Best Served Cold Read online

  **Kindle edition**

  Best Served Cold

  Copyright © 2013 Tawdra Kandle

  Published by Hayson Publishing

  St. Augustine, Florida

  Cover Design by Once Upon a Time Covers

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  To the ladies of Romantic Edge Books-

  Mandie, Amanda, Liz, Olivia, Melissa, Lola, Christine, Stephanie-

  All of whom constantly challenge me to be better than I am,

  and whose humor, encouragement and love

  keep me moving forward.

  I love you all.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  The dorm room was dark. Someone jostled me, and I caught the shadowy image of my best friend Ava, grinning at me in encouragement. I rolled my eyes. Nothing was going according to my plan.

  Throwing a surprise party for my boyfriend’s birthday had seemed like a good idea a month ago. But standing there, twenty minutes after he was supposed to show up, with way too many people crowded into his room with me, I was beginning to think I’d made a mistake.

  The door flew open and banged against the wall. From the corner of my eye, I saw a few people jump out of the way, and then everything seemed to happen at once, in both slow motion and at top speed.

  Liam was silhouetted in the doorway, the fluorescent lights from the hallway bleeding into the darkness of his room. He stumbled and fell against the door jam, bracing his back there to catch his balance. He couldn’t use his hands, because one arm was wrapped around the waist of the small blonde whose mouth was on his, and the other hand was down her shirt.

  Someone in the room gasped. And then the guy I’d stationed by the light switch flipped it on, and a few people who didn’t have a good view of the door shouted, “Surprise!”

  Next to me, I heard Giff, Liam’s roommate, groan. “Shit, Liam.”

  I thought I was rooted where I stood, but somehow my feet propelled me across the room. I pushed through the wall-to-wall bodies until I was standing near the door.

  Liam raised his eyes and finally seemed to notice everyone else staring at him. The girl he was holding—and groping—giggled and hid her eyes against his chest.

  “What is this?” The slur in his voice was pronounced, and I gritted my teeth.

  “It’s your birthday party, dumbass.” Giff was at my elbow again. “Your surprise birthday party. Julia put the whole thing together. Remember Julia? Your girlfriend?”

  “Julia.” Liam drew out my name as he always did when he was teasing me. “Julia. God, what a girl. Going to all this trouble for your ex.”

  His eyes met mine, and there wasn’t any confusion or guilt in them. No hint of the drunkenness I heard in his voice. There was only cunning and a knowing cruelty.

  I couldn’t breathe. My lungs had stopped working, and now my head began to spin. Giff grabbed me by the arm, and on my other side, suddenly my best friend Ava was there, her hand on my waist.

  “Ex?” I managed to get the word out, despite the lack of oxygen. “Since when am I your ex?”

  Liam grinned, but again, there was no humor there. “Did I forget to tell you I was breaking up with you? Well, hell. I knew I was missing something. Guess I thought you’d get the picture when I stopped answering your calls.”

  My mind scanned the last week. I’d been so preoccupied with putting this party together—a party that encompassed every room on this side of the hall. Giff and I had begged everyone to pitch in, let us use the space. I could see the corridor behind Liam was now filled with people who had ventured out to see what was going on.

  But had he really stopped calling me? Wouldn’t I have noticed? We were both busy with finals. Sometimes we went a few days without seeing each other. I remembered being relieved that I didn’t have to keep the party a secret in person, so maybe it had been longer than usual...

  “No, you didn’t tell me.” I whispered the words, hating the weakness they betrayed. “I think I would have remembered that. You know, the guy I’ve been dating for over ten months—breaking up with me.”

  Liam still had his hand tucked within the girl’s shirt. I could see that she was beginning to realize what was going on. She bit her lip and kept her eyes on the floor.

  “Ten months? Really? Well, that’s gotta be some kind of record for me.” He turned to look at his roommate. “Right, Giff? Have I ever kept a girl around that long?”

  “You’re an asshole, Liam.” Giff swung me around so I didn’t have to look at my boyfriend—correction, ex-boyfriend—and the mortified girl in his arms. “Ava, get her out of here.”

  She took me by the hand and pulled, stopping in front of Liam so abruptly that I ran into her back. I saw dark fury in her eyes just before she slapped his face.

  “You fucking idiot. How dare you do this to my best friend?”

  For the first time since he’d thrown open the door, something like regret flashed in Liam’s expression. Or maybe it was simply shock that anyone had stood up to him.

  Ava turned back to me. “Come on, Jules. Let’s go home.”

  She put herself between the couple of the hour and me as we squeezed through the doorway. I heard Giff behind us, shouting.

  “Go home, everyone. Take whatever food and drink you want, but get the hell out of here. Party’s over.”

  “I didn’t even like him.”

  I threw down the shirt I had just pulled from my suitcase and sank onto the edge of my bed. “I didn’t like him that way. I thought he was jerk. I didn’t want to go out with him. Remember? I said that. I had a crush on Mason Thomas. I wanted him to ask me out. Not Liam-freaking-Bailey.”

  Across the room, sitting at her desk, Ava lay down her pen. She was surrounded by piles of glossy textbooks we had just picked up from the campus bookstore, and her laptop was open to the syllabus for abnormal psych. Classes didn’t start until Monday morning, but we always came back to campus a few days early to get settled.

  As she turned in her chair, I had the sense that Ava was smothering a sigh.

  “Yes. You told me that. You didn’t like him. You told me then, you told me right after the birthday party, you told me during finals. You told me the night you got so drunk, I was afraid I wouldn’t get you home. You told me the days you couldn’t get out of bed because you’d been crying all night.”

  “I’m driving you nuts, aren’t I?”

  She gave into the deep sigh and regarded me with th
at ever-patient Ava stare I’d come to know and love in the three years we’d been roommates.

  “Of course not. I kind of hoped that maybe over winter break, you’d have time to process this a little, maybe start to move past it. But here we are, and you’re telling me the same things you did a month ago.”

  I groaned and dropped back onto the bed. “I’m a loser. I’m a loser who can’t keep a boyfriend, even one I didn’t want in the first place.”

  “Sweetie.” Ava sat next to me on the bed and took my hand. “Seriously. I know you have to go through all the stages of grieving this relationship, and you have the added issues of humiliation. But it’s been six weeks. Maybe it’s time to move on.”

  Having a roommate who was a psych major had its own particular charm. Not that I didn’t appreciate her support, but getting analyzed all the time could be irritating. I bit my tongue and just barely kept from rolling my eyes.

  “If I knew how to move on, don’t you think I would? I’m telling you, Ave, my heart isn’t broken.” She smiled a little and shook her head at my use of her nickname. She always said I was the only person who could further shorten a three-letter name.

  “I’m not really grieving.” I went on, ignoring the interruption. “I mean, I miss having a date on weekends and someone to meet me between classes for coffee and I definitely miss-” I patted the bed. “You know, this. But I don’t think I miss him.”

  “Then why are you still talking about him? Not to be mean, but if you don’t care about Liam, why can’t you let it go?”

  “I think it’s what you said before. Humiliation. I thought people would stop talking about it by now, but I still hear whispers. ‘There’s the girl who was dating Liam Bailey and didn’t know he had broken up with her.’” I mimed a look of shocked glee.

  Ava nodded. “He hurt your pride. I get that.”

  “And why did he dump me? What did I do? What did I not do? I wasn’t clingy. I gave him space. But I was supportive, too. I showed up at his track meets. I tried to be the perfect girlfriend. I went to dinner with his parents when they came to visit. My God, Ave, I slept with him. I didn’t plan to, but I let him talk me into it.” I rolled over and burrowed my face into the blankets.

  “Jules.” Ava lay down next to me and put her arm over my back. “Don’t. You didn’t do anything wrong. He’s a prick. Maybe he hid it for a little while, but prick will always come out.”

  I peeked up over one arm. “Prick will always come out? Is that a new Ava-ism?”

  “Maybe. Ava-isms are always accurate.”

  Pulling over a pillow, I flipped around to lie on my back again. “Jamie says I need something to take my mind off the whole thing.” I grimaced, thinking about my visit home for Christmas and the advice my sisters had given me. “Pretty sure I was driving her, Jen and our parents crazy. They were glad to see me come back here.”

  Ava bit her lip and tilted her head. I recognized that expression, too. “Your sister might be on the right track. You need to change up your routine, try something new.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not ready to date yet. A new guy is the last thing I want.”

  “I’m not talking a guy. I’m talking, like, a hobby. Volunteering somewhere. The best way to take your mind off your problems is to do something for someone else. Or, I don’t know, play an instrument, or take dance lessons.”

  “Dance lessons? I don’t think so.” I paused and turned my head to look at Ava. “I did have an idea, though. It’s not exactly volunteering or being selfless.”

  “That’s okay.” She turned so she was sitting on her knees, looking down at me, her eyes bright. “That was just one option. What’s your idea?”

  I smiled. “Revenge.”

  “Are you sure this is what you want to do, Jules?”

  We were huddled in the corner booth of Beans So Good, the shabby little coffee shop just off campus. It was quiet for a Thursday night, but then again, the spring semester was just barely underway. Taking into account the sudden cold snap that had hit Birch College as well as all of southern New Jersey, it wasn’t surprising that most people wanted to stay at home.

  But Beans was our home-away-from-dorm, as Ava said, the place we went when we couldn’t stand looking at the same four walls anymore. She swore their espresso had saved her grades second semester freshman year when she was carrying an eighteen-credit load. She held one in her hand now, a serious expression on her face as she looked over the rim at me.

  I stabbed my straw into the iced mocha on the table. “I don’t necessarily want to do it, but I think I need to.”

  “You know what they say about holding a grudge. Free rent in your head and all that.”

  “I’m not holding a grudge. I’m righting a wrong. Sort of.”

  “So doing this—whatever this is—will change Liam? Make him realize he’s a jerk?” Ava set her drink down, centering it carefully in the middle of the cardboard coaster. “You’re not trying to get him back, are you?”

  “Definitely not.” I shook my head. “I don’t want him back. I want to move on. But at the same time, I want Liam to know how bad it feels like to be treated like that. I need him to know that he was wrong. ”

  She nodded. “Okay. I get it. But how do you see this playing out? ”

  “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I haven’t gotten that far yet. If I thought showing up at party with another guy would do it, I would. But that would mean finding someone who’d be willing to go out with me. I wasn’t exactly turning them away before Liam asked me out.”

  “Julia, don’t be ridiculous. If you wanted a guy, you could have one. The only thing that keeps boys away from you is that don’t-touch-me attitude you have. That’s why Liam saw you as a challenge. He wanted you because...” Her voice trailed off, and she frowned.

  “What’s wrong?” I pushed back my cup.

  “Nothing. I was just thinking. I might have an idea.” Ava straightened up, shifting her legs out from beneath her on the bench seat. “We need a plan. I want to give it some thought. I mean, you’re talking about more than just slashing his tires and keying his car, right?”

  “Defile the Beemer?” I clutched my heart in mock horror. “As tempting as that sounds, yeah, it wouldn’t do the job. Not the way I need it to.”

  Ava smiled. “Then don’t make any plans for this weekend. You and I are going to have a down-and-dirty get-even planning session. I’ll buy the ice cream.”

  It snowed the next two days, complicating life for the students who were in the middle of moving back into dorms on Saturday. I took advantage of the rare downtime to snuggle back down under the covers and read for pleasure, something that wouldn’t be happening much if at all once the semester got underway.

  Ava was busy, helping everyone get settled again. She was out most of Friday and all day Saturday with meetings and moving in students. Her job as resident advisor was the sole reason we still lived in the dormitory rather than in one of the campus apartments. Her family couldn’t afford to pay for her tuition, let alone for room and board; being RA meant free lodging for her and a reduced amount for me, since she was entitled to a single room and chose to live in a double with me.

  My parents didn’t hate me living with the freshman in Gibbons Hall, either; it cost half what the apartments did. They covered my tuition, but I knew it wasn’t easy. I was happy to save them some money and still share a room with my best friend.

  “Good God, save me from whiny-ass freshman girls!” Ava slammed the door behind her. “I thought second semester was supposed to be easier. But no. They’re out there trying to switch roommates, complaining about everything and anything. Remind me why I do this?”

  I pushed back my pillows and sat up in bed. “Because putting up with them pays the bills and keeps us in the luxury we’ve become used to having.” I spread my hand around the room, taking in the painted-cinderblock walls, tile floor and utilitarian furniture. “Can you imagine taking us away from all this?”

 
“Try me.” Ava dropped onto her bed. “I know I’m lucky to have this gig. It’s only days like this when I just want to strangle them.” She rolled onto her side. “Well, maybe not even all of them. Most of them are okay.”

  I stood up to put my book on the desk. “We were there once, right? Remember Kerri? I bet she wanted to strangle us sometimes, too.”

  “Maybe.” Ava pinched the edge of her pillowcase between two fingers, rubbing it back and forth.

  “What is it?” Sometimes my roommate was about as opaque as an open window. I could almost always tell when something was eating at her.

  “We had a transfer over here from Liddleton.”

  I shrugged. “Okay. So?”

  “It’s Rachel Shaw.”

  For a moment, I was lost. I didn’t know many freshmen outside the ones who lived on our floor. And then it hit me.

  “Rachel. That’s Liam’s new--” I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

  Ava scooted up so that she mirrored my position on her own bed, hugging her knees. “I don’t know what she is to him, but she’s the girl from the birthday party.”

  I closed my eyes and let my head bang back into the wall. “Shit.”

  “I didn’t recognize the name when it came over on the forms, but then I saw her. She’s rooming with Miranda Dyer.”

  “Why did she transfer over here?”

  Ava shrugged. “Not sure. But she put in for it in the middle of last semester. Her form was dated early November. So it was before...Liam.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe he was already doing her, and she thought it would be convenient for us both to be on the same floor.”

  “I guess, but I don’t really think so. When she saw me, her face got red and she looked really embarrassed. Like she didn’t want to be there any more than I wanted her there.”

  I sighed. “Yeah. Even that night, I had the feeling she got sucked into a situation she didn’t really understand. No pun intended.”