Truly Madly Deeply: A Grumpy x Sunshine Romance (Forbidden Love Book 1)

“Crush”—Jennifer Paige

Six Years Ago

It was the first summer Row came back from Paris, and the town was reeling with his presence.

Even though he wasn’t yet famous, people lined up to meet him at the Casablancases’ door like he was Mick Jagger, hoping some of his stardust rubbed off on them. They kissed the ring, gushed about his success, and begged for recipes they could wow their families and neighbors with. For the first time since Dylan and I were in kindergarten, Row didn’t pay me any attention. Didn’t tug my braid with a teasing smirk, sneak me the last piece of cherry pie, or give me a piggyback ride upstairs, purposefully banging me against the wall to make me laugh. Every time I visited my best friend and he was there, he’d award me with a silent nod and walk off. I was air, invisible and unnoteworthy.

To make matters worse, my traitorous hormones decided to notice him. I’d always known Row Casablancas was hot in the same way I always knew the sun was—you needed to be a moron not to recognize this simple fact of life. Yet, that summer, he’d returned with a new, foreign glow. An erotism my seventeen-year-old self simply couldn’t ignore.

It stunned me that I couldn’t take my eyes off Row because I didn’t find guys attractive.

Scary? Yes. Untrustworthy? Always. Their physical advantage unnerved me. But not Row. Apparently, Row was in a different category than everyone else.

“Stop looking at my brother like that,” Dylan warned me one day when we were lying on towels in her backyard, working on our tans. Row and Rhyland were across the lawn by the edge of the forest, chopping wood for wintertime. They were both shirtless, sweat glazing their skin, Row’s golden cross necklace dangling between his sculpted pecs, glinting like the smooth surface of a sunlit lake.

Thump.

“Like what?” I pushed my sunglasses up my nose, feigning innocence.

“Like you’re interested in his wood, and not the kind he’s chopping.” She hiked up onto her elbows, ripping her sunglasses from her eyes to award me with a scowl. “He can’t be your next conquest, Cal, okay?”

Her words were ridiculous, but I only had myself to blame for the misconception.

Because I was a lying liar who lied and wanted to make sure everyone around me thought I led a normal, happy life. I was careful to tell Dylan I had crushes on boys, and that I kissed them often. I didn’t want her to know that, on top of being the one who blinked all the time and suffered from social anxiety, I also had a violently fearful reaction to men. So I occasionally told her I made out with guys. I was careful to swear her to secrecy so as not to start vicious rumors about other people.

“Dude, I’m only looking at him because he is blocking my view of Rhy.” Lie number 3,447,358 slipped past my lips.

“You are a terrible liar.” Dylan took a slow sip of her iced tea. “Quit ogling my brother, Dot. Unless, of course, you’re catching feelings for him.”

Thump.

Wood splinters flew sideways under Row’s axe. The scent of pine oil tinged my nostrils sharply. Row’s abs contracted with each movement. He looked like an Abercrombie & Fitch Super Bowl ad. I waited for the part where I wanted to run away from him to kick in, but it never did.

“Feelings? For Row? Dude, no way.” I sat up straight, horrified. Luckily, my complexion hid my intense blushing—I was already purple from trying to get a tan.

Thump.

Dylan scrunched her nose. “Wow. It’s not that hard to believe, you know. He’s a great guy.”

“He is. Nonetheless, I’m not crushing on your brother,” I lied. I was. Stalking his Instagram two hundred times a day, even though he was too cool to be on top of his social media. Tormenting myself by imagining all the chic, European girls he hooked up with.

Thump, thump, thump.

Row’s bronze deltoids and triceps bulged delectably under a thin coat of sweat.

“You better not be.” Dylan jerked the straps of her bikini top down her shoulders to allow for an even tan. “He deserves a fairy tale, not some meaningless hookup.”

“I don’t even do that many hookups,” I protested weakly. Zero was the number of hookups I’d had in recent years. Even that was exaggerated.

“Still. You only do crushes, never relationships.”

Not in the mood to be reminded how Row was way above my league, I picked up my Daisy Dukes from the lawn and hopped up, slipping them on. “I better head home. Dad wants to teach me how to pickle eggs.”

“Jesus, Cal.” Rhyland stuck his axe’s blade in the ground, retying his man-bun. “Some of us want to eat in this century.”

“Don’t slam it before you try it, Rhy.” I winked, pretending that he didn’t scare me. He did. A little. In a manageable way.

Row had his back to me, still chopping. He was pretty far away, but I could see the new tattoos snaking up and down his skin, swarming with colorful ink. I wanted him to turn around. To award me with his sleek, predatory gaze that turned me inside out.

“Fucking humidity is making it hot enough to scald a lizard.” Rhyland grabbed his shirt from the yellowed grass, slipped it on, then began rolling himself a joint. “I’m tapping out. Cal, wanna bum a ride?”

I did, but I also didn’t like the idea of being alone with a guy who wasn’t Dad or Row. “Thanks, but I—”

“I’ll drive her.” Row hurled his axe against the tree trunk he’d used to chop the wood, burying the blade inside. He picked up a kitchen towel and wiped off his hands. “Gotta buy some ice anyway.”

Can’t you just shave some off your heart?

“Oh, I don’t want to burden you.” I braided my hair over my shoulder awkwardly.

Row threw me a dry look. “You’re about a decade late and a dollar short. Get your stuff, Dot. Hopping in the shower, then we’re leaving.”

“Don’t let her proposition you.” Dylan cupped her mouth, yelling to him. “She made out with, like, four guys from our grade this year alone. Never know what she’s carrying.”

I kicked her ribs lightly, a smile on my face. A sharp stab of guilt sliced my chest open. I hated lying to her. “Thanks, Row.”

Dylan lingered in the backyard, working on her tan and flipping through a magazine.

“Wait in the living room,” Row instructed, shouldering past me on his way up the stairs. I followed him with my eyes, waiting for the faint sound of the shower to hit my ears, accompanied by the whining of the rusty pipes behind the walls. I took the stairs up to his room on my tippy toes. I wanted to get a glimpse of Row’s universe uninterrupted, something I’d never had a chance to do before. I didn’t feel too bad about snooping. Row never had given a crap about privacy.

Once I entered the room, I breathed as shallowly as I could without losing consciousness to mask my presence there. I didn’t know why I was feeling so self-conscious all of a sudden. It wasn’t like I had a chance with him. Dude had fished chicken nuggets and queso from my hair when I’d drunk-vomited into his toilet in the middle of the night two years ago, after Dylan and I had stolen their dad’s vodka and gotten shit-faced. He’d once caught Dylan popping a zit the size of Montana on my chin. There was no allure or mystery where I was concerned.

Row was taking his sweet time. The shower was still running, so I treated myself to a small tour of his room. In my defense, it was barely even his room anymore. Zeta had been using it as a makeshift pantry for all the sauces and olive oil she made and sold to the locals. I opened drawers, sifted through dilapidated vintage books, and rummaged through his closet. Most of his stuff was gone—sold or taken to Paris—but there was one drawer in his closet that seemed stuffed, full to the brim. It was jammed, so I had to yank it open using force. As soon as I did, huge stacks of paper greeted me. Documents…books…pictures? Yup. There were pictures there too. Funny, he didn’t strike me as the sentimental type. I recognized one peeking out from the bottom of the mound, of me and Dylan at a county fair, and plucked it out with a smile. My beam collapsed when I realized he had cut me out of the picture. Scissored a square where my face had been.

What the…?

With trembling hands, I started going through the pictures in his drawer. There were dozens of them. All of them of me and Dylan, or just me. In all of them, my face had been cut out. What the hell? Why would he do this? We weren’t friendly anymore, but we weren’t enemies either, as far as I could tell. Tears prickled my eyes, but I didn’t let them loose. The bedroom door opened with a familiar old-house grunt. I twisted around savagely, my cheeks stinging pink.

He stood there, his six-pack on full display, his hair a damp mess. A towel was wrapped around his slim waist. “What the fuck are you doing in here, Dot?”

Hot, liquid anger swirled in my gut, making my entire body hum with fury. “Why?” I raised a stack of ruined pictures in my fist, tilting my chin up daringly. “Why do you hate me? What did I ever do to you?”

There was no other way to explain the sudden change in his behavior. His eyes met mine across the room. Surely, he couldn’t break my heart before I gave it to him. He had no permission to do so.

What was I talking about? I had no heart to give. It’d been smashed into powder, ground into dust.

Then why is it pulsing so loudly between my legs now that it’s just the two of us?

“It’s not what you think,” he said woodenly. His voice sounded foreign, detached; my knees buckled. He didn’t deny it. God, what excuse could he have for doing something this mean? This creepy?

“You don’t know what I think.” A miserable smile slashed my face. “But tell me how it is anyway.”

“Can’t.” Face expressionless. Eyes dead. Muscles stiff.

“Why?”

“Reasons.”

“Reasons?” My neck and face heated further with rage. “That’s not even an answer.”

“Course it is.” He ambled deeper into the room, unfastening his towel. I looked away, squeezing my eyes shut. Why was he a ruthless douchebag all of a sudden? What had I done to deserve this? “I don’t owe you jack shit, Dot. You aren’t my friend. Just my little sister’s annoying sidekick.”

By the rustling coming from his direction, I gathered he was getting dressed. “You used to like me,” I heard myself say, and hated how childish and whiny I sounded.

“No, I used to tolerate you,” he amended. “Still do.”

My eyelids fluttered open, my pride overriding my fear. Luckily, he was already dressed in ripped jeans and a worn-out white Henley, the clothes clinging to his defined muscles like they were sewn onto him.

“Cutting my face out of all of Dylan’s pictures is actively hating me,” I breathed out.

“Maybe you’re not as lovable as you think.” He tucked a cigarette behind his ear, smirking at me. I stared at him, dumbfounded. I didn’t deserve this. Either he was going to tell me what the hell I’d done, or he could take a hike.

“Know what?” I grabbed my backpack from his floor, slinging it over my shoulder. “I’ll walk home. Thanks for sending Rhyland off just so you could be a major dick to me.”

“Speaking of dick, heard you’ve been getting lots of those recently.”

“Yours is not gonna be one of them, so if that’s why you’re bitter…” I crouched down to tie my shoelaces. “Hope you stew on that fun fact.”

I stormed out of his room, taking the stairs two at a time. My pulse was pounding between my ears. His parents weren’t home, and Dylan was still outside, so there was no one to witness whatever shit show this was. I heard his feet pounding on the rotten wood of the Casablancases’ stairs, and my heart dropped to the pit of my stomach. His hand caught me by the shoulder, spinning me around. He pinned me against the rails, panting hard, like he was running. We were flush against each other when I noticed his hands caged me from either side, fingers curled over the banisters. Our faces were so close, I could see the individual pieces of stubble on his face. My whole body drew in a breath, my nipples pebbling against my swimsuit, brushing the ragged fabric. Heat pulled beneath my navel, and I swore I could smell my own arousal. Could he too? Crap. I hoped not.

Row’s jaw flexed. “Don’t do this,” he warned.

I waited for the fear to finally arrive. For the terror to kick in at our proximity. For my tics to make an appearance. But all I felt was burning desire and unbearable anger. Those two feelings danced together seamlessly, flooding the space between my thighs with heat. My breaths quickened, pulse pitter-pattering across my skin. “Do what?”

“Jump to conclusions.” His throat bobbed, and he looked like he was struggling with something. His eyes dropped to my lips. “I don’t hate you.”

The alternative, that he liked me, had never occurred to me. Because even though Ambrose Casablancas always spared me his wrath, he was also too impossibly dazzling, popular, and gorgeous to notice me. He’d always had the most glamorous girls flung over his arm, and breaking hearts and noses were his official hobbies. There wasn’t one woman in this town who wouldn’t let him warm her bed.

“Why did you do this, Row?” I licked my lips, swallowing hard. I held his gaze, ignoring the confusion teeming inside me. The liquid honey that uncurled behind my belly button and how empty I felt. How…unsettled.

“Are you really that dumb?” His lips hit my ear; the hair on my arms stood on end.

“Are you really that rude?” I stomped on his foot. “Just answer the damn question.”

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, then opened them again. “Remember the paper ring I gave you?”

I rummaged my memory bank for a paper ring but came up empty-handed. “No?”

Row’s jawline was a hard, square line of annoyance, and he barely moved his mouth when he spoke. “You were in first grade. Everybody fake-married their classmates. Nobody offered for you, so I made you a paper ring to stop you from crying. You were a mess.”

I stared at him, shocked. He had. Now I remembered that he had. But back then, he had just been Row, Dylan’s awkward big brother.

“And when you were in ninth grade and forgot your lunch?” There was a desperate, determined zing in his eyes, like he wanted me to read between the lines. “I drove to Wendy’s to buy you some, skipping physics.”

“What are you trying to say, that you were once nice to me, so now you have a free pass to be a douchebag?” I thundered.

“No.” His eyes crinkled with disappointment. Whatever I was supposed to understand, I didn’t. “I’m saying I don’t hate you and never have. I just don’t want to be around you, and you should fucking respect that.” His breath smelled of spearmint and cigarettes, and I wanted to kiss him. Wanted to know if he tasted as good as he smelled.

“But…why?”

“Because you’re temptation.” He released the banisters, slamming his fists against them with a loud thud. I jumped a little. “Look at you. With the sun on your skin, freckles everywhere, mouth red as a cherry. My dick swells just from knowing you and I share the same zip code. Whenever you speak, all I can do is stare at your mouth and imagine it wrapped around my cock. You’re a shiny apple, and do you know what people do to shiny apples?” His nose glided down mine, and I could almost feel them. His pouty, perfect lips.

“What?” I croaked.

“You eat them.” We were chest to chest. Heartbeat to heartbeat. “To the core.”

Oh fuck. Best blush? Anything coming out of Row Casablancas’s mouth.

I got it. We couldn’t do this to Dylan. Act on this attraction. Throw caution to the wind. Nothing was worth letting her down. Not even a taste of heaven. And besides, what good would it do me? I’d probably puke in his mouth from fear once he had his hands on me. My whole body felt like he’d set it on fire, tight and sensitive to the touch, and I wondered what would happen if he actually did touch me.

His gaze glided to my lips. I felt like he’d wrapped me in a soft, warm blanket. Like the universe had shrunk around us and we’d become the very center of it. Mostly, I felt safe because even when he was angry, he was my comfort object.

“I just…” My voice was strangled, pained. “I just can’t stand the idea that you hate me. I don’t know why. I just can’t.”

“I don’t hate you.” He couldn’t help himself. He raised his hand and picked at the string of my bikini, careful to avoid my skin, rolling the thin material between his thumb and finger. We both watched, transfixed. “I so don’t hate you it’s not even fucking funny.”

I pressed myself against the railings, closed my eyes, and enjoyed his proximity. No touching. No lines being crossed. Just his heat pulsating next to mine, feeding off each other’s energy.

“Your little sister’s annoying extension, right?” I gulped.

“No, Cal.” His nostrils flared. “Nothing about how I feel for you is sisterly.”

His fingers rolled south—still only touching my bikini string—skimming the area where the cord met the triangle covering my breast. It was so obvious my nipples were hard. I opened my eyes and saw how his stare glided to my breasts. My own gaze slid down, and I found him hard behind his jeans, his dick nearly poking my center. On instinct, I arched my back from the banister, my pussy meeting his cock through our clothes. Neither of us breathed for a second.

This was wrong. We were crossing a line now, and we both knew it.

“Ever wondered what it might feel like?” he surprised me by asking.

“What?” My voice was hoarse, my heart hammering its way out of my chest, cracking the bones embracing it, one beat at a time.

“Kissing each other.”

All the time. “No.” I shook my head, arching farther, my center meeting his, the imprint of his dick jamming the slit of my pussy through our clothes. So delicious, so empty. “Never.”

“Fuck, Dot.” He gave my bikini string a rough tug, loosening its hold. The right triangle dislodged, falling slightly, exposing the plump mound of my breast and one pink nipple. “You’re always pretty, but especially when you lie.”

“You think I’m pretty?” I bloomed beneath his gaze like a flower opening its petals to welcome the sun’s rays. His eyes were on my breast, and panic swirled through me. The forbiddance of it all turned me on. The idea that Dylan could walk in on us any minute now and catch us. It made me even wetter.

“I think you’re a liar too.” His tongue traced his lower lip, eyes still on my nipple. “I think you lie all the time, to make people around you feel better. Don’t you care about that?”

“No.” I struggled to swallow, feeling his dick pulsating, growing even harder and thicker between my thighs. “Because now I think I know why you cut me out of all those pictures.”

I was bluffing. Lying again. Because it frightened me that he saw through me. Through my act.

He placed his rough, warm palm on the base of my neck, stepping back to remove his dick from my core, and tilted my head up so our eyes were locked in a war, releasing the most devastating words I’d ever heard in the English language. “I wasn’t the one who cut you out, Dot,” he said. “Dylan did.”