1. Betrayed

~ Kelsie (KELL-see) ~

“Happy Birthday, Daniel. My present to you this year is… me.” 

My hands shook with nerves as I whispered the words to myself. I was hurrying up the stairs in Daniel’s college dorm, practicing how to say the words. Should I sound serious, or sexy? Should I sound excited?

“Happy Birthday, Daniel! My present to you this year is me!” 

Shaking my head with embarrassment, I pulled my long winter jacket tightly around myself. It wasn’t cold enough yet for a jacket like this, but I didn’t want anyone to see that I was wearing nothing but lacy lingerie underneath it. 

My heart was pounding. 

I had been dating Daniel for two years. The first year was his senior year in high school. Back then, I was scared to sleep with him because he was older and I hadn’t done it before. 

If we had been at high school together last year, I probably would have given in. But Daniel was a year ahead of me  and came here to university while I finished high school. Even though Chandler University is only thirty minutes from our town, Daniel lived in the dorms because his parents were split up. I barely saw him all year. And during the summers he worked with his father in Texas. 

So many times during that year I thought I was losing him. But finally I was at the university too. And I could see him every day.

As I walked towards his room I thought of his smile and the way it felt when he kissed me, how it would feel to finally give myself to him... A nervous thrill made my stomach tingle.

We hadn’t talked about having sex since I arrived here at Chandler last week. We hadn’t seen each other much in the last few months, and when we did, there was always other people around. But last month I had this idea.

We didn’t need to talk about it. I just needed to take action. And his birthday was the perfect chance. I didn’t want to wait anymore. I wanted to know Daniel Hudson was mine, once and for all.

I made it to the door of his room. My hand shook as I knocked quickly. 

“Daniel, it’s me!” 

I darted inside, closed the door behind me and locked it.

The room was darker than I expected. The curtains were pulled so there was only a dim glow of light in a square behind them. The lights in the hallway outside had been so bright it took a minute for my eyes to adjust. 

So, when I started to see, at first I couldn’t make sense of the mound on the bed.

Daniel’s head popped up, the blankets over his back. He looked at me over his shoulder with wide eyes. His hair was messy, which I loved. But… why was he pushed up on his arms like that? Was he doing yoga?

“Kels?” His deep voice made my stomach flutter. It always had. But there was an edge to it now that made me uneasy.

Then another head popped up to stare at me around the thick bulge of Daniel’s bicep. A girl’s face… 

Daniel had introduced me to her a couple days ago. It took a minute for me to remember… her name was Melinda Black. She had been the only girl sitting at a table with Daniel and all his friends. And all of the guys had drooled over her. Except Daniel.

I had thought I was so lucky.

But here she was again, and her hair was messy too. 

Before I could make sense of it all, the bed erupted. Blankets flew. Hands and legs appeared and disappeared. They were both talking, scrambling, but I was frozen. My heart pounded so hard at first I couldn’t hear their words. Nothing I saw made sense.

“Stop fucking staring!”

I whirled around, putting my back to them. I couldn’t breathe.

This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be what it looked like. There had to be an explanation!

“What—” I started, but they both spoke.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Daniel muttered.

“Is she some kind of pervert?”  Melinda snapped.

My heart stopped. All the hopeful butterflies that had been fluttering in my stomach disappeared, leaving nothing but an empty, hollow ache. In my head I kept seeing all the ways Daniel had been so incredible and thoughtful and patient over the past two years. Those moments suddenly looked very, very different.

Daniel hadn’t been patient.

Daniel had been cheating.

I was so stupid!

Humiliation and shame rushed through me. My first instinct was to run. I leaped for the door, but I’d locked it on my way in and it took a second to figure out why the knob wouldn’t turn. But just as I got the lock to unclick, his voice rose behind me.

“Kels, what the hell?”

The irritation in his voice flipped the hollow ache in my stomach to a roaring, white-hot bonfire of rage.

I stepped out into the hall before I turned back to look at him, standing there with a pillow held over his privates, gaping at me while that bitch behind him pulled his blankets up to cover her fake boobs.

“You cheating sack of shit!” I screamed.

I was aware of the sound of pounding feet, murmuring voices, doors opening down the hall. In the corner of my eye I could see heads popping out of rooms, both guys and girls rushing out to see what the screaming was about.

Good. Let them see it.

“Kels—”

“You’re a lying, cheating, douchbag! I hope you get crabs!”

“Keep your voice down!” Daniel eyes’s flashed. He stepped closer, right into the doorway, glaring at me and hissing through his teeth.

“You couldn’t even get it up for me—I guess you needed a porn slut to help, huh?”

“Hey!” the girl piped up from behind him as a chorus of “Ooooo” and “Burn!” echoed from the guys in the hall.

Daniel’s handsome face went hard. “Would you stop being so fucking dramatic and just—”

“Have you shown her your Lego collection yet, Daniel? I notice you didn’t bring any of it to school.” I dropped my voice to a stage whisper. “Has she seen your Harry Potter wand? Oh… wait… I guess she has,” I said, flapping a hand towards his crotch. “Was she surprised how thin it was too? Thin and… so bendy.”

Chortles and guffaws rose behind me, but I knew I needed to get out of there, because right behind that tidal wave of rage, an earthquake was beginning to shudder and if it hit before I was alone, it was me they’d be laughing at.

“Kelsie—”

“Don’t say my name ever again,” I snarled. “Don’t speak to me, don’t speak about me, and don’t even fucking think of me you needle-dick bastard.”

Gasps and laughter rose around me as I turned on my heel. One girl leaning against the wall held her hand up for a high five as I stormed past, and I slapped it because I didn’t know what else to do.

I was practically running for the stairwell, heart pounding, eyes and throat pinching, praying I’d make it back to my own room before the dam on my tears broke.

*****

“I can’t believe I’m so stupid!” I wailed.

It was the next day. I had skipped school and was sitting at home with my parents at the dining table, my face in my hands, because even thinking about that moment made me blush furiously and the tears rush back to blur my vision.

“Kelsie, it’s not your fault. He was lying!” My mother put a hand on my shoulder.

“I knew that little prick had issues,” my dad growled. He leaned against the kitchen counter with his arms folded.

“John, stop,” my mother sighed.

Dad was furious. I called my mom on the drive home and she told me I’d done the right thing by confronting him. Dad was listening to the conversation and told me to come home, that we’d figure out what to do from here together.

“My life is over and I’m only eighteen.”

My parents gave each other one of those looks they had, where neither of them said anything, but they somehow had an entire conversation.

God, they were sickening. My parents were old and still in love with each other and I’d thought I was going to have that with Daniel and now… now it was just one more punch in the gut every time I saw my dad squeeze my mother’s ass, or my mom lean into his chest when she thought I wasn’t watching.

But I had nowhere else to go. I came to Chandler to be with Daniel, and now he had ruined everything. How could I stay here and face these people every day when they knew what he had done? 

What the hell was I going to do?

I still didn’t have any answers for that a couple hours later when I stood at the kitchen sink getting a glass of water and movement outside caught my eye. 

A tall, dark-haired man with the broadest shoulders I'd ever seen was leaning into the other side of a car in the neighbor's driveway. 

As he straightened, he caught sight of me watching and froze. Our eyes locked.

My breath stopped. My senses were overwhelmed: I guessed he was about thirty years old because he was very handsome, but his face was kind of rugged. His muscles pressed against the seams of his shirt. The collar of his shirt was open at the throat. His dark hair needed a cut, so it dusted his ears and collar. And he had a wide, square jaw with a hint of stubble that made the shadows on it look darker, high cheekbones, and the most incredible eyes…

He was too far away for me to see the color clearly, but his eyes were so bright... almost chilling. And there was something in them that twanged low in my belly.

His eyes widened, and for a split-second that icy gaze turned hot. My heart slammed against my ribs. 

Then he blinked and the moment was lost.

Suddenly, he tore his eyes from mine, turned quickly away from the car and stalked towards the house in long, loping strides that hinted at a rock-hard body under those clothes. 

I frowned when I realized where he was going. That house had been empty for months. But to my surprise, he jumped the three steps up to the porch in a single long stride, then stopped at the door. 

“What’s going on?” Mom asked, coming to stand next to me and look outside.

“Some guy is trying to get into the Thompson’s old house?”

“Oh, yes. Cain. Your father met him. He moved in last weekend. I’ve been meaning to go introduce myself and take him some food…” Then she brightened. “Hey, since you’re home today, how would you feel about making him some of your cookies?”

I gaped at her. “Mom!”

“I’m sorry, honey, but yours are always so much better than mine! And it’ll give you something to do while Dad and I play golf this afternoon?”

Ugh. Seriously? I looked back over my shoulder at that door, looking for an excuse not to do it, but then that moment when our eyes had locked flashed in my mind. Daniel used to look at me like that sometimes, back in high school. Back when we were waiting. I knew what that look meant.

Sick, churning pain started in my stomach at the reminder of Daniel, but I shook it off.

Mom squeezed my shoulder. “Kelsie, you know focusing on others is the best way to move past your own pain. He’s been here a week and I haven’t seen any other cars in his driveway or anything. I’ve been meaning to make him a meal. I think he’s really alone.”

Ugh. I sighed. “Fine.”

“Thank you, sweetheart.” She kissed my cheek, then whispered in my ear. “But he’s way too old for you, so don’t even think about it.”

“Mom! Gross!”

But she just gave me a mischievous look and winked. Which was when my water glass overflowed over my hand. I swore and turned off the faucet, shaking my hand dry.

“You’re not funny!”

“Your father thinks I am,” she said as she sailed out of the room.

I poked my tongue out at her over my shoulder, but she was already gone.

I was left standing there alone again. When I turned back to the window I found that he was still there at the door, but now he had it open and was staring at me over his shoulder.

For a moment neither of us moved. Then he frowned and disappeared inside.