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Iwanted to take his coffee mug and slam it over his head. I wanted to stuff him in the trunk of my car and drive back to Jamie’s to give him to her. I wanted… I wanted to move into his house and have a place to stay. I swore under my breath and nodded. “Fine.”
He grinned and I felt even angrier when I saw just how handsome he’d become. I didn’t even know if that was the right word, though. He was devilishly good looking. He looked like trouble and he made it look fun. “Cinderella, I think this is going to work out just fine.”
“Don’t call me that, Vaughn. Call me Ella or just don’t call me anything.” I realized I was coming to him as a beggar so I took a deep breath and forced a smile. “Please.”
He ran his hand through his dark blonde hair, pushing it off his forehead and leaving just a strand hanging down in front of his pale blue eyes. With dark, thick eyelashes I wished I had, that little hair was like an arrow pointing out his perfect features. I wanted to cut it off.
It was a cruel twist of fate that the guy I remembered had grown into a version of himself that made my stomach flutter. He rubbed his sharp jawline with his giant hand and the smirk just grew wider. “You’ve learned some manners in the years since we lived together. That’s good. You were just shy of a feral animal back then.”
I felt my lips pulling back in a sneer and quickly covered my mouth with my hand. I watched him laugh and balled my other hand into a fist. Hitting him wasn’t a good idea, but I really wanted to. Oddly enough, I kind of wanted to hit him more than I’d wanted to hit Billy. “I’m not a little kid anymore, Vaughn. You don’t have to keep up the big brother bully act.”
He leaned across the table towards me. “But you liked it so much.”
I stood up and pushed my chair in before grabbing my purse. “Is tonight too soon to move in? I don’t want to sleep in that motel if I can help it.”
It seemed like he got the point and read the room. I was done playing. I needed a home before I could handle him teasing me. He stood up and towered over me. He had always been tall but he had to be almost six and a half feet tall. I had to look so far up at him that it was almost annoying.
“What motel? Did you leave your shit there?”
I grimaced. “Roadside Inn. I left a few things. The lock on that door was so flimsy that it might all be gone by now.”
“The fucking Roadside Inn, Ella? I wouldn’t touch that place with a ten-foot pole. We might need to get you tested before we let you move in.” He put his hand on my back and eased me towards the exit. “Come on. I’ll follow you back in my truck. If you have anything left, we should get it out of there before you get roaches.”
I tried to subtly shift away from his touch. His hand on my back was warm and it made my skin tingle in a way I didn’t appreciate. I couldn’t walk fast enough to outpace his giant legs so I just had to suck it up and deal with the tingling he caused. “You just suggested I’m diseased and that I could have roaches.”
“Yeah. And?” He opened the door for me, waved a goodbye to the barista, and still kept his hand on my back. “Go straight to the motel and then I’ll lead you to the house you’ll be cleaning.”
I shrugged away from his touch finally and frowned up at him. “Vaughn.”
He smirked. “Cinderella.”
I took a deep breath and opened my car door. “I definitely should’ve throat-punched Billy. It would’ve made this feel a little better.”
“Billy, huh?”
Sliding behind the wheel, I ignored Vaughn. I couldn’t handle much more of him. I couldn’t handle much more of anything or anyone. I just needed a hot shower to cry in.
Vaughn stayed behind me in his massive truck and pulled into the lot right beside me. He was out of the truck and at my car door before I could push it open. His head swiveled from side to side before he lowered his eyes to me.
“Get in and get out, Ella.” He seemed serious for a change and it was alarming. I’d known him for three years over seven years earlier and that serious tone still sent me rushing into my rented room.
He stayed just outside my door as I grabbed the few things I’d brought inside and he took them from me as soon as I stepped outside. Tossing them into his truck, he walked back and stuck his head inside the room and slammed the door shut when he saw that I’d grabbed everything.
“Thanks. I-”
He pulled open my car door and pushed me inside. “The fact that you almost stayed here tonight makes me want to find this Billy asshole and shove my foot up his ass. Lock the doors.”
I winced when he slammed the door but did as he said. I looked around and saw a group of guys on the other side of the parking lot staring at my car. Vaughn stood at the back of his truck for a second, staring them down, before shaking his head and getting into his truck. My heart pounded roughly at what he’d been angry about. I hadn’t even noticed the guys standing there. My situational awareness had failed me big time.
Vaughn pulled out and waited for me to do the same and follow him away from the motel. With every mile I put between me and that place, I felt a little better. I was going to be cleaning up after a guy I spent three years loathing, but anything would’ve been better than facing those guys with just my anger and a flimsy door lock.
Instead of heading away from campus, Vaughn led us into the center of it. I got worried when he turned onto frat row and held my breath until he turned onto Rainey Street, the street that ran perpendicular to frat row, where Billy lived. If he’d expected me to clean up a frat house, I was out. Dropping out of college and giving up my dreams out. Instead, he pulled into the circle drive of a house that could’ve been a small replica of the White House. Only in Florida could a house like that one exist on a college campus, next to a rowdy street of frat houses and across the street from a house that looked like it had been dropped in from Italy.
The large white house, complete with columns and a massive amount of windows and what looked like a widow’s walk, was unlike anything I’d ever expected. I hadn’t had a lot of time to expect much of anything but I wouldn’t have guessed mini white house in a million guesses.
I slowly climbed out of my car and stared up at it. There was even an American flag blowing in the breeze. The lawn was perfectly manicured, despite the rest of the town existing in a sandbox. There were flowers blooming in the flower beds, even with it being late August and a hundred degrees.
I turned in a circle to look at the houses around us and noticed a seventies style ranch, a farmhouse the size of a Target, and the typical pink and yellow houses that existed everywhere in Florida. I felt a little bit like I’d walked onto the set of The Truman Show. Everything was just…pretty. It was weird. It was also quiet and…pretty. I couldn’t get past how pretty it was. I’d just left a hell house and a potential roach motel. Maybe I was just feeling a bit of culture shock.
