Page 105 of Missed Notes (Rixon High 5)

“I didn’t mean that. It’s the nausea talking.”

“You want to be my girlfriend, Sofia Bennet? Because I can’t think of anything I want more.”

“Cole…”

“Sofe…”

“Fine. I’d like to be your girlfriend.”

“Glad we settled that.” A smug smile tugged at my lips.

“God, I’m never going to live this down, am I?”

I pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck and said, “It can be our little secret.”

* * *

“Your dad again?”Sofia asked me sometime later.

The nausea had passed, and we’d spent the day alternating between studying and kissing. Okay, mostly kissing.

I couldn’t get enough of her. Her laugh, her smile, the way her eyes twinkled every time I caught her looking at me.

I was in deep.

Already thinking beyond tomorrow or the day after, or the week after that. It was crazy, to get so carried away. We both knew the risk. We both knew that the future wasn’t guaranteed, and I wanted to savor every second I spent with her.

“Yeah.” I let out a heavy sigh, rejecting my old man’s call for the fourth time.

“You know, maybe you should just answer. He might go away then.”

“You don’t understand…”

“So make me.” Sofia sat up and crossed her legs. “Why would it be so awful if you told him you don’t want to go to Drexel?”

“I…” I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell her. I’d never told anyone. It was one thing to paint my father as the villain, the overbearing asshole who wouldn’t accept any way except his own. But to reveal the truth…

“Cole, talk to me. Whatever it is, you can trust me.”

I jammed my fingers in my hair and dragged them over my scalp.

“Cole, whatever—”

“He’s a mean bastard, Sofe. I hate the way he treats her,” I blurted out. “And it’s always worse if I disobey him. If I don’t go to Drexel, he’ll cut me off, and then how the hell will I protect her from that?”

My chest heaved with the weight of my words. The truth. The secret I’d kept with me for years.

Years.

“Does he… hurt her?”

“Not physically, but he has his other women on the side. Constantly belittles her and walks all over her.” Disgust churned in my stomach. “But she won’t leave him. No matter what he does, she won’t leave.”

Sofia’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Nothing to say.” My shoulders lifted in a half-shrug. “She made her choice.”

Sofia crawled over the bed and climbed into my lap, wrapping her arm around my neck. “I’m sorry.” She kissed me. “And I hate that your dad is such an asshole, but you can’t let him dictate your life forever.”

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