Several months in, Courtney had become fairly interested in a frat guy. The boy obviously didn't compare to Nick, but Courtney had known she had to get over Nick Rule, to get over the way she felt about him. It had seemed to her at the time that although Nick was protective of her, he didn't feel the same way about her that she felt about him. And the frat boy was more than interested in her, and he was smart and good-looking to boot.
Looking back, in retrospect, Courtney knew she'd probably gushed about him a little too much to Justine, but she couldn't have guessed what Nick's reaction would be when he found out.
He'd shown up on her doorstep within twenty-four hours. He'd flown almost a thousand miles across country, and shown up out of the blue. He'd had a ready excuse, something about checking out a piece of property not far away. He'd insisted on meeting not only her roommates, but also 'the kid you told my mother about.' Courtney had tried to argue about that, but Nick was inflexible.
He'd gotten his way and met her new boyfriend. Courtney could still remember how Nick's expression had frozen, how his muscles had grown rigid. All it had taken was a single ferocious look and a stern warning, and the boy had fled and never returned.
Courtney had been beyond livid.
But Nick had brushed off her anger as if it meant nothing and had taken her out to dinner where he'd grilled her for a couple of hours about her classes, her professors and her friends.
After he'd gone back to Missouri, it had taken several weeks, but she'd slowly gotten over her anger and gotten on with her life again. It was amazing, looking back now, that she hadn't recognized Nick's jealousy for what it had been. But she hadn't and her life had gone on. It took Courtney several more months before she found another guy who intrigued her enough to begin dating him.
And when she had, the same cycle went into play. Courtney had told Justine, Nick had shown up unexpectedly and her newest boyfriend was dispatched posthaste.
That was when she'd had her first doubts about everything she'd believed to be true about Nick when she'd left St. Louis. How could she not have doubts when he seemed prepared to fly halfway across the country just to get rid of her boyfriends?
It had been confusing; it had been suspicious, because those were the only times she heard from him. But after several more months passed by, she began to think it had all been her imagination and that the probability of Nick having deeper feelings for her were next to nil. But just to be on the safe side, when she began dating someone new, she didn't mention it to Justine.
But the problem was, nobody could compare to Nick Rule. Not a single kiss could compare to the kiss that was so instilled in her memory that she could conjure it up day or night. Nobody could make her knees tremble and there was absolutely nobody who she cared enough about to make her part with her virginity.
She wasn't purposely saving it for Nick; she wasn't.
But whatever the reason, the outcome was the same. Her interest in dating became less and less as the months went by, so she put it on the back burner and threw herself into her studies and having fun with her friends.
She began to love being a college student. She studied hard, partied harder and went to the beach whenever she could. She had the freedom to try things she'd never tried before. Tanning beds, thong underwear, shots of tequila.
Life was suddenly fun again. Her parents became a sentimental memory always in her heart, but finally, life truly became fun again.
Everything went great for a while, except that the few recent trips she'd made to St. Louis hadn't been satisfactory to her. For one reason or another, when she went to visit, she and Nick were never at the house at the same time. And that bothered her. Was it by coincidence or his design?
One evening in the middle of the week, she was studying for a test, but no matter how much she tried, she couldn't seem to concentrate. By this time, she'd been in the second semester of her second year in Florida, close to graduating with her bachelor's degree. So why was she suddenly homesick again? And then it dawned on her. She realized it had been almost a year since she'd seen Nick. And when she realized that, she began missing him. Missing him badly.
Missing him so badly that she did a semi-evil thing.
Okay, a really evil thing.
She literally couldn't drag her mind off Nick and of course, she thought back to when he'd flown to Florida to get rid of her boyfriends. Had the times he'd come to see her been just a coincidence or not? The more she deliberated the small amount of evidence at her disposal, the stronger the idea took root in her head again. Before long, she'd developed a hypothesis; he'd come to Florida for the express purpose of getting rid of her boyfriends, not to look at real estate, as he'd maintained. Crazy idea, maybe not so crazy, but the more she missed him, the more her reasoning seemed sound.