Mistakes We never made (second chance Romance Series, Book #1)
Chapter 1: New Year’s Eve, Bozeman
It’s 11:37 PM on New Year’s Eve, and I am alone.
Alone and surrounded by talking, laughing, joking couples who are smiling and holding thin, long-stemmed glasses that clink delicately whenever they knock together.
I don’t want to be here. Everyone in this room is far too cheerful and sociable. All I want to do right now is curl up with a blanket and a book and get lost in a world that isn’t cold and snowy, where everyone has a happily ever after, and where the hero doesn’t cheat on the heroine.
If such a world exists.
For what feels like the hundredth time, I glance at the oversized clock on the wall, certain I am at least five minutes closer to being able to gracefully make my escape, but barely even a minute has passed since I last checked.
Ugh. Bex is going to owe me for this. Why did I let her talk me into coming tonight? I slump in my chair and focus on brushing the tiny golden stars scattered across the table into a small, glittering pile.
It’s not that I’m antisocial, exactly. Normally I don’t mind going to Bex’s parties, but it’s been a long night at the end of a long day at the end of a very, very long week. Tack the glitz and energy of New Year’s Eve onto the whole thing, and I have just about hit my limit. My dark brown curls are starting to fall out of a half updo that was unruly to begin with, and I’m tired of breathing only the too-shallow breaths that my skintight red dress allows.
I sneak another peek at the giant clock. 11:44. Come on.
I can’t take this anymore. I scan the room for Bex. I’ll just tell her I have to go. She’ll give me her patented, I think you’re making a mistake, but if you buy ice cream on your way home, save me some because I’m coming over to your house tomorrow to watch cheesy holiday movies look, and that will be it, and it will be fine.
It is in the middle of searching for Bex, though, that he catches my eye.
It’s not because he is handsome (although he is, with sandy brown hair and dark brown eyes) or ringed in light like on some holiday movie special (he is not). He catches my eye because he is the extra guy in a small circle of people standing across the room, and even though he seems at ease with that role, his eyes are wandering over the rest of the room. He does a double take when he catches me watching him, then politely excuses himself from his friends and makes his way across the empty dance floor to me. I instantly regret sitting by myself, and I’m suddenly embarrassed by my tiny pile of glitter and stars.
“Enjoying yourself?” he asks, sitting down across from me.
I shrug. “I suppose.”
He laughs and flicks some of the glitter toward me. “Your enthusiasm is overwhelming.” A few flecks land in my drink.
“Rude,” I tease, and he smiles, his brown eyes crinkling at the corners. He looks about my age—mid-twenties, give or take a few years.
“Sorry,” he says. “What are you drinking? I’ll get you another.”
I wave him off. “It’s just water. It’s not a big deal.”
But he stands, and says, “I’ll be right back.”
He returns with a bottle of water. “I hope this is okay. Figured I’d bring back bottled so you don’t have to wonder if I’m a random creepy stranger who’s going to add something extra to your drink.”
I pause in twisting open the cap and blink at him. “That…honestly hadn’t occurred to me, but now I’m kind of horrified and will probably never accept a drink from a stranger again.”
“Probably a wise decision.” He grins at me, and I can’t help laughing, and he sits back down. “So, why are here when you obviously don’t want to be here?” He gestures to my pile of stars.
I glance behind myself to make sure Bex, my best friend and the architect of this party, isn’t nearby. I finally spot her on the other side of the room, cheerfully chatting with a group of people I vaguely remember from the open house she organized for the new art gallery a couple months back, then I turn back to him and say, “I promised my friend I’d come. She wanted me to meet some guy, but it turns out he had a better offer come up at the last minute so he bailed. But I promised Bex I’d stay until midnight…”
My voice trails off. I could have—should have—stopped talking after I mentioned my promise to Bex. That would have been plenty of explanation. No need to bring up my disastrous dating life.
“Sorry,” I mutter, stealing another glance at the clock. Please save me.
But it’s only 11:47.
He chuckles. “Don’t apologize. I know the feeling. I’ve had my fair share of no-shows. I’m Chris,” he says, offering his hand.
“CJ,” I reply, shaking it.
“I like your tattoo,” Chris says.
“What?” I ask, following his gaze down to the inside of my wrist, where there is tiny, perfect, green and red plaid heart. “Oh, this.”
“Yeah,” he laughs. “What did you think I meant?”
“I forgot about it, I guess. Thanks, though.” I don’t really want to explain that it’s not a tattoo but something I draw on daily, that the colors vary depending on my mood.
Chris glances at the clock—11:52—then says, his voice light, although some of the laughter has faded from his eyes, “So, CJ, if your friend’s trying to set you up, I’m guessing there’s no boyfriend in the picture.”
I shake my head. “Not anymore.”
At that precise moment, though, my ex walks through the door, bouquet in hand. The entryway frames him and his spiked hair like a bad stock photo that someone forgot to replace. What is Reid doing here? Bex swore she’d uninvited him.
I duck my head and shield my face with a hand, but not before I see Reid scanning the room, looking for me. And probably Bex as well—if she sees him, she’ll have exactly zero qualms about calling him out in front of every single elite guest at this party. I groan and mutter, “Could this night possibly get any worse?”
“Should I ask?” Chris says.
I look up and gesture toward the door. “My ex. We broke up last week after he cheated on me. He’s not supposed to be here.”
“Classy,” Chris says, looking toward Reid.
Then, probably because Chris and I are both staring at him, Reid catches my eye and starts walking toward us. Chris must see my deer-in-the-headlights expression because, standing, he takes my arm and guides me away from Reid and onto the dance floor, where he wraps my arms around his neck and places his hands on either side of my waist.
The dance floor is empty—I’m fairly sure Chris and I are the first ones to use it this evening—so we’re not exactly hiding, but at least Reid won’t be able to get any closer without drawing Bex’s attention. Chris gently guides me into the steps of a slow, Christmassy waltz, and with a sigh, I relax into the temporary safety of the dance floor.
“You okay?” Chris asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “I will be.”
When I glance back at Reid, who is shooting me a dirty look, Chris smirks and leans in. “Want to make him jealous?”
I raise an eyebrow at him, unsure whether he is serious. Chris mirrors my expression, raising an eyebrow back at me. I try to stifle my smile, but I don’t succeed, and Chris grins, waiting for me to verbalize the answer that is already plain on my face.
“So very, very badly.”
Which is how it comes to be that at midnight, surrounded by couples who are kissing, Chris and I are kissing too, because he needs someone to kiss, and I need someone to want to kiss me.
The kiss starts about the way you would expect a kiss between two strangers kissing on what feels like a dare to start—with nervousness, and giddiness, and laughter, and maybe even a little breathless anticipation. Once, when Chris and I pull apart for just a moment, I open my eyes to see that Reid has upgraded his dirty look to glaring pure daggers at me.
But I don’t want to see him and so I close my eyes and pretend I don’t.
Then suddenly, the kiss changes into something different. I can feel it when Chris and I both stop smiling—stop laughing—at this bizarre inside joke we’ve created, and start kissing for the sake of the kiss itself instead of what feels like the rush of a dare. The scruff of his barely-there beard brushes my skin and lips, and I curl my fingers into the soft hair at the nape of his neck.
He pulls back for just a moment and strokes my hair, then says, half out of breath, “I like your freckles,” and I can’t help laughing.
And maybe it’s the way his cologne smells—light, and clean, and somehow familiar. Maybe it’s because I am tired of being alone in the middle of all these people, or because Chris has coaxed the first genuine smile out of me that I’ve smiled all night. Maybe it’s because I know that in this moment he is wrapped around my little finger, and even though I know that’s a horrible thought, part of me likes the power. Whatever the reason, when he breathes and his lips move against my neck and he whispers, “Come home with me,” I say yes.
When we reach Chris’s apartment building, he punches in the building code, and the green light blinks on, signaling us to enter. We climb a flight of stairs to the second floor, and he leads me down the hallway. He hesitates as he puts the key into the lock, and for a moment I wonder if he’s second-guessing all of this—second-guessing me—but then he turns the key and pushes the door open, gesturing for me to enter ahead of him.
“This is a nice place,” I say as he takes off his coat and tosses it onto the couch, then loosens his tie in one smooth motion. “Way cleaner than most guys’ apartments I’ve been in.”
He grins. “Thanks, it helps that I’m hardly ever here.”
His apartment smells faintly of boy, but not the gross, I sleep on my couch on days when all I want to do is pass out and I’ve forgotten to shower kind of boy—the good kind. The clean, spicy, wrap your arms around me and I instantly feel safe kind. There’s a lone magazine on his coffee table, and I read the title: Big Sky Journal.
I laugh, and he gives me a curious look. “Big Sky Journal?” I ask.
He nods.
“That’s…random. Very Bozeman, very niche,” I say. “Please tell me you own a Subaru Outback with a bike rack and a black lab like the rest of the town. Bonus points if the Subaru is gun metal grey.”
He laughs. “Nope. Grey Ford Ranger, and no dog. I travel too much for one. One of my buddies had an article in the Big Sky Journal last month, though. That’s why I have a copy.”
He steps closer to me, then takes my hand and twirls me like we’re dancing, even though there’s no music. And then all of a sudden he pulls me out of the twirl into his arms and we really are dancing, me leaning against his chest, breathing in his warm, clean smell. We dance like that for a while, and then he moves his hands from my waist to tilt my chin up to kiss me, and I realize we’ve danced our way into a bedroom.
He sits on the edge of the bed, resting his hands on my waist and pulling me closer so that I’m leaning into him.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asks, pausing between kisses.
I meet his gaze and answer before I can change my mind. “Yes.”
* * *
Afterwards, I lie there, motionless, trying to breathe as shallowly and quietly as possible. Am I supposed to stay the night? Am I supposed to leave? What even is the proper etiquette for a one-night stand?
Oh no.
Oh no oh no oh no.
I just had a one-night stand with a complete stranger. Wait, is it redundant to say I had a one-night stand with a stranger? Is it possible to have had a one-night stand with someone you know? Or would that just be friends with benefits? Are those two things mutually exclusive? I can’t even answer these questions, and they seem like they should be basic knowledge.
I am so not qualified for this.
Breaking my stillness, I cover my face with my hands. I can’t stay here any longer. Being careful not to wake Chris, I slowly ease myself out of the bed and gather my clothes. I’m dressed and have my hand on the bedroom door when the floorboard creaks beneath me, startling me, and I jump and knock into a table, sending a pile of books crashing to the floor. I freeze. He rolls over.
“You need to work on your exit strategy.”
“Sorry,” I mumble.
“It’s all right. I wasn’t asleep. I just figured if you were trying so hard to leave quietly, I’d let you.” He considers me for a moment, then says, “If you stay, I’ll make you breakfast.”
“I…have to work early tomorrow morning. This morning, I mean.”
He props himself up on one elbow, watching me through the darkness. “What kind of job has you working early on New Year’s Day?”
He holds my gaze, and my brain is still trying to process everything that just happened and my head is starting to hurt, and it’s not that I don’t care about hurting his feelings, I just don’t have the mental energy to figure out how not to, and for crying out loud this is a one-night stand so it’s not like he is emotionally invested in anything that just happened.
So, I shake my head and try again. This time, I tell the truth. “I lied. I don’t have to work tomorrow, I mean, today. I just… this wasn’t supposed to happen. I can’t stay.”
A bemused look crosses his face, and he lies back down. “Fair enough. Well, if you’re sure you don’t want breakfast. Make sure you remember your phone. I think you left it by the books that used to be on my nightstand.”
“Oh, right, thanks.”
He doesn’t respond, and I grab my phone, but as I close the door, I think I hear him mumble something about girls always complaining about guys running out the door.
As soon as I get home, I strip off my clothes—my clothes that still have his smell on them—and turn the shower on. The nearly scalding water cascades down, but no matter how hot I run the water, it doesn’t wash away the steadily growing, gnawing hole in my chest. I sit down on the floor of the bathtub, and I stay there until the water runs cold.
* * *
I’ve been lying awake in my own bed since 4:21 AM, and I still don’t know why I did it. I’ve never had a one-night stand before.
I’ve never even had sex before.
It’s not that I haven’t had the chance. The issue has been less lack of opportunity and more the fact that, ever since the night of my New Year’s Eve themed senior prom, I’ve known I was going to wait. The specifics as to exactly how long I was going to wait were always a bit fuzzy, but the important thing is that it definitely wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Most of the time it hasn’t been a big deal. Occasionally someone questions my decision, and when they do, I give them the short answer: I had a bad experience. And I leave it at that.
The longer answer is I that went to prom with a boy who loved me less than I loved him, and by the time my mom picked me up from the school parking lot at 8:34 PM that night, I had realized three things: First, I had frostbite—bare feet and Montana Aprils don’t mix. Second, there would always be guys like my prom date, who would use me if I let them. And third, I would never, ever let myself be used like that again.
That was the night that I started going by CJ instead of by my full name, Clair-Elise.
Since then, I’ve met hundreds, maybe thousands, of guys. I haven’t slept with any of them—although I’m sure at least a few of them would have been happy to oblige—until Chris. I press my fist against my forehead. Why him? Why couldn’t it have been some nice guy I actually, I don’t know, know? Yesterday, losing my virginity to a guy just because I knew him would have seemed like an incredibly low bar. Today, it seems like first time goals.
I try to comfort myself with the knowledge that I know his name, so it’s not like I slept with a complete stranger. I tell myself that at least I won’t end up pregnant because he, unlike me, actually came prepared to our liaison. But none of it makes me feel better. I can’t make the tightness in my chest go away. If someone would have told me a day ago—even a couple hours ago—that I would lose my virginity to some guy I’d never met before, I wouldn’t have believed them.
How can I trust myself? I feel like I don’t even know myself.
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