Page 30 of Cold As Ice

Fallon: How are you?

Fuck. I’d told her not to text me. It was done. Over.

Fallon: I really miss you, Austin. Maybe we can talk after winter break. We can keep things casual.

Austin: We both know that isn’t going to happen.

Fallon: Don’t you miss me at all? It’s Christmas Eve, Austin. I know you’re all alone in Lakeshore. I could drive down and keep you company…

I missed the sex on tap, sure. But I didn’t missher. Maybe that made me a heartless bastard, but I refused to be guilted into a relationship. Casual or otherwise.

I ignored her, and thankfully, she stopped texting. The last thing I wanted or needed was a clingy ex, not that we’d ever gotten that far. Fallon had never been my girlfriend, but in the end, she’d wanted to be. That’s why I’d ended things because I didn’t want commitment.

I didn’t want permanent.

I didn’t want the responsibility of looking out for someone else’s heart.

Not when I was pretty sure mine was nothing more than a cold, dead thing inside my chest.

* * *

Christmas came and went. There was no tree. No presents. No Christmas dinner.

There was just me, a six-pack, and my favorite takeout.

Rory tried to call. And when I wouldn’t answer her call, Noah started blowing up my phone. But I didn’t want to let my dark mood spoil their trip.

They deserved to be happy.

Rory deserved it.

I wasn’t so sure about me, not after everything I’d done—and hadn’t—over the last few years.

So I hunkered down in the house with my meager supplies and let myself wallow.

I didn’t hear from Madison again except for a GIF of the Grinch wishing me a ‘Merry Fucking Christmas.’ I’d smiled briefly but then remembered how quickly she’d dropped me the other night.

It was two days after Christmas when I finally pulled my head out of my ass and joined the land of the living again.

Noah: You alive asshole? Rory has been worried sick.

Austin: Yeah, I’m alive. She knows I hate Christmas.

Noah: Still, you didn’t have to ignore her calls for two days.

Austin: I’m sure you were taking good care of her.

Noah: Damn straight.

I’d walked right into that one, but it didn’t stop the sting.

Noah: Call her back. Before I have to drive back to Lakeshore and kick your ass.

Austin: You couldn’t take me.

Noah: Don’t make me try…

I snorted. He wouldn’t do a damn thing to hurt Rory, and pretty sure, despite deserving it, that extended to beating my ass.

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