Black Ice: A Standalone Enemies to Lovers Romance Read online

  Shane: Yes, I’m busy tonight.

  My pulse quickened, and I ran my thumb and forefinger over my forehead. Was he messing with me, or was this real?

  Natalie: You said you had plans already. If you didn’t want to hang out with me, you don’t have to make up a silly lie.

  Shane: I didn’t make up a lie. I told you I had plans.

  Natalie: And these plans were…texting random women ‘what are you up to?’ with a sexy selfie?

  In my mind there were two options. Either he was messing with me and didn’t have plans, or he had really “accidentally” sent me the selfie. The second seemed unlikely.

  Shane: You got it, Dino.

  Natalie: You’re incorrigible! What does that name mean?!

  Shane: Think about it.

  Natalie: I am and I’ve got nothing. Now if you’re going to send me sexy selfies randomly, at least have the courage to tell me you’re attempting to show off.

  Shane: You’re right. Must be my midwestern niceness kicking in because you caught me off guard. I’ll be sure to be an upfront asshole in the future.

  My skin tingled. I brought the picture of him back up and stared at it for a moment.

  Natalie: No need to be a dick. I’m just back in town and thought I would extend an olive branch to connect with my former Black Mountain friends to hang out. I would say the offer is still on the table but I am definitely rescinding it now. Ass.

  Screw this guy. I didn’t know where he got off on being so cocky and dickish to a girl he didn’t even know.

  With my blood boiling, I stewed, thinking about how I would teach him a lesson. What was he doing anyway, just copying and pasting a selfie to all of his contacts to get laid tonight? I would be mortified if I was sending a sexy selfie—which I never had because I’m overly paranoid it would end up on the interweb somehow. But if I did, I would be double checking the number ten times. The internet is forever, and once a picture got out there into the digital wasteland, it could be gif’d, meme’d, and who knew what else.

  This had to be an elaborate prank. He hadn’t even sent me his face. He could have gotten the picture off of the internet, and be catfishing me. Plus, Jesus, if he looked like that in addition to the voice he had, he was in the top tier of attractiveness for the men I’d met in my life. And remembering what I did about awkward Shane, well, that just seemed unlikely to me.

  Natalie: That’s probably not even you. Prove it.

  As soon as I sent the message, I regretted it. I’d backed myself into a corner. Showed him that I was curious about the photo.

  If it was him, I’d just look stupid. Then again, why did I care if I looked stupid in front of this guy, who I hadn’t seen or heard from for ten years?

  My instinct was right. Because the next text that came through made me laugh and sweat at the same time.

  Shane: You’re lucky I’m bored tonight, so I took time to make this. Are you a detective major or something?

  The text was accompanied by a picture of him biting his lower lip. He was stark naked with the exception of the piece of cardboard he was holding in front of his crotch that said, in marker, ‘Shane North - December 26th’ with a smiley face.

  Natalie: You have plans…but you’re also bored? That’s a funny combination. And I’m pretty sure detective isn’t a major. Me, I’m an English and Theatre major.

  Taking a deep breath, I stood up. I was nearly sweating, it was so hot in the house. I checked the thermostat, which was at sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit. Weird. The heat was blasting, and it seemed much hotter than regular room temperature. Was I hot just because of that photo?

  Shane: That’s your comeback? You’re killing me smalls. I guess it really is true what they say about Florida.

  Natalie: And what do they say about Florida?

  Shane: The cold does funny things to her.

  Another picture came through. This time, it was of Shane making a goofy, but still slightly cocky, winky face. I swallowed. It was definitely a photo of him, alright. Except the boy I used to know had been replaced with a man.

  A very, very good-looking one with ice colored eyes and thick, dirty blond hair that I’m pretty sure some of my girlfriends back home would kill for. This was an interesting development.

  Yet, despite his assholery and outlandishness, I still felt the need to keep the conversation going with him.

  Natalie: So funny I forgot to laugh.

  Shane: Well, I showed you mine. Even if it was by accident. You going to show me yours?

  I thought for a moment. I got this feeling he was playing me, so I decided I would mess with him. Especially since he somehow thought it was absolutely okay to mess with me at will.

  Natalie: Show me your snake and we’ve got a deal.

  Shane: Seriously? You’re a dirty, dirty girl aren’t you?

  Natalie: So dirty :D

  My heart hammered as I waited for his text to come through. I made the request to mess with him…but I had to admit I was curious what a man built like him looked like…all of him. On another level, I just wanted to see how far he would go. The tension built as I stared at those three ominous dots on the other end of my phone.

  My phone buzzed and a surge of adrenaline rushed through me.

  My jaw dropped and I blinked a few times, staring at the picture.

  He sent me a picture of a hockey stick. Written in marker on a piece of white medical tape wrapped around the stick were the words ‘Snake.’

  Shane: Goodnight, Florida Rider. Yes, I know my snake is big and scary. Hope you can sleep after that.

  I rolled my eyes. Florida Rider? How many nicknames did Shane have for me?

  In spite of his digs, the truth was, I had enjoyed our banter.

  I didn’t know who Shane was hanging out with that night, though I wanted it to be me. I was not the type of person who liked to go days without social interaction. I was going to need some sort of diversion for the next two weeks in this town while I finished going through my father’s things. And despite him being a total dick…as I laid my head down on my pillow to sleep, I felt less lonely.

  Something that he had said in our earlier conversation irked me though, as I drifted off to dreamland. You really think you were Louisa’s best friend?

  What did he mean by that?

  3

  Natalie

  THE NEXT MORNING, I woke up so hot I thought I might have been transported back to Florida for a moment. I headed over to the thermostat to see what the temperature was at, and it was still sixty-five, so I turned it down under sixty.

  After I made some coffee and ate breakfast, I resurrected my Florida wear of short shorts and a tank top. Then, with a glaze of sweat on my skin, I started going through a box that I’d brought into the living room.

  The heater didn’t stop pushing out hot air, but I shrugged it off and tried to make some headway delving into an old box of my father’s books.

  Unfortunately, I was slow-going because I had the annoying problem of opening each book and reading a small passage out of many of the books. #Hashtag English major problems. He had some good old classics. An autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. The story of Hemingway’s wives. A 1960s reprint of Mary Wollencraft’s memoir that destroyed her reputation for over a century.

  I put the books that I needed to keep into one box that I would send home and put on my college bookshelf, and then put the rest (which wasn’t many) into a big box labeled ‘donate.’

  Around noon, I stumbled onto something that took me by surprise.

  There was a brown bag of books labeled ‘for Natalie, after she graduates college,’ written with a black marker in my father’s handwriting.

  My pulse raced as I opened up the bag, and pulled out the books onto the dining room table.

  There was a smattering of at least a dozen books. I opened a random book, The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, and read an inscription from my father:

  Hi Natalie!

  Congratulations on gradu
ating college. I never had any doubts about how smart you were. The House of Mirth was Edith Wharton’s first big hit of a book. She was the first woman ever to win a Pulitzer Prize. It wasn’t for this book though. It was for a book she wrote years later.

  This, though, was a book she wrote when she was young and just getting started. I always think it’s interesting to read about people’s ‘breakout’ moments.

  I can’t wait for you to have your ‘breakout’ moment. Or maybe you already had it, in sixth grade when you were the best wicked witch of the west the Wizard of Oz has ever seen. Do you remember that? I do. You were wonderful. You’ve always been wonderful.

  I can’t wait to discuss all of these (and more) with you.

  Love,

  Dad

  I ran my eyes over the words again, and suddenly felt dizzy.

  Tears welled in my eyes and a shiver rolled across me in spite of the heat wave that was occurring in my house right now. My whole body slackened, and I staggered over to the couch in the living room, book in hand. Collapsing on the couch, I held the book tight against my chest.

  Anger racked through me.

  I’d never get the chance to discuss this book with him. Or any book, for that matter. Clearly he thought about me all the time. Despite the divorce, he was a good dad and I would never get to experience that bond with him again.

  Why did it have to be like this?

  At first I tried to fight the sobs, but I knew it would be futile.

  Collapsing in a fit of rage, I cried for several minutes, needing the release of the pent up emotions I had been feeling.

  An hour or so later, I woke up to the sound of my cell phone ringing.

  “Hello?” I answered groggily.

  “Hi, honey! How are you?” It was my mom.

  “Not good,” I said before I cleared my throat.

  “Oh, sorry. That was a dumb question. What I mean is, how was your first night sleeping at the place alone?”

  I sighed. “It was okay. Lonely, though. And hot.”

  “Hot? It’s freezing, dear. Isn’t it?”

  “Not in this house. It’s like an oven. I think the heater’s broken. It’s been running nonstop since last night.” I wiped off beads of sweat from my forehead.

  “You can call a heating professional to come out there, you know.”

  “I’m sure it will start working soon. Plus once I leave, I’ll just turn it off.”

  A silence fell between us for a moment, and I heard my mother blow out a slow, deep breath. She and my father had had their differences when he was alive. After his death, she hadn’t said too much about him, which made me wonder what was going through her head.

  “So, you remember the North’s, right?” I said, trying to break the tension. But I realized then that this would be an equally depressing topic.

  “Of course! Louisa and her nice older brother, Shane. How are they?”

  “Not so good. Louisa passed away.”

  Every time I thought about her it made my stomach coil.

  “Oh. Oh my gosh. That’s so sad. Send them my condolences.”

  “I will.”

  I heard a deep breath on the other end of the phone.

  “I really should have stayed in Black Mountain with you. It’s not fair to put all of the responsibility in your hands to get your father’s things together.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. “It’s therapeutic for me.”

  After another pause, she said, “Would you give me Louisa’s house number? I’m going to give a personal call over there to see how Mrs. North is doing.”

  I recited it to her, right off the top of my head.

  My mother and I said a few more niceties and then we hung up.

  After reading some of The House of Mirth for a couple hours, I made myself a sandwich, and by then the sky was getting dark again. I’d forgotten how incredibly short the days were in the Upper Peninsula around the winter solstice.

  I was making exactly zero headway when it came to going through my father’s things. Since today was my first full day to finish going through everything, I excused myself for getting badly sidetracked. I had no idea about that box of books that caught me completely by surprise, and a little self-reflection in the middle of this tragedy probably was a good thing.

  I needed to figure out what the heck I was going to be doing with my life, in any case.

  By springtime I would be finished with my major in Theatre and English, but I still had no idea what I wanted to do with it, or where in the world I would end up.

  Florida was home for me but as far as getting ahead in the acting or writing scene, I needed to think about a big move. I’d considered New York—which had a thriving theatre scene—but cliché as it was, Los Angeles was where you found the real acting jobs according to all of the research I’d done.

  Another part of me thought I could move to Chicago and do improv there like my idols, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, and maybe write a little bit. But the prospect of moving to a new city, making new friends, and being completely on my own was daunting to me.

  I’d always been too scared to put my thoughts down on paper and get them in front of people, though. Well, except for my journals which absolutely no one but me was allowed to read. And I had no idea how you ‘broke in’ to a job in writing. College was safe and cozy; the world ‘out there’ was this nebulous cloud of auditions and failures that I would have to endure in order to find success. I still didn’t even know what success meant to me. It was hard to imagine going through such stressful means without a clear end of what I wanted to achieve.

  To be sure, my future after college was still foggy. I was intending on coming to visit my father after Christmas this year to think it over talk about it with him. He always seemed to have good advice for me. Instead, I’d pushed my trip back to arrive here after the New Year.

  It was a decision I’d regret forever.

  What I wouldn’t do just to have one more moment with him.

  After a few bites of my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the doorbell rang, and I furrowed my brow as I stared at the door.

  Who would come by? It was a Saturday, I didn’t even think anyone knew I was here.

  I set my sandwich down, got up and looked through the peephole.

  I recognized the face as Shane’s immediately.

  He looked even better than he did in his selfie. A handsome young man with medium length blond hair, cheeks flushed red from the cold outside. Shane was tall, wore a black coat, and his jawline was so distinct, I’d recognize it anywhere.

  We hadn’t exactly hit it off on the phone, so it was odd to me that he’d be just dropping in like he used to when we’d ride bikes.

  “Can I help you?” I asked as I opened the door. A gust of cold wind blew inside, giving me a chill.

  “You ordered a sex doll?” Shane said.

  “Um, excuse me?”

  “Are you going to let me in? It’s a little chilly out here. And your sex doll is getting cold.”

  I opened the door for him, let him slip in, and closed it quickly.

  “What do you mean, a sex doll?”

  “That’d be me,” he winked. “I’m one hundred percent artificial intelligence.”

  I rolled my eyes but a smile tugged at my face. I was happy to have anyone here joking, even if it was a bad joke.

  “Yes, I was just thinking I was going to need a sex doll to keep me company while I’m here alone,” I said as I closed the door. “Wait. That came out weird.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s the exact purpose of a sex doll, actually.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  Awkward.

  Two days and no contact with anyone, and I’d already forgotten how to socialize.

  As he took a few steps inside, his face scrunched up, and he looked very confused. “Why is it hotter than Satan’s dungeon in here?”

  He started to take off his coat, and I stopped him, putting my hand on his bicep over the wool.r />
  “Wait a second. What are you here for? Seriously.”

  He sighed. “So you’re saying you didn’t order a sex doll?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Stop being ridiculous. I don’t even know you. Anymore.”

  “Let’s take a look at your internet search history. Don’t act like you haven’t googled some weird stuff.”

  I crossed my arms and he acquiesced.

  “Your mother called me. Said her condolences for Louisa and then told me she was worried about you being all alone here. She asked me if I could check up on you real quick. So I’m dropping in.”

  “Oh. Well, thanks, I’m doing fine.”

  Not saying anything for a moment, he clenched his jaw and stared at me as he finished taking off his coat.

  He had on a red flannel shirt, jeans, and boots. If he’d taken that shirtless selfie yesterday, I’d be surprised, because the stubble on his face looked a few days old already. Or maybe he was a fast grower.

  Fast grower.

  There was a phrase that had me thinking very dirty thoughts about him.

  His eyes were an intense, icy clear blue like the summer sky, and he ran them from my head to toe and back again.

  I would have called him out for checking me out-blatantly--but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was checking for something specific.

  “Are you?” he asked, his eyes locking back on mine.

  “Am I, what?”

  “Are you doing fine?”

  Clearing my throat, I managed to hold back the tears behind my eyes. “I’m fine, yeah. I will be. It’s been tough, obviously. But I’ll get through it,” I said hoarsely, returning his stare. Finally, he turned away from me and walked down the hall, his boots sounding heavy every time they struck the floor.

  “So is there a reason you are trying to simulate dessert heat in this house? Jesus Christ. What is it, Forty degrees Celsius in here?”

  “Celsius? What’s that in regular degrees?” Shane started unbuttoning his flannel, which made my heart beat even faster.

  “Regular degrees are whatever’s relative to you. They use Celsius in every country but the United States. My father was Canadian and used to say the temperature in Celsius, so it’s habit. It’s like ninety in here, Fahrenheit. At least.”