Black Ice: A Standalone Enemies to Lovers Romance Read online

  Black Ice

  A Standalone Enemies to Lovers Romance

  Mickey Miller

  Edited by

  Rachel Mason

  Contents

  Foreword

  1. Natalie

  2. Natalie

  3. Natalie

  4. Shane

  5. Natalie

  6. Natalie

  7. Shane

  8. Natalie

  9. Natalie

  10. Shane

  11. Natalie

  12. Natalie

  13. Shane

  14. Natalie

  15. Shane

  16. Natalie

  17. Shane

  18. Natalie

  19. Shane

  20. Natalie

  21. Natalie

  22. Natalie

  23. Shane

  24. Bruce Toft

  25. Shane

  26. Shane

  27. Natalie

  28. Shane

  29. Natalie

  30. Shane

  Epilogue

  About Mickey Miller

  Other books by Mickey Miller

  Special Sneak Preview of Five Day Fiancé

  Foreword

  Black Ice

  Written by Mickey Miller

  There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.

  -Washington Irving

  1

  Natalie

  DEAD SILENCE ROCKED through my childhood home in Black Mountain as I paused in the room where my father used to sleep before he died. I stared at a few particles of dust floating in the room, illuminated by the late afternoon sun.

  His bedroom was humble: a bed, a dresser, and a small wooden desk, a cup that said ‘Best Dad’ in my handwriting that I’d made him in third grade.

  Before I moved away from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to Florida when I was twelve, I always been in awe of my father. As I grew older, I developed an even greater appreciation for him. It shocked me that in spite of owning the largest coal mine in the area, he’d lived such a spartan, basic existence. His room tidy and sparse room was a symbol of that.

  By early evening, the last remnants of sunlight disappeared. I sat down in his desk, picked up the mug and ran my hands over it mindlessly. My eyes drifted to the window in front of me. Outside, a layer of pristine snow covered everything underneath the glowing darkness.

  I wonder how many times he did this himself: sat down at his desk, picked up the mug, and thought of his daughter who gave it to him.

  A senior in college now, I didn’t see him but once or twice a year anymore, and when he passed away this winter from a heart attack it still came as a shock. My mom had held it together through his funeral and burial. Cried just enough. But after we spent Christmas here, the only thing Mom wanted was to be gone and done with this small town in the middle of nowhere. She wanted to be back in Florida with her husband—my stepdad—where it was warm. I think being here reminded her of the divorce and brought up old feelings she was happy to escape.

  She always strongly disliked the frigid cold temperatures up here in Michigan—I couldn’t blame her. During the past week I’d been here, we’d seen a foot of snow and temperatures well below freezing.

  With my mom on a plane back to Florida as of this morning, I was now in charge of going through all of my father’s belongings, deciding what to keep, and what to do with the rest.

  After a single day of this, I was exhausted. I wanted nothing more than to curl up on the couch with a good book in front of the fire.

  I thought about laying on my father’s bed, but decided not to. It would be too eerie, since he was probably sleeping here not even a week ago. Instead, I headed to my childhood room. That was disturbing in a different way.

  Since I moved away nine years ago, he hadn’t altered a single thing in the room in spite of the fact that I never came back for a visit until my college years. He was always the one making the time to come down to Florida. I think my father secretly wished I might somehow end up back in Black Mountain for longer. If he didn’t touch my room, there was a chance.

  The room decorations were a blast from the past. The walls were painted light pink, and a Maroon Five poster hung above my dresser. In college, I added a poster of my idol Tina Fey.

  When I sat down on the bed, I started thinking back to a time Freshmen year of college when my father had heard me yelling and raced up the stairs, only to find me reading dramatic lines for a play I was due to try out for during winter semester and didn’t think he was even at home.

  He startled me, we had a good laugh, and the two of us connected that day in a way I felt I’d been missing from him.

  My eyes felt watery as I thought back on the moment, and my chest burned with anxiety. I thought of all the things of his I needed to go through while I was here. The basement was full of boxes, clothes, paintings and music that I was yet to touch and had no idea what to do with.

  I was already breaking down, getting all nostalgic, which greatly slowed the packing process. I had at max, two weeks, before my January classes started up again at the University of Florida.

  How on earth was I going to get through this alone?

  Pulling out my cell, I scrolled through my contacts. I’d gotten a new phone last year and lost most of my numbers. Not like it mattered much, though, since I’d lost touch with everyone here.

  I felt down, and I wanted a friend—just one measly little friend—to hang out with tonight, but I didn’t even have one number of someone from Black Mountain.

  I attempted to refocus my gaze and a picture on my dresser came into view.

  I stared at the photo. It was me, my friend Louisa, and her cute older brother Shane photobombing us from behind, making cross-eyes.

  I giggled. What a fun summer we had that year.

  Suddenly, her house number flashed through my mind in a moment of insight.

  423-2131.

  Wow.

  I couldn’t name one of my college classmates’ numbers, but because I’d dialed Louisa’s number so many times in my bike-riding elementary school days when I didn’t have a cell phone, it was seared into my brain in a way that didn’t happen with numbers any more.

  Maybe she’d be around and we could get ourselves a bite to eat together. Or grab a drink at the one bar in Black Mountain.

  I dialed her number, and felt my heart pounding more furiously than it should at just calling a friend. I ran over a script in my mind of what to say.

  Hi! So crazy to talk to you after all these years. What’s up? Want to grab dinner?

  After five rings, I was getting antsy, thinking maybe I had remembered the number wrong after all.

  After a sixth, someone picked up.

  “Hello?” a deep, gravelly voice spoke.

  “Hi,” I stammered. “I know this is random, but is Louisa North there?”

  “Who the hell is this? Is this a prank call?” there was noticeable ire from the other side of the phone as the voice growled.

  “No, it’s not. This is Natalie Toft, her best friend from grade school.”

  Okay, ‘best friend’ was a stretch. But we were close enough back in the day. The voice was silent at first, and then came laughter.

  “Natalie fucking Toft. You really think you were Louisa’s best friend? Wow. Some things never change.” The man chuckled in a maniacal way that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He ignored
my question. “Are you just calling to fuck with me right now? I usually don’t even pick up the damn land line anymore. Just did it on a whim.”

  “Why would I just call to mess with you?” I bit out. “I’ve got much better ways to occupy my time. Who is this, by the way? Mr…North? Do I even have the right number?”

  More deep, throaty laughter. It sounded like what you’d hear from a villain in a movie.

  My skin chilled by the way his voice sounded.

  “You’re serious. You don’t recognize me.”

  “No,” I retorted, feeling annoyed. Then, a bolt of realization hit me like a brick in my stomach.

  Shane?

  No. He couldn’t sound like this grizzly man. Right?

  “I’d appreciate if you took me seriously,” I said, not wanting to guess wrong and embarrass myself again. “So can you help me find Louisa, or no?”

  The phone went silent for a moment until I heard the man’s voice again.

  “Hello?”

  “Um, yes?!” I said, getting antsy.

  “Connection’s bad,” he said. “I’ll call you back, hang on.”

  The call ended, and a few seconds later, a number appeared on my phone. I picked it up.

  “Hello?”

  “That’s better,” he said, crystal clear. “My cell phone works better than the landlines around here in the winter.”

  “Great. So, can you help me find Louisa?”

  I heard breathing on the other end of the phone.

  “I’ll let this slide because I know your father just died and you’re probably out of sorts.”

  “How do you know that? Who are you?”

  “When the richest man in Black Mountain dies, I hear about it. It was in the paper. Yes, I’m old fashioned and still read the actual newspaper. It’s the best way to know what’s going on in this shitty town.”

  Sometimes I forget what a big deal my father was. To me, he was just my dad.

  “You call Louisa North your best friend?” He continued. “Well then you should know she passed away years ago.”

  Goosebumps rolled through me and my heart dropped to my knees. It was true that we’d lost some touch over the years. But it also felt like another knife twisting inside me, learning that she’d died so young.

  “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  “Thanks.”

  I desperately wanted to pry, but couldn’t bring myself to ask a follow up question related to her death. Morbidly, I thought, this is why her social media presence has gotten more scarce lately.

  “And who are you?” I breathed into the phone, sounding hesitant. I was ninety percent sure I knew who he was now, but I didn’t want to assume anything.

  After a dramatic pause, he finally answered.

  “Shane.”

  The hair stood up on the back of my neck when he said the one syllable of his name, and a chill started in my bones and rose up through my whole body.

  Holy freaking shit.

  My hunch was correct.

  But it was hard to process this could actually be little lanky Shane, who I watched learn to ride his bike all those years ago.

  “Oh,” was all that came out of my mouth. “Do you remember me?”

  “Who could forget you, Dino?” he answered. The way he said it, I imagined him smirking through the phone.

  “Dino? What does that even mean?” I wasn’t sure why he was being so combative, and I couldn’t shake the feeling he had something big on his mind. Dino…I racked my brain for the reason for that nickname. But everything from my childhood here had grown foggy through the years.

  “Look, I’ll give you a pass on this,” he said, blatantly ignoring my question, “Because I’m sorry to hear your father died. I know how it feels to lose someone close to you. Obviously.”

  Relief poured through me, and I also felt my emotions welling up thinking about my own father. I felt awful I hadn’t heard about Louisa. Why wouldn’t my dad had mentioned that to me? Mostly he didn’t like giving me bad news from Black Mountain, so maybe he’d kept it from me.

  Something about the voice drew me in. My father always said you can tell everything you need to know about a person from their voice. It’s where they carry their pain. Shane’s was deep, fiery, sharp, and dare I say hot.

  And not hot in the cocky, overcompensating way all of the hot shot Florida college boys are when they tried to hit on me. Hot in a calm, cool, you’re in my territory and I don’t understand why you’re here kind of way.

  Yes, that attracted me and yes, I admit I most likely have some issues when it comes to men.

  But that didn’t change the reality that his voice was so buttery he could probably narrate romance novels if he wanted to head down that route.

  Just then, I got an idea. “Hey, so, what are you doing tonight?” I asked. Maybe if we met up in person some of my old memories about this town would flow back to me.

  He chuckled, that low voice sending chills through me again. “Why do you care?”

  “Do you want to...hang out?” My heart was thumping like mad. I hadn’t even seen Shane in close to a decade, but he was the closest thing I had to a connection to this town, since I’ve been gone so long.

  Plus, the boys in Florida were so aggressive I never had to be the one to make the first move.

  “I’m busy,” he quipped.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Florida comes back and she wants to hang. Well well.” I stared out at the well-below-freezing snow and stillness outside. His voice, full of life, was a contrast with the frozen tundra out there.

  “I’ve come a long way since then,” I tried to reason.

  “I bet. Look, great to talk with you. Now I’d appreciate it if you left me alone for the rest of the night.”

  “What are you even doing?” I piped up “This town is dead in the winter.”

  “I have plans.”

  “Right.”

  “Bye, Florida.”

  “Well at least I understand that nickname. I still need to know what D—"

  He hung up.

  Wow.

  What a dick…

  I returned my attention to the room. The dead silence of the house creeped in once more, chillier now without Shane’s voice.

  It was funny—the biggest difference between being in a big city in Florida and a small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan during the winter wasn’t the temperature—it was the noise. In Florida, there was always some joker hooting and yelling outside my apartment. Here, I was pretty sure I could listen to the squirrels running up a tree.

  I chuckled. I’d always wondered what people meant by the phrase ‘sound of silence,’ and now I understood fully.

  Knowing that my father had been recently bustling around these creaky floorboards made me extra whimsical.

  I thought about calling one of my college friends from Florida, but explaining small town winter life in the Upper Peninsula to them always felt futile.

  I wasn’t one to drink alone, but I was really reeling from the death in the air tonight. Add in the oddness of that interaction with Shane and I was feeling very off. Loneliness crept in and I wished my parents had given me a sibling to share this moment with. But there was just me.

  The heater cranked on again startling me, and a chill rolled through me. I said a prayer for my father, then added one in for Louisa, may she rest in peace.

  After heading downstairs, I stared longingly at a bottle of wine on my father’s wine rack.

  Yes, I felt it. There was something absolutely eerie in the way Shane handled that phone call. Above all, it was in his voice.

  2

  Natalie

  I have a policy of not drinking alone. I decided instead to do my favorite substitute drinking guilty pleasure tonight: ordering pizza and watching The Office.

  If I started drinking alone during my first night, that would set a bad precedent for the rest of the trip.

  In spite of how small Black Moun
tain was, it at least had a pizza place, thank God. I ordered a large pepperoni pizza, cranked up the heat in the house and started with my favorite episode, the one where Dunder Mifflin has a fire.

  After a few episodes, my phone buzzed with a message. I hadn’t saved it, but I recognized it as the cell number Shane had called me from.

  Shane: Hey what are you up to tonight?

  I nearly choked on my Diet Pepsi when I saw the picture that accompanied the text. Shane--I could only assume it was him--had sent a shirtless selfie. The picture was taken from a few inches below his belly button up to his chin, cutting off at the eyes. The lighting wasn’t even that good, yet his abs looked so appetizing I wanted to have them for dessert now that I was done with my pizza.

  On both sides of his midsection was an impressive “V” that looked as though it had been carved into his hips with a knife. He was lean, too, not bulky. The arrow pointed alluringly downward, hinting at what was even lower.

  Curling up into my covers, I felt my body warm.

  My mouth agape, I thought about how to respond.

  Something seemed off. Why would he be sending me this after making it clear he had “plans?”

  I typed out a message and sent it to him.

  Natalie: I thought you were busy tonight?

  At the moment I hit send, a second text came through from him.

  Shane: Sorry wrong number.

  My heart fluttered. For a fleeting moment I’d felt a little special, though still thrown off that he would send such a picture to me. Another text came in, answering my first question.