Page 2 of I Could Be Yours (The Toronto Terror #6)

NATE

I give my crotch an annoyed look as I shift around in the driver’s seat, waiting for Essie. The next several weeks are going to be long AF.

Spending all this pre-wedding time in proximity to Essie has been bad enough.

She’s frustratingly beautiful—irrationally stunning in a way that makes my palms damp and my heart rate spike every fucking time I look at her.

She’s also an eternal optimist. Her zeal for romance and falling in love is a barely tolerable irritant.

She’s the glorious ray of sunshine peeking through my rain clouds to create a rainbow.

But the real kick in the balls, and the thing that takes up an unreasonable amount of my mental bandwidth, is that I know exactly how her lips feel and taste.

It’s been six years. That kiss should be like a photograph left in the sun too long. Faded. Barely a memory.

But it’s not.

That kiss is as vivid as a sunrise. Every time I look at her soft mouth, I’m reminded of her cotton-candy-flavored lip gloss and the feel of her curves pressed against me.

And now. Now I have a new memory to add to the one I wish I could erase. Essie’s pierced nipples are forever burned into my brain. Etched in stone. Permanent. Irascible. And so fucking fantastic.

Tiny buds framed by heart shields with pink jewels. It’s so laughably, perfectly Essie. And based on the reaction below the waist, I like it.

My phone buzzes with a call. I’m happy for this distraction—until I register the number. Then my heart rate spikes and sweat breaks across the back of my neck for completely different reasons. I send the call to voicemail. And like an idiot, I check the message once it registers.

“Hi, Nathan. It’s your mother. This is the fourth time I’ve tried to call you with no answer. I understand that you’re upset with me, but we can’t work things out if you don’t talk to me. Please call me back.”

I swallow past the tightness in my chest and erase the message so I don’t listen to it again.

I don’t want to dissect it, to read into her pleading tone, to give in and call her back.

I haven’t seen her since the morning she walked out on our family more than a decade and a half ago.

I haven’t heard her voice in more than ten years.

I don’t want to miss what I never had, what she robbed me and my brothers and my father of when she abandoned us.

My phone pings again, this time with a text message. Thankfully, it’s my older brother.

Tristan

We’ll be at the restaurant in 15. You get Ess okay?

According to my GPS, it will take us nineteen minutes to get to the restaurant if we leave immediately.

Nate

We’re a few minutes behind you, but we’ll see you soon.

Tristan

Cool. Thanks for picking her up. We appreciate it.

Another call comes through. This time it’s Essie. My stomach pitches with equal parts relief and anxiety.

“Please tell me you’re not still in the store,” I bark.

There’s a beat of silence. “I don’t know where you’re parked.”

Of course she doesn’t. Because I didn’t tell her, and I couldn’t get out of the dressing room fast enough. “Turn right out of the store. I’m half a block down.”

She ends the call without another word. Less than a minute later, Essie passes my car.

I honk and she startles, dropping her purse.

Shit scatters on the sidewalk. I fight with my body to stay in my seat and let her handle it.

But all I’ve done so far is be a dick to her.

It’s not her fault I’m guilt riddled, or that I’m not over the kiss we shared all those years ago, or how apathetic she seems in my presence.

She acts like it never happened, like it was insignificant, and I’m over here obsessing and hating myself for not being able to be a normal person around her.

I cut the engine and hop out of the driver’s seat. Essie scrambles to reclaim the items all over the ground while I round the hood.

I nab one of her lip balms before it can roll into a sewer grate. She frantically jams things back in her purse as I crouch protectively in front of her to help.

“Sorry, sorry,” she says. “I know we’re already late.”

I barely resist the urge to pocket one of her lip balms. Instead, I scoop up a handful of pens—she has many—and hand them over. A man on his phone kicks a tube of lip gloss down the sidewalk. It ricochets off a woman’s foot and ping-pongs into traffic, then promptly gets run over by a taxi.

We stand at the same time, and I move toward my car, opening the passenger door for her .

“Thanks.” She slides in, face red, eyes anywhere but on me.

I round the hood and steel myself. Back in high school she wore some kind of perfume or lotion that I attributed only to her. Something sweet and lightly fruity. That hasn’t changed, and it never fails to trigger the memory of that kiss.

So many emotions are tangled up in that memory.

Ones I don’t like to deal with. My shame over the way I handled things still makes me uncomfortable and embarrassed.

But we were kids, just out of high school.

And I was all kinds of fucked up. I still am.

Probably more than I was then. Definitely more fucked up.

I saved us both a world of heartache by doing what I did, even if it was shitty.

I take my spot behind the wheel and grit my teeth as I close the door, trapping us in the confined space together.

“I’m sorry about my nipples,” she blurts.

I fasten my seat belt aggressively as heat rushes through me and the hard-on that had disappeared returns. “Never mention them again.”

“Never again,” she whispers.

Why can’t I stop being a jerk? I should do better.

Be nicer . It’s not her fault that everything about my brother’s wedding is a fucking trigger.

I should be over the breakup with Lisa. It’s been more than a year since she left me for someone more emotionally available— before she actually broke things off.

We obviously weren’t right for each other, yet I still have a lot of inconvenient feelings tied to the breakup.

But just because I can’t make someone happy doesn’t mean all relationships are doomed to the same fate as mine.

Apart from any of that, though, Essie’s positive-Petunia attitude about love irks me endlessly.

Maybe I’m envious. Maybe I’m just a jaded asshole. Who fucking knows?

“How’s your day going?” Essie asks.

“I’ve had better.” Still scoring zero on the being-nicer front.

“Would you like to talk about it? It’s not good to hold your feelings inside, Nathan,” she says sweetly .

I hate when she says my full name, because I love when she says my full name. “Anything that comes out of my mouth will likely hurt your precious feelings, so it’s better if I keep those thoughts in my head.” At least I’m being honest. I don’t need more things to feel bad about.

“My feelings aren’t precious.”

I side-eye her.

“Seriously, say whatever you need to say, Nate. I’m sure you’d love to get whatever is eating at you off your chest.”

“You. You’re eating at me,” I blurt before I can find the self-restraint necessary to bite my idiot tongue.

“You and your sunshine-and-roses perspective on everything. Love sucks. All it does is make you vulnerable, and then people leave.” Without a word.

Without an explanation. Or they find someone better.

Essie shifts in her seat. I almost expect her to call me out, to force me to deal with the assholery I’ve carried from the past into the present.

But she doesn’t. Likely because she’s not thinking about us , about me being a hypocrite.

She’s thinking about her best friend and my brother.

“You don’t think Tristan and Rix will last? ”

The steering wheel groans under my hands. I need to calm the hell down. My blood pressure is rising along with my fucking guilt. “I’m not discussing this with you.”

She doesn’t let it go. “Tristan has grown so much. He worships the ground Rix walks on. And Rix loves him just as much.”

But she could still leave him . I keep that thought to myself.

I adore Rix. She’s always been part of our lives in one facet or another.

When we were kids, she and I would often get tossed together because we’re the same age.

I thought of her like a sister. And soon that’s the title and role she’ll have in my life.

I want that. But I’m nervous to have it and lose it.

My brother is my best friend. But he’s a surly fucker.

And while Essie is right, and he’s made huge strides since he and Rix became a thing, I still worry about the future.

For him. But also for me. What if it all falls apart?

People leave. Women leave. My mother left.

Lisa left. I have no faith in love. No faith that it can endure, because in my experience, it doesn’t.

And then there’s Essie, who falls in love over and over. It doesn’t seem to matter that she’s been broken up with countless times; she still somehow believes that love conquers all. I can’t decide if I should envy her or pity her.

The rest of the ride to the restaurant is silent, and Essie practically launches herself out of the car as soon as I put it in park.

She’s already at the door when I’m still crossing the lot.

By the time I make it inside, she’s at the host stand, flashing her megawatt smile, making him splutter and stumble over his words.

He doesn’t tear his eyes away from Essie as he mumbles, “I’ll be right with you,” vaguely in my direction.

Essie glances over her shoulder. “Oh, he’s with me.”

Disappointment flashes across his face, but he plasters on a smile. “Of course. Follow me.”

He guides us to the table where Tristan, Rix, and Flip, my roommate, who is Rix’s older brother and Tristan’s good friend and teammate, are already seated.

Rix gets up to hug me. “Thanks for picking up Ess.”

“No problem,” I lie.

“I could have picked up Essie,” Flip says.