Melt My Heart Page 7

  “Well, that sucks.” Dan reclines in the chair, thumping his feet on the table. “I wonder if we can jack some from the bar?”

  Mac leans over to whisper something to Dan. If they plan on stealing from the lodge, I want nothing to do with it. So, I turn to Hudson, letting my head rest on his shoulder. For some reason, it reminds me of resting my head on a boulder. Hard. Uncomfortable. The butterflies seem to be asleep, but I chalk it up to his friends distracting me.

  “I should head upstairs. Who knows when my principal might pop down here? Trust me. You don’t want to incur the wrath of Mr. Holt.”

  His posture stiffens. “Oh, okay, I’ll walk you up.” Hudson stands and offers me his hand. Over the past few hours, my ankle hasn’t bothered me as much, but I still take it, enjoying how his palm engulfs mine. “Catch you later, losers,” Hudson calls over his shoulder as he leads me out of the room.

  “Your friends seem nice,” I offer because I don’t want him to think I hate them. They took over most of the conversation, but I’m fine with that. I’m not much of a talker when I’m around new people.

  “They’re a lot.” He wraps an arm around my shoulders, and I lean into the embrace.

  I’m certain I could put most of my weight on my injured ankle now, but I’m not complaining. Still, there are no dang butterflies. What the heck happened to them?

  “I don’t want to seem overeager or anything, but do you want to hang out tomorrow?” he asks, and his eyes light up with genuine excitement.

  “I should be able to squeeze you into my busy schedule.”

  We stop in front of the elevator, but he doesn’t let me go. Instead, he pulls me close and wraps both arms around my lower back. “You’re one of the coolest girls I’ve met in a while.”

  “You’re pretty cool yourself.”

  The doors slide open, and he takes my hand as we step inside. There’s no one else around, but he still pulls me close, tucking us into the corner.

  “We can take the tram to the top of the mountain tomorrow. Should be easy on your ankle.”

  Heights and me don’t get along—part of the reason I’m against skiing—but I nod. It will give me an excuse to have him hold me close like this.

  His smile is blinding as he leans down. I swear no guy has ever looked at me as if I hold the stars up in the sky. For the most part I get looks of disdain. Especially when I’m tutoring someone and making them do the work when they assumed I would do it for them.

  I feel Hudson’s warm, minty breath before I realize when he’s doing. Dread fills my stomach in a rush. When the elevator dings I slide away from him. I’m crazy thankful the doors picked that moment to open on my floor.

  I hobble from the elevator as fast as my ankle will allow and rush to my door with Hudson a few steps behind me.

  Holy crap. He was about to kiss me. That thought alone should have me soaring on cloud nine, not wanting to puke.

  Nerves.

  It’s gotta be nerves.

  I press my key card to the door and shoulder the door open before he gets to me. In this weird freaked-out state, who knows what would happen if he tries to kiss me again? We might bump foreheads or smash teeth. That would for sure ruin any hope of him wanting to hang out with me again.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow. Meet me in the lounge.”

  Disappointment washes over his features, making his dimples vanish for the first time today. He’ll thank me for it later. I want our first kiss to be perfect, not awkward. Now that I know his intentions, I can better prepare.

  “Good night.”

  “Yeah. Goodnight.” He turns with tense shoulders and walks toward the elevator.

  Before he changes his mind or I say or do anything else stupid, I shut the door and rest against the cool wood.

  I’m such a spaz.

  “Bad night?”

  I jump and a scream catches in my tight throat when a masculine voice pierces the silent room. It only takes a few heart-stopping seconds to realize where it came from. Cole is lounging on my bed with my Kindle resting on his chest.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I toss my phone on the dresser with a bit too much force. It bounces off the edge and skitters under the bed.

  Gross. Who knows what’s under there?

  “I was waiting for you. Ian took over my room, so I figured we could hang out when you got bored with River downstairs.”

  My eyebrows shoot up in a silent question, and he rolls his eyes.

  “His name is Hudson.” He waves off his words. “Never mind.” Cole stands and tosses my Kindle on the bed. “Too late now. I just wanted to make sure you got back up here safe.”

  “I’m a big girl, Cole. You don’t need to protect me.”

  “Yeah.” Something weighs down his expression, but before I decipher it, it’s gone. “I should head back to my room before Holt or Clark catch me in here.”

  He stares at me for a few more seconds before nodding and grabbing his jacket from the foot of my bed.

  I should let him go. Really, I should. With the way he acted earlier, he doesn’t deserve my concern. But something in his bogged-down movements prompts me to stop him.

  “You okay?” I catch his hand as he moved past me, and there they are. Those bolts of lightning and insane butterflies. Why were they so sleepy with Hudson?

  Cole stares at our joined hands. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

  I mean, it’s a good question, but something in his voice makes me believe something’s up. Maybe he got turned down by a cheerleader. I’ve never seen that happen, but I guess there’s a first for everything. But if he doesn’t want to talk about it, I won’t force it out of him.

  “Okay.” I let him go and step backward, clearing my head.

  “By the way, you might want to check your phone if you can find time to pry lover boy’s hands off you. Eva’s been blowing us up.” With that, he lets the door slam behind him.

  Maybe he’s just in a bad mood, but I don’t have the energy to get into it. He’s always been tight-lipped about his feelings. When he’s ready, he’ll come to Eva or me.

  I crouch next to my bed and pat around in the darkness until I find my phone. I kept it on silent since this morning and haven’t even had the urge to check it.

  Sure enough, there are at least fifteen messages from Eva, most in the past hour. She finished the garage and sent a bunch of pictures. Honestly, I thought it would at least take her the entire weekend, but I guess she wanted to power through her punishment. Knowing Mr. and Mrs. Abernathy, however, they will tack on something else on.

  Her last few messages are demanding to know where I am. Once Cole jumps in and tells her I’m off hanging out with my new boyfriend, she loses it. Everything is in caps, and there are several warnings that she’ll dump me as her best friend if I don’t get back to her now.

  Eh.

  I drop my phone on the bed and reach for my toiletries. There are an unlimited amount of times she’s ignored me over a boy. One night won’t kill her.

  Besides, whatever is going on between Hudson and me is so new I can’t even describe it. I also don’t want to admit that I ran away from him when he tried to kiss me because I still have no clue why that was my reaction.

  Maybe morning will shed some light on everything.

  I rush through my nighttime routine, then climb into bed. A little reading is what I need to calm the frantic thoughts racing around in my head like a game of tag gone wrong. As I snuggle down into the bedsheets, I click on my Kindle and freeze.

  The screen is open to the scene Cole read before he decided to burry me with snow. I know for a fact I was reading something else this morning.

  Why on earth would he want to reread that instead of playing one of the fifty games he’s downloaded on there?

  I rub a hand over my tired eyes. There has to be another explanation. No way he was reading any of my books. I must have clicked on it before I went downstairs.

  Feeling way too tired all of a sudden
, I toss the Kindle on the nightstand and turn off the light. My ankle stopped aching with every move, so I’m hoping by morning, Hudson’s tram plans should be a breeze.

  I close my eyes, thinking about the way he held me in the elevator and how next time when he tries to kiss me, I won’t run away. As I drift off, though, his face fades away. The last thing I see before sleep pulls me under is Cole’s face.

  Worst. Night. Of sleep. Ever.

  Sometime around three in the morning, Lucy stumbled into the bedroom drunk and giggling. And she wasn’t alone. Nope. She brought half the cheer team with her. They bumped into every freaking surface in the room all while giggling and talking about the most random crap. Then they jumped in the shower together—don’t ask me how everyone fit—and sang early 2000s pop songs at the top of their lungs.

  At one point, I was tempted to sleep in the lounge because it had to be better than the off-key torture they were subjecting me to. The only thing that stopped me was the horrible idea of Hudson finding me curled up on the love seat with a bird’s nest for hair and drool all over my chin.

  Hey, I never claimed to be a cute sleeper.

  By four in the morning, they settled down and passed out on the floor and bed, but by that time I was wide awake. I tried to read, hoping it would tire my eyes out and let me fall asleep, but I couldn’t concentrate because when I unlocked my Kindle, it was still on the page Cole had been reading.

  I still had so many questions about that, but there was no way he’d give me an honest answer. Never in a million years would he admit to reading what he considers cheesy romance.

  All the games loaded on there were also a no-go because Cole downloaded them, and I would circle around to thinking about him again.

  What I needed to be focusing on was getting sleep and not looking like a cast member of Night of the Living Dead when I met up with Hudson. When the sun started to rise, though, I knew that was my fate. No amount of concealer would cover up what a whole two hours of sleep does to my face.

  So, knowing there was no point in lying in bed doing nothing, I got up and hopped in the shower. Almost had to scrub off my feet too because I had to wade through a pile of sopping wet swimsuits.

  Now I’m staring at myself in the mirror, wishing Eva was here to paint life onto my face. Hudson’s going to go running for the hills when he sees me. I pull at and poke the puffy skin under my eyes, sighing. Maybe a giant coffee will help.

  In record time, I change into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt before sneaking out of the room. The girls are still passed out. No clue how they will function today. Or how they got enough alcohol to put them in such a state.

  As I walk down the hallway, I test how much weight I can put on my ankle. So far, the pain is minimal compared to yesterday. Thank goodness I took the day to rest and ice. Despite not wanting to ski, I also don’t want to spend the whole trip stuck on the couch either. I can do that at home.

  Everything is quiet as I exit the elevator on the main floor. Not that I expected anything else. It’s barely six in the morning. The only other people up are the ones who are paid to be here.

  I stifle a yawn as I make my way to the lounge where the staff set up drinks and snacks. Hey, at least I’ll have the coffee to myself. And I need all of it. My brain needs to work at peak if I’m going to figure out what the heck is going on with me.

  Even though I promised myself I would move on from this stupid crush on Cole, I can’t seem to follow through. He’s not making it any easier either. Why did he wait in my room to make sure I got back safe? And why did he look at me as if I wounded him somehow by wanting to hang out with another guy? Since hitting high school, I’ve had to watch him parade around his girlfriends. Never once did I say a word, even when it became obvious they weren’t the type of girl who would hang around for long.

  So what if Hudson ends up being a weekend fling? It’s none of Cole’s business, anyway.

  “You’re up early.”

  I spin around, almost spilling the scalding hot coffee on my hand, and find Cole standing there, still sleep ruffled and trying not to laugh.

  His ears must have be burning or something because this is too weird.

  “I could say the same for you. When was the last time you were up before the sun when you didn’t need to be?”

  He shrugs and steals my coffee. “Couldn’t sleep.”

  “Me either.” I give him my back as I fill up another cup with coffee.

  “Did something happen?” Even though I’m not looking at him, I catch the hint of stress in his voice.

  “Hmm? Oh, if you count a drunken cheerleader karaoke sesh in the bathroom, then yes.”

  When I turn around, his eyes are wide. “No.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Ian wasn’t much better. He got into a boxing match with the bathroom door, so that will be fun to explain to Holt.”

  “They are an advertisement on why teenagers shouldn’t drink.”

  He nods and we stand there awkwardly, seeming to use our cups of coffee as armor in front of us.

  Ugh. This is ridiculous. There’s no reason for this to be so weird.

  “Two days down.” I motion toward a table sitting next to the vast window overlooking the mountain. “What shenanigans will they get into tonight?”

  Cole sits across from me and blows on the coffee, sending a whirl of steam into the air. “I’m hoping they got it out of their system. If I could have woken him from his drunken slumber, I would have so he has no energy to party later.”

  “Same.”

  The conversation dies off as we enjoy our coffees. I’m surprised I’m functioning, let alone forming full sentences. Here’s hoping today won’t be the disaster it started out as when I was so rudely awakened.

  Cole watches me as I stare outside, and I try my best to ignore him. He’s been doing that a lot lately. Sometimes I think he’s wondering why we’re still friends. We couldn’t be more different. Sure, when we were little, it all made sense. We were friends simply because we had the same color of slime in our backpack. Now though…

  “How’s your ankle?”

  I push the wayward thought from my head to focus on him. “Better. I should be able to do more than sit on the couch today.”

  Cole nods as a hint of worry passes over his face. It’s unnerving. The boy has more confidence in his pinkie than I possess in my entire body.

  “Do you maybe…want to hang out?”

  I laugh because that’s what made him nervous? We hang out all the time. Every day almost. “What do you call what we’re doing?”

  “No, I mean, do you want to go hang out─ just us? Sneak out of here for a bit. I saw a little town on the map yesterday. I asked the front desk, and it’s supposed to be all done up for the holidays. They really get into it.”

  “Oh.” I swallow down the lump forming in my throat. How am I supposed to tell him I promised to spend the day with Hudson when he’s sitting here all adorable in his flannel pajamas and acting all nervous about wanting to go to some cheesy town?

  I guess I have no choice but to be straightforward.

  “I, um, made plans.” When his face falls, I rush on, trying to wipe away the terrible expression. “But not all afternoon. We can do it later.”

  “Yeah. Sure. Whatever.” He gulps down the rest of his coffee then rolls the cup between his palms. “It’s lame, but I figured you might get a kick out of it.”

  Okay. Defense mode initiated.

  I reach over and grab one of his hands. He stiffens at the contact, and I’m left reeling a bit. Our whole dynamic has been off since arriving here. I have a feeling it’s my fault. Maybe he can see right through me and realizes how big of a crush I harbor for him. Now there’s a huge kink in our friendship.

  “It really does sound fun. I bet we can buy some dorky ornaments for Eva’s tree. Her family is way too obsessed with collecting the most random stuff. Who puts a cheeseburger on their tree, anyway?”

  Cole remains
quiet. This is way too weird. I’ve never been the most talkative out of the bunch. Running a conversation solo puts me so far out of my comfort zone.

  “How does this afternoon sound? We both might be bone-tired, but we can grab some coffee in town.”

  “You’re hanging out with Hudson. That’s who your plans are with, right.” He says it as a statement. As if he already knows the answer.

  I chew on my lip. Either I lie to him, and he finds out and gets mad. Or I tell him the truth and he gets mad. He hates Hudson so much. Being in the middle of it sucks.

  I don’t want to lie to him, though, so I go with the truth and brace for the worst. “Well, yeah. He asked me to ride the tram today, but at most that should take an hour. Then I’m all yours. But to be honest, you should be soaking up all the time you can on the slopes. We can hang out together whenever.”

  He cocks his head, posture still ridged. “Never alone.”

  “What?”

  “We never hang out alone anymore.”

  “Of course, we do…” My words trail off as realization hits. I’ve been scheduling things that way since summer. Either his other friends are around, or Eva is, but I mean, that’s par for the course. We’re kind of a triple deal. Always have been.

  He lifts an eyebrow when he realizes I know he’s right. “See.”

  I force a laugh. He’s so busy being loved by everyone I guess I never thought he would notice the prearranged hangouts. I didn’t think he would care either.

  Time to suck it up.

  If I ever want to move on, I have to move past the whole not wanting to be alone with him.

  “Okay, then. You and me this afternoon. I’ll even let you pick out an ugly sweater for me to wear Christmas morning.”

  This gets the desired response. The corners of his lips tip up as he no doubt plots all the terrible sweaters he can try to find. But then his eyes shift over to something behind me, and his whole expression deflates into one of anger.

  “You guys are early risers.”

  My heart leaps up into my throat as I glance at the clock. Where did time go? Hudson is not supposed to see me in this frumpy state.