ONE ROWAN

ONE

Rowan

NOVEMBER

I’ M APPROXIMATELY one third into my senior year and so far, it’s for shit.

Shifting carefully so I don’t hurt myself, I wince with the subtle movement anyway, fighting the anger and frustration that bubbles within me. Getting injured on the football field is a risk we all take when playing a sport. But getting injured during our last regular season game, thanks to a massive linebacker who sacked my ass and somehow in the fray fractured my goddamned ankle?

I was over with. End of the season for me, just like that.

Done.

That was weeks ago. It’s mid-November, and I’m bored out of my skull. Cursing the awkward boot that keeps my still-healing ankle in place. I didn’t need surgery, which the doctor reassured me was a good thing. But at the time, I couldn’t focus on anything good. Playoffs had ended extra early for me, and I’m still bitter about it.

I’m bitter about a lot of things. I just try not to let on to anyone that I feel this way.

“Uh oh. Here she comes.” Callahan Bennett—my best friend – slaps me in the chest a couple of times with the back of his hand, not even looking at me. His attention is fixed on the girl who’s approaching the front of the building where we’re standing. The way she moves is effortless as she comes closer, reminding me of a model striding down a runway wearing the latest designer clothes.

Which she is, of course. Her family is almost as rich as mine and everything she owns reflects it. The amount of money she must spend on her wardrobe would blow most people’s minds, and don’t even get me started on where she might store all of her clothes. She has a private room but still. I know the closet space in the dorm suites is for shit. Suites reserved for Lancasters are the only exception.

Why I care about any of this, why I even bother thinking about it—about her —I’m not sure.

I take her in as subtly as possible, not wanting her to know I’m checking her out, even though the only reason I’m standing out here in the freezing cold is because I want to witness her daily appearance. This girl knows how to modify her uniform like no one else, and she pushes the dress code limits every single day. She makes outrageous fashion choices, yet always manages to somehow pull it off.

Arabella Hartley Thomas.

She’s stunningly beautiful and I’m certain she knows it, but she never comes across as arrogant. Her features are delicate—the high cheekbones and the button nose. The sweet curve of her chin and the elegant length of her neck. Those flashing dark eyes and full, pouty lips. I’ve had dreams about that mouth where I wake up sweaty and aching. Not that I’d ever admit it.

Hell no.

All that beauty is offset by the quirky glasses she wears. I swear to God, she’s got a new pair on every day. Different colors, different sizes. I never know what to expect from her.

She surrounds herself with plenty of friends. The girls gravitate toward her because she’s the type of person who makes other people feel good. When she talks to you, she focuses her full attention on you, and she actually listens. Always nodding along and offering her support with a murmured response here and there. Every tiny little detail about a person, she makes it her mission to remember. To know and even bring it back up later, so you feel like she actually cares. I hate it.

I don’t want someone to remember my faults or the dumb stuff I said two years ago. And I sure as shit don’t need someone like Arabella reminding me of those things either, even though she does. Always with a big smile on her face. As if she finds me amusing.

I found her annoying when I first met her. She talks nonstop. Like, she never shuts up. And while she has a beautiful, lilting voice with the faintest hint of a British accent—there’s a link to royalty somewhere in her bloodline according to campus gossip—I brace myself every time she speaks to me. Like it’s going to hurt, though it never actually does.

Arabella Hartley Thomas wouldn’t harm a fly, let alone me.

My shoulders grow tense just watching her approach, my gaze sweeping over her. Always assessing, taking note of what she’s wearing. There’s the school uniform—mostly. The skirt, the white button-down shirt, the form-fitting vest that always, always emphasizes the perfect shape of her tits. But as usual, she’s added a bit of her own flair to the outfit. Instead of the standard blue jacket, she’s wearing a cropped black furry coat that’s unzipped and offers us a stellar view of her chest. And covering her legs?

Black tights that have threads of silver glitter running through them, making them sparkle.

“Cal,” she greets as she draws closer, shifting past me to pull my best friend into the quickest embrace that I immediately envy. Her sweet perfume seems to wrap all around me, tickling my nose. For the briefest moment, I’m tempted to press my face into her neck and see if her scent lingers there the most. “Looking strong and handsome this morning.”

Callahan fucking blushes because he turns into a bumbling idiot every time Arabella says a single word to him, and she loves to lay on the praise. You’d think he’d have grown used to it by now, but he hasn’t. And he doesn’t even like her like that.

Arabella turns her dark gaze upon me, and my entire body stiffens. Those big brown eyes sparkle with barely contained amusement, and her thick eyelashes flutter as she blinks, making me think of that one Disney character. What was that little deer’s name?

Oh yeah. Bambi.

“Rowan.” She seems to enjoy calling me by my full name. Very rarely do I hear her call me Row, when that’s what pretty much everyone calls me, including my parents. “Looking grumpy as per usual.”

The right side of my upper lip lifts in the faintest sneer and I blatantly check her out, my gaze lingering on her legs. “Nice tights, Bells.”

I call her Bells, only because I think she hates it. And she completely ignores my compliment.

“How’s the ankle?” She gently kicks at the boot I’m currently wearing on my right foot, her Gucci loafer barely touching it, but I still put on a show, wincing like the kick hurt me. Even though we both know I’m made of stronger stuff than that.

“Aches like a bitch,” I bite out, which isn’t necessarily a lie. I do too much and don’t rest enough. My doctor—and my mother—would kick my ass if they saw my definition of rest.

“That’s too bad,” Arabella croons, taking a step closer to me. God, she smells incredible. It’s infuriating. “Maybe you need someone to take care of you. Like your own personal nurse.”

“Are you volunteering?” I cock a brow, waiting with anticipation for her response.

This is what we do sometimes, Bells and me. Flirt. Banter. Give each other endless shit. My sister told me a long time ago after I complained about this girl and how she wouldn’t stop talking to me that I should try to beat her at her own game.

Keep up the conversation , Willow said. Give as good as you get. Eventually she’ll grow tired of you, especially if you never make a move.

That’s exactly what I’ve done ever since that first day of school when Arabella sat next to me in chemistry and I was forced to be her lab partner for the entire year, which was pure torture. The problem?

We’ve kept talking. It’s like we can’t stop. We talk, we flirt and we give each other endless grief, and damn it, I would never admit this out loud, but our conversations are freaking …

Enjoyable.

I look forward to our early morning encounters. Our classroom interactions. And when she joins our table during lunch, she sits right next to me, pressing her thigh into mine like she wants me to touch her, even though we never talk about that. The chemistry. It’s there. It’s always there and it drives me out of my mind because she is the last person that I should ever be interested in. She’s too needy, too kind, a little odd sometimes and what makes it worse?

My mother would probably love her.

But no. Arabella and me? We can’t be anything. I try to ignore her during those lunchtime moments, but it’s impossible. Especially when she’s right next to me. When I ponder what she might do if I settled my hand on her slender thigh before I slipped my fingers beneath her skirt. She’d probably slap me the moment I brushed my fingers across her soft skin. Or maybe she’d tremble when I touched her, her thighs slowly parting, giving me better access. Would she slap my face if I touched the front of her panties?

Probably. And I’d deserve it too.

I never touch her though. Not like that. It’s like I can’t. I worry that the moment I break free from all of these self-imposed restrictions and actually rest my hand on her leg, forget it. I’m afraid I’ll never let go. I’ll want to touch her more and more until my fingers are actually slipping beneath her panties and encountering nothing but wet heat. Hearing her moan my name would do something to me, I just know it, and I can’t risk it. I can’t.

I’m too young for that shit. I don’t need a steady someone in my life. Not yet.

What makes everything worse is that Arabella doesn’t seem interested in anyone else. She’s never dated anyone and, trust me, people have asked. Upperclassmen when we were younger were constantly trying to get her to hook up with them, and she’d always say no. Bitter, they spread rumors about her being into girls, which caused a few of them to ask Arabella out as well, but she was always kind in her refusal. Always smiling and shaking her head almost shyly, like she couldn’t believe she was rejecting them either.

When she does that, she reminds me of … me. I’m not interested in anyone at this damn school, save for Arabella, and deep down, I tell myself that’s impossible. There was one girl—she was older than me and led me on and left me for another guy. I’ve never admitted this to anyone, but she broke my heart. That’s why I don’t give it so freely. Fuck that. I’m too young to let another girl destroy me.

And I’m definitely not attracted to Arabella. Nope. Not like that. She’s a challenge and I enjoy arguing with her. Flirting with her. She has a nice body and she smells good and those big brown eyes seem to eat me up most of the time when I catch her watching me, but we’re not interested in each other beyond giving each other endless grief or the occasional flirtatious remark.

Commitment isn’t her thing either. She has shitty parents who don’t care about her. She’s told me that in casual conversation, like it’s no big deal. They’ve taught her love is a lie and you can’t count on anyone. You can only count on yourself.

That’s pretty much a direct quote straight from her pretty mouth.

“Oh come on,” Arabella says, pulling me from my thoughts. “I can barely take care of myself, Rowan. How do you expect me to take care of you?” Her smile is saucy—that is a stupid word but I have no other way to describe it—and she flips a wavy lock of dark brown hair over her shoulder, giving me a better view of her tits.

My gaze drops because I have zero control and she actually laughs.

“Eyes up here, Lancaster.”

I jerk my gaze to hers, and I swear to God, now I’m the one blushing, which is bullshit. Cal is laughing. The smile on Arabella’s face is enough to make the heat on my cheeks increase, and if I could run out of here, I would, but I can’t.

The goddamn boot on my foot slows me down like nothing else, and I hobble around campus like an idiot. I hate it.

“Maybe I’ll come by your room tonight,” she says, her casual offer sparking a flicker of hope inside me, which is stupid. “Check in on you and make sure you’re doing okay.”

Cal actually chortles like an old man, slapping me in the chest again with the back of his hand. “Bro, you’ve just found yourself your own personal nurse.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I say through gritted teeth, fighting the wave of jealousy that wants to take over when I see the way Arabella looks at Callahan. “She doesn’t want to be my nurse.”

“How do you know?” She turns her gaze upon me, blinking. The absolute picture of innocence. “Maybe I will show up tonight just because you don’t think I will.”

“You wouldn’t,” Callahan tells her, his tone like a dare.

“I so would.” Her expression turns … sad? “Though let’s be real with each other. I could never take good enough care of you, Rowan, and you would end up disappointed in me. You know how I am. I don’t think I’m up to the job.”

With that, she walks away, leaving behind a few sparkles of stray silver glitter from her tights lingering in the air, accompanied by her delicious, sweet scent that makes me think of vanilla and spice.

Cal actually sags against the wall, gently banging the back of his head against it once. Twice. “I don’t know why, but I always feel like a complete idiot in her presence.”

“No shit,” I mutter.

He sends me a look. I can feel his gaze on me. “And you don’t?”

“Never,” I say without hesitation.

“Right. Because the two of you are hot for each other, yet neither of you can admit it.” He turns to face me, but I won’t do the same. I can barely face myself. “She embarrassed you.”

“She did not.”

“Cut the shit, Row. You blushed.”

I turn it around on him. “She always makes you blush.”

“At least I can admit it.”

I finally swivel my head in his direction. “Then go ahead and admit you want to fuck her.”

He appears vaguely taken aback. “I don’t want to … fuck her. I mean, she’s beautiful, I can’t deny it.”

My hands curl into fists at his compliment, as if I have no control over them. Why am I jealous? Why do I feel this incessant need to tell every motherfucker who even glances in her direction to back off, even my best friend?

“But she’s so far out of my league.” Cal shakes his head, whistling low. “Like, she’s almost too much, you know?”

“Sure,” I say with a nod, my attention elsewhere. In constant search of Bells, who I spot standing at the top step right in front of the double doors of the building, talking to a group of girls who are chatting nonstop.

As if she can feel me watching her, Arabella glances over her shoulder, her gaze finding mine in an instant, that faint smile curving her lush lips just for me. I don’t bother smiling back, but I don’t glare at her either and I hope she takes that as a good sign.

She dismisses me with a turn of her head, returning her attention to her friends, her laughter ringing in the air. I know the sound of Arabella’s real laugh, and that isn’t it.

I continue watching her, not caring if she catches me again, Cal’s words running through my head. How he thinks she’s almost too much.

Sometimes, when I’m being real with myself, usually late at night when I can’t sleep, I wonder if I could ever get enough of her.

Probably not.