brien mantras rolling through my mind like a jukebox spitting out its favourite tunes.

Come on Stella, how can you expect to grow if you’re never put in uncomfortable situations? Do the circuit. Again.

Are you really going to settle for average? O’Brien’s aren’t average, Stella. We succeed. We set the example. It’s about time you played your part.

My father’s voice rings through my ears, the echoing tone sharpened with each passing month his beloved wife lay buried underground.

“That’s not the point, Stel.”

I blink back to present and find a frowning varsity captain looking in my direction. Guess it wasn’t the right time to break out the motivational pep talks.

“Then what is the point, Cody? What is your point?”

I feel like kicking a chair at his pigheadedness but there’s no chair in sight. I contemplate using his shin as a substitute but that probably wouldn’t help my cause.

“My point is I’m not in a position right now to pursue a relationship with you.” He presses his fingers against his nose as if a headache’s coming on, “And I don’t know if there ever will be a right time.”

“Right time? Oh, Cody.” I throw my head back and laugh until I’m wheezing. “Didn’t getting your head bashed in last semester teach you anything?”

He shoots me a look at the head bashing comment, but I continue, “There is no such thing as the right time. We’re always going to be too busy or too complicated for it to work. You can’t look at it from a rational point of view, Ellsworth. You’ve got to let it happen and see where it takes you.”

Cody shakes his head, choosing not to listen to a single thing I said, “Please don’t put me in this position, Stel. Where I have to choose between you or Mo.”

I can see in his eyes that his mind’s already made up.

Stupid boy.

“Fine, have it your way. But when you finally pull your head out of your ass, you’ll realize what a huge mistake you made.”

I look him dead in the eye, refusing to be the one to break contact, “And when that happens, I hope you remember one thing. I won’t be waiting.”