Wrong Side Girl (The Girl Series Book 1) Read online

  She was totally out of my league.

  She could come across as rough and arrogant, especially when she didn’t like someone, but really, she was sweet and funny and loyal to a fault.

  That was my Lizzy.

  I had taken her under my wing when she was ten and I was twelve. Even as young as I was back then, I had known that she needed someone to care for her and I had wanted that to be me. One look at the sad little, red-haired girl with bright, green eyes sitting in a hole in the woods behind my house, tears running down her face, but trying so hard to be tough, and I had been a goner. I had fallen in love with her right then and there. And my feelings for her haven’t changed since. On the contrary, they have only grown stronger over the years. I knew she had had a crush on me when she was still in high school and I had started college, but I’d chalked it up to her missing me because I only came home every other weekend or during breaks. It hadn’t lasted long and shortly after, she had started dating. It made me a damn pussy, but that had been hard to watch and I had been grateful to be away at college so there wouldn’t be a chance to run into her and her boyfriends.

  I never let on how much in love with her I really was.

  Yes, she knew she held a special place in my heart, knew we had a bond that nobody would ever be able to break, that I considered her my best friend. But she had no clue that I was head over heels in love with her.

  And I would never tell her.

  I was too scared of losing her.

  My track record with women wasn’t the best. None of the women I had hooked up with could keep my interest for long. The longest period of time I had ever been with the same woman was four weeks.

  Pathetic, I know.

  In college, I had pretty much fucked everything that had a vagina. Most of the time, I hadn’t even known their names or remembered their faces the next morning. I had slowed down a little after I graduated and started my job as an architect at one of Boston’s most successful companies, but I was still a bastard and treated women like shit. I wasn’t capable of giving them more than a good time in bed and I didn’t want to do that to Lizzy.

  I couldn’t lose her.

  Not ever.

  And if my mother ever found out that I acted on my feelings, she would destroy Lizzy and I couldn’t let that happen, either. I didn’t want that bitch anywhere near my girl. So I stayed away from her and told myself to be grateful for being able to call her my best friend.

  That it was enough.

  But tonight, I had a hard time convincing myself of that fact. I didn’t know what it was. I hadn’t lied to her earlier when I told her that I missed her. I did. Terribly. Yes, we called each other almost daily, but I had missed looking at her, smelling her, hugging her, being close to her. I was two years ahead of her in school, and when I had gone off to college, it had been like this for a while until I buried that feeling with my cock in any girl who would have me.

  But now it was worse.

  Lizzy was like a drug to me and I had been forced to go cold turkey for the last few weeks. Taking a different woman to bed every other night had only made it worse. None of them were her.

  Not even close.

  It had gotten so bad that I’d had to close my eyes and imagine I was fucking her to be able to come. I was pathetic, and the fact that I had no solution to this dilemma pissed me off and freaked me out at the same time. That’s why I had lost it on her when she was running late.

  I had really missed her.

  I turned my eyes back to the pool table and watched Lizzy take her shot. Her ass pointing in my direction when she leaned over the table made my dick twitch.

  Jesus, Cole, get a handle on it. You’re not a fucking teenager.

  She pocketed two of her striped balls and threw me a smirk over her shoulder. God, she was sexy. And the fact that she didn’t even know it made her irresistible.

  Never had I seen her play those games women play to get a guy’s attention. She didn’t strut—well, she did, but not in the fake way that ninety-five percent of the female population did. To her it came naturally. She didn’t flick her hair, she didn’t make big sexy eyes at anyone, she didn’t show off her goods. She was classy and hot in a way that every guy knew she was the total package. To be honest, I was surprised that nobody had snatched her up yet, but I didn’t complain. I knew it would be impossible and incredibly painful for me to watch her fall in love with some guy that wasn’t me. My heart wasn’t ready for that yet. Only a dick would be so selfish, but hey, I never said I wasn’t a dick.

  This way, I could at least pretend that she was mine.

  Her next shot went wide, which made her narrow her eyes at the ball and straighten up with an attitude.

  Fucking adorable.

  I chuckled. “Your glare is too cute to magically make that ball jump into the pocket in fear. You gotta at least try and mean it,” I teased her.

  She transferred her glare to me, and my dick twitched again. As hard as it was to appear unaffected, I succeeded by giving her a wide grin. I walked toward her and crowded her body so she had to move out of my way to let me set up my shot. She walked over to the table to take a sip of her beer.

  I was focused on my shot when a body pressed into my side. The smell of an awfully sweet perfume almost made me gag. I turned my head and laid eyes on a busty brunette that looked kind of familiar.

  Shit. Had I fucked this one?

  Out of the corner of my eye I could see Lizzy watching us. It annoyed her when I got hit on during our time together. I couldn’t blame her. I was just as possessive of her time as she was of mine. If it had been just me out alone or on the prowl with my buds tonight, I would have taken this one up on her offer. It was always easy to find someone to fuck. But tonight was about getting my fix of Lizzy.

  “You mind?” I rumbled in the brunette’s direction.

  “Come on, baby, I know you like it when I touch you. You said so last month when I took you home and you fucked me all night,” she said in a put-on seductive voice that had the opposite effect while she was running one of her long fingernails down my arm and biting her lip suggestively. The half hard-on Lizzy had given me shriveled into nothing.

  So I had fucked her.

  I searched her face, trying to spark a memory, but I couldn’t come up with a name or even the faintest recognition. I must have been completely blitzed when I hooked up with her.

  Lizzy caught my eyes when she was passing behind the skank’s back. Her face seemed impassive, but her eyes were flashing, which told me she was anything but.

  “I’m getting us some fresh ones,” she told me in a bored voice while waving our empty beer bottles at me. She walked over to the bar where I witnessed two guys automatically making room for her to reach the front.

  My teeth clenched.

  Yeah, it was real hard tonight to keep my possessive streak under wraps. Those guys better not ogle or touch her.

  A hand on my chest reminded me of the woman that was pressed into me, and I turned my head back to face her. I never dipped in the same pond twice. Once I was done with a chick, I was done and never went back. Seeing this one standing next to Lizzy made me wonder how I could have gotten it up for her a month ago. She didn’t hold a candle to my Liz.

  My lip curled in self-disgust.

  “I’m not interested in fucking you again. You need to get lost.” Yeah, I was a dick, but I needed her gone. Looking at her reminded me of what I would never have and it pissed me off. The skank narrowed her eyes at me then swung her head to look at Lizzy. She hadn’t missed my focus on her and the bitch came to the forefront. Turned out she wasn’t as stupid as she looked, though. Her smirk was downright evil when she hissed, “Forget it, asshole. A stuck-up bitch like her will never end up with a guy like you. All she’ll ever see in you is a friend. Call me when you’ve figured that out for yourself,” the distaste and incredulity was clear in her voice. As if she was disappointed in me for being stupid enough to think I could ever have a chanc
e. Yeah, she was smarter than she looked, but she had also just insulted my girl.

  Poking a riled lion was a mistake.

  “Listen, bitch, if what you’re saying is true, you must have been a damn lousy fuck, seeing as I don’t remember a fucking thing about you. Not even your fucking face. Now leave.” My voice was cold and threatening and she flinched. With one last nasty look in Lizzy’s direction, she turned to leave and got lost in the crowd of the bar. My body was shaking. Fucking bitch had nailed it right on the head. I didn’t need any more reminders that Lizzy was too good for me. What I needed right now was time to cool off before Liz came back with our drinks, so I decided to take a quick piss break to get myself under control.

  Chapter 3

  Lizzy

  This was exactly what I didn’t need. Time and time again I had watched girls and women throw themselves at Cole. It started during his first year of junior high. Being two years younger than him, I had still been in elementary school, but we lived in a relatively small town and I always knew when he had a girlfriend. He never told me about them or introduced them to me, but the fact that he wasn’t around that much always clued me in pretty quickly. I also saw him around town with his babes. And girls talk.

  It got worse when I started my freshman year and he was a junior in high school. Two years of pure torture. Of watching him make out with girls in the school hallways, during games, and at school dances. Of hearing all the girls talk about his skills in the sack. Judging by the amount of girls that had bragged about their experience, he had been a total pig. That had killed. Thinking badly about him was new for me and I had had a hard time reconciling the two Coles: my partner in crime, my best friend, my protector, and the love of my life, with the player who had no compassion for the feelings of the girls he screwed, who was an arrogant prick. During that time, I felt like a pathetic little girl with an unrequited crush on her best friend. Still, I couldn’t not be his friend. I was the only person he let get close, the only person who knew he had feelings and whom he would share his soft side with. He meant everything to me. Still did. And deep down inside I had always kept a spark of hope that as soon as I was old enough, he would make his move and claim me as his. A stupid little girl’s dream that got crushed when I was a junior in high school and Cole had come back home from college for Thanksgiving.

  But even after I realized that Cole would never feel what I felt for him and accepted that we would only ever be friends, watching him with other girls or hearing about his conquests never got any easier.

  After our initial little tiff over the phone earlier tonight, we were having a great night. Until skanky bitch number five thousand four hundred and twenty-three made an appearance.

  No, I didn’t really believe that Cole had had that many women, but sometimes it felt like it. I really didn’t need to know that he had fucked her all night. She was gorgeous of course, but I could smell bitches from a mile away. Why did he always hook up with those worthless pieces of ass? I knew he didn’t even like them. He had told me. So why did he waste his time with them? And why couldn’t he give me what he was giving out freely to most of the female population of Boston? Was I that unattractive to him? Was the thought of having sex with me that revolting?

  Tonight showed me once more that I needed to get my head out of my ass and let someone else into my heart. Yes, I dated. But more often than not, nothing ever came of it. Most of the guys I went out with never made it past first base.

  I had had sex with three guys.

  Again. Pathetic.

  I was twenty-five years old for Christ’s sake!

  Now that I had escaped that hellhole I had grown up in, had finished my degree, and had a job that I loved, it was time to work on my personal life and find someone to be happy with.

  I looked over my shoulder to see if Cole was still busy with that bitch, but couldn’t find him anywhere.

  Figures.

  Didn’t take him long to drag that skank somewhere for a quick fuck. Still, he usually didn’t do that when he was with me. If not subtle, he had always been respectful enough to not hook up right in front of my eyes.

  Guess times had changed.

  I heard the bartender put the beers on the counter in front of me and turned back around to give him a smile.

  “Thanks, looks like I only need one of those now.”

  Not knowing the rules to this new arrangement of Cole hooking up while we were out, I decided to enjoy my beer at the bar instead of going back to the pool table to wait there for him like an idiot. The bartender was kinda cute and, following my own advice from a few seconds ago, I started chatting him up in an effort to be more open. His name was Mike and bartending was only his sometimes job. He was a cop and was helping out his buddy from college, who had inherited the bar from his dad two years ago. While we were talking, he was called away a couple of times to serve drinks, but we kept a pretty good conversation going. He was a funny guy and his intensive over-the-top flirting had me laughing out loud a few times.

  During one of those times, I felt a light hand touch the small of my back, then felt lips at my ear and heard whisper, “Looks like you’re having a good time without me.”

  It was Cole.

  I was, actually. And why shouldn’t I? He had gone off to enjoy himself with the skanky bitch and left me hanging.

  “I am, actually.”

  The clenching of his jaw told me he wasn’t happy about that, but right now I honestly couldn’t care less. He had thrown a fit when I was running late because of my job and then he went and got himself laid in the bathroom in the middle of a game of pool. In my eyes, he had no grounds to stand on.

  “Your new conquest gone?” I asked, annoyed.

  “She’s not my new conquest,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Your old conquest, then.” What was his problem? Nobody forced him to fuck everything that moved, so why was he in a bad mood all of a sudden? You’d think he would be sated and mellow after having just gotten off.

  He looked at me sharply, then caught sight of Mike and narrowed his eyes at him.

  “Yeah, she’s gone,” he said darkly. “You make a new friend while I was in the bathroom?” Ah, so he had taken her to the bathroom. Very classy.

  “I did. That’s Mike. He seems like a real nice guy.”

  “You were laughing just now. He make you laugh?”

  What the fuck? Why was he so angry? Did he know Mike?

  “You know him or something?” I asked.

  “Nope. Never seen him before.”

  “Then what’s your problem?”

  Cole caught Mike’s eyes and tipped his chin up at him, indicating he wanted another beer. Mike tipped his chin up at Cole in answer and reached under the bar.

  “My problem, honey, is that I came back from the bathroom to find you flirting with the bartender instead of waiting for me over by the pool table like a good girl so we can finish our game.”

  He could not be serious. Was he trying to piss me way the fuck off? Well, mission fucking accomplished!

  “Are you fucking shitting me right now, Cole?” My voice was getting loud. There was no way Mike hadn’t heard what I said since he was only a few feet away with Cole’s beer in his hand. He placed it on the bar in front of Cole before he looked at me and asked with concern in his voice, “You okay, Lizzy?”

  I opened my mouth, but before I could assure him that I was fine apart from the fact that I thought my head was about to explode, Cole threw his arm over my shoulder, jerking me roughly into his body while he growled, “Yeah. She’s fine. Move along.”

  Oh. My. God.

  I didn’t only think it. My head was exploding. Here he was, leaning against the bar, freshly fucked by one of his walking vaginas, and he was staking a claim on me because a guy had made me laugh?

  My elbow shot out and connected with Cole’s side while at the same time I got up from the stool I was sitting on so that it was now between us, dislodging the arm he had around m
e. My hands landed on my hips as I leaned over the stool into his space to hiss into his face.

  “What the fuck is your problem, Cole? You’re not my boyfriend! You have no right to tell me whom I can and can’t talk to! Drop the overprotective big brother attitude! I’m twenty-five years old and perfectly capable of choosing the people I want to spend time with! Which, right now, is not you! So maybe you should move along!” By the end of my tirade I was breathing hard. I didn’t think I had ever been this mad at him before.

  Cole was watching me, anger flashing in his eyes. “Believe me, Lizzy, I am well aware of the fact that I am not your boyfriend! What pisses me off is that as soon as I turn my back for five minutes, you’re making goo-goo eyes at the first asshole that catches your fancy! Really? You’re gonna hook up with the bartender? I hadn’t pegged you as trashy!”

  My head jerked back as if he had slapped me across the face.

  Pain sliced through me, obliterating everything in its path.

  Tears were pooling in my eyes—too many—and they overflowed and silently ran down my cheeks.

  Cole had never talked to me like that. He knew what it did to me, knew how it made me feel when people I cared about treated me like shit, knew how deeply words could cut me.

  Since I was ten, he had been the one person in my life that I knew with absolute certainty wouldn’t talk down to me.

  But he had just literally called me trash.

  He was right, of course, I had been born into that life, had grown up surrounded by trash, had lived on the wrong side of town my whole life before I could finally escape, but Cole had never let me feel it.

  Until now.

  “Shit, Liz, I didn’t mean that. I—” I cut him off, moving my hand in front of his face, palm out, my eyes cold on him. I didn’t want to hear any of his apologies. I dug some money out of my pocket and threw it onto the bar, ready to leave. I needed to get the hell out of here before I lost my hold on my emotions. But Cole stepped in front me and kept talking, his voice slightly panicked, “I don’t know what’s going on with me. You’re right. I don’t have any right to tell you who to hook up with, but you have no idea how frustrating that is for me. You know how possessive I am of my time with you. Maybe that’s why I lost it on you just now. I missed you. Please, baby—”