Closer Read online

  Closer

  (Closer #1)

  MARY ELIZABETH

  Copyright © Mary Elizabeth Literature

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission of the publisher or author. The exception would be in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews and pages where permission is specifically granted by the publisher or author.

  Although every precaution has been taken to verify the accuracy of the information contained herein, the author and publisher assume no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for damages that may result from the use of information contained within.

  Cover Design: Hang Le

  Model: Graham Nation with Love N. Books

  Photographer: The Glass Camera

  Editor: Paige Maroney Smith

  Formatting: Champagne Formats

  First Edition

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Novels by the Author

  Dedication

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Novels by the Author

  Innocents (Dusty, Volume 1)

  Delinquents (Dusty, Volume 2)

  True Love Way

  Low

  Poesy (A Low Novella)

  Closer (Closer, Volume 1)

  For the fandom.

  Before

  Thick white smoke flows from his lips, stretching toward the sky in hazy ribbons. The bitter scent of tobacco burns my nose and cuts my throat, but the discomfort is minimal in comparison to the bricks stacked in the pit of my stomach. I stand beside this smoking human sculpture with a cigarette hanging between the tips of his fingers, careful not to brush against the bright red cherry. We make lingering eye contact for a moment, and then he flicks the butt ten feet in front of us and returns his look ahead.

  “Is this your first year, too?” I ask.

  “Third.” He sticks another cigarette to his lips. Cupping a tattooed hand over the end, he squints against the orange flame and lights up. “I’m fucking terrified.”

  I laugh out. “That makes two of us.”

  Following his gaze toward the castle-like structure made of red brick and the souls of undergraduates, I suddenly feel the need to fill my lungs with cancer-causing chemicals. Chain-smoker’s a mind reader because he passes the Marlboro, exhaling another chest full of smoke.

  “It takes the edge off,” he says.

  At the pass, our fingers brush together briefly. Cool excitement licks at scorching nervousness, but my hand still trembles as I lift nicotine and ash to my mouth and inhale. My head changes immediately—dizzy-like and how-am-I-supposed-to-make-it-through-the-next-four-years-like. My lungs burn, constricting against the intruding smoke. I hold it in for as long as I can, mean dogging the monstrosity that is ULCA and my foreseeable future, terrified to step into the next part of my life alone.

  Cement stairs leading to the massive building blur as my eyes start to water, and with the sound of laughter from the cigarette giver beside me, I ugly cough poison out of my lungs. He exhaled ribbons, graceful and pretty; I spit out exhaust, suffocating and offensive.

  “Take it easy,” my companion says, chuckling and patting my back. “Don’t die on your first day of college.”

  “It’d be a mercy,” I say between hacks, doubling over, unashamed despite the hollow sound of him beating on my spine.

  He stops trying to save my life when I finally take a full breath and stand straight, wiping smeared mascara from under my lower lashes. The culprit of my near-demise hangs from the corner of his mouth, framed by the most arrogant smirk I’ve ever seen, belonging to the smuggest face I’ve ever laid eyes on. Even under the flat bill of his hat, his green eyes glimmer like jewels … like emeralds.

  This guy is cute, and he knows it.

  “Teller Reddy. Pre-med,” he introduces himself. The cigarette between his lips bounces with each syllable, and his smirk somehow becomes smirkier.

  I accept his handshake. “Gabriella Mason, but everyone calls me Ella. And I don’t know what I am yet.”

  Temporarily overlooked because of the choking and gasping for oxygen, fear slides back in, breakdancing on my nerves. I feel the color drain from my face as my palpitating heart sucks blood away from the rest of my body, greedy and gargling. Reaching out for another puff of nicotine isn’t out of the question. Like I said, death would be a mercy.

  Future M.D., Teller Reddy, takes one last drag from his habit before snubbing it beneath his shoe. The smile on his lips softens with his eyes as he witnesses my misery. He takes my hands in his—me, a total stranger on the brink of a panic attack—and rubs his thumbs over the tops of my knuckles before gently shaking my wrists.

  “Where are you from, Ella?” he asks. His eyes don’t waver from mine.

  “St. Helena. Northern California,” I answer.

  “What brought you here?” His strong fingers knead my forearms, easing tension from my tight muscles better than tobacco.

  “My dad died two years ago, so I was able to get all this money for college. I applied to a few different colleges, but this place seemed cool. So we moved here.”

  Teller laughs and asks, “Who’s we?”

  “My brother Emerson and I. He raised me after my dad passed, and my mom…” There’s no need to spill the whole sob story. I pull my hands from his and run my fingers through my long hair. “I … I’ve never had to do anything alone.”

  “At least you want to be here,” he replies.

  “Pre-med? You better want to be here with a major like that.” I scoff, shyly dropping my eyes to the cement under our feet.

  The tattoos covering his hands continue up his forearms, in blacks and grays and reds. Whispers of more ink peek out from under the neck of his shirt, and I can only guess he has them on his back and chest. He’s tall, lean, and long, and unlike any doctor I’ve ever seen in my life.

  “Yeah, well, my dad’s still alive, but he’s a dick,” Teller replies, patting his pockets to find his pack of smokes. He sticks another cig between his lips but doesn’t light it. “This is his dream, not mine.”

  “Can you do something else?”

  “No,” he replies quickly.

  “You don’t like it a little?” I ask.

  He drops the Zippo without lighting his smoke and smiles. “Maybe a little, but don’t tell my pops. I need him to keep believing he’s ruined my life.”

  I laugh out loud, dropping my head back. Bright sunlight shines in my eyes, turning everything red behind my closed lids. For the first time since Emerson dropped me off curbside to fend for myself, I feel the mid-September sun warm my face and bare arms, and a spark of hope flickers from deep within.

  Diversity’s everywhere. People in every shape and color, as afraid as I am, here for the same reasons as me. Girls with pink hair, boys already showing signs of male pattern baldness … short, tall, fat, skinny; b
lack-skinned, white-skinned, brown-skinned.

  Smoking future doctors covered in tattoos.

  I needed out of the small town I came from, away from the ghosts of my parents and the shit I’ve been through since they’ve been gone. A clean slate is exactly what I asked for, and exactly what I’ve been given.

  A new beginning in a new place will be the answer to all my problems.

  That’s how life works.

  “No smoking on campus, asshole,” a guy with oily black hair, dressed in dark clothing, mumbles as he passes, surly on his way to class.

  Teller throws his hands up, cigarette narrowly hanging from his lips. “It’s not lit.”

  “Fuck you.” Guy liner turns around and flips us the bird before continuing on his way.

  Sticking the Marlboro behind his ear for later, Teller tightens his black backpack over his shoulders and turns to me. “Where are you headed?”

  “Biology,” I say, pulling the printout of my schedule from my back pocket and handing it over.

  “That’s on my way. I’ll walk you.” He hands my schedule back and waits expectantly, smirking and patient while I ready myself.

  I straighten my hair and take a deep breath before stepping forward, taking the plunge.

  He’s standing against the wall with his hands in his pockets after class, face shadowed by his hat, with the same cigarette still at his ear. I hesitate just inside the door, afraid he’s not waiting for me, but I’m the last one to leave because I dropped my pencil box from my desk and fifty unsharpened, yellow number twos scattered everywhere.

  I only recovered forty-three.

  “Everything okay?” Teller asks, straightening up as I appear before him.

  “I’ll eventually get the hang of it.” My cheeks still burn with embarrassment.

  “Where to next?” he asks with a grin. Not the jerky smirk he showed me before, but a real smile that lightens his face and animates his already glowing eyes.

  “Economics.” I blow my bangs out of my face.

  My chaperone steps to the side and allows me to pass first, bowing his head as I do. With my very first class of my very first year of college officially complete, anxiety that’s overwhelmed since my brother and I moved away from home six weeks ago settles to a low hum. I take a deep breath as Teller’s hand rests on my lower back, guiding me through a sea of students. He smells like a kaleidoscope of nicotine, Irish Spring soap, and ginger—a scent so comforting the hum of unease diminishes to an afterthought.

  At the pitter-patter of my heart, I inhale once more and ask, “Don’t you have friends?”

  He laughs lightly, moving beside me as the walkway clears, and answers in a joking tone, “I have so many friends.”

  “I only meant, why are you with me and not your people?”

  “My sister and her boyfriend don’t have classes today, and I don’t care about anyone else enough to keep tabs on their whereabouts.” Teller takes his hat off, revealing a head full of flattened hair before pushing it back on. “Besides, you came up to me first.”

  Playfully, I shove him. He stumbles onto the lawn. “Jerk.”

  “Besides,” he says, speed walking back to my side, “we’re friends now.”

  “We don’t even know each other,” I say, not sure where I’m going, but following the sidewalk with sway in my hips and my head held high, not to look like a lost idiot. Campus is bigger than my hometown.

  “Sure we do.”

  “How old am I?” I ask.

  “Nineteen,” he answers quickly.

  “Wrong,” I say. “Eighteen.”

  “I’m twenty, so we’re practically the same age.” Teller emphasizes his point with a lazy shrug.

  “What if I don’t want to be friends?” I glance at him through dark stands of my hair that are blown across my face.

  “You picked me! I was minding my own business when you intruded on my pondering self-doubt. You need me. I’m your only friend.”

  “Everyone in my biology class wanted to know me,” I say confidently but not truthfully. I was nothing more than another face in the room. Our instructor didn’t even look in my direction.

  “Was that before or after you dropped your stuff and everyone stole your pencils?” He laughs.

  “You saw that?” My cheeks redden, and the tips of my ears burn.

  “Yeah, I saw that.” Teller loosely drapes his arm across my shoulders, keeping enough space between us to make me feel comfortable. He turns us around, back in the direction we came from.

  “Were you not taught about personal space as a child?” I ask, grateful he seems to know where we’re going.

  “Nope.”

  “I’m not fucking you,” I say, turning my head toward him purposely to inhale his delicious scent. It softens my heart and invites him totally into my life. Everything about Teller Reddy—the curve of his lips, the glow in his eyes, the rumble of his laugh deep within his chest—soothes me.

  “You’d be so lucky, new girl.”

  The boy is a charmer, and he waits on me after class for the rest of the day, greeting me with his sly smile and a promise of direction until I get to know my way around. The next day he comes bearing gifts—a campus map, pencils, and new friends.

  “Ella, this is my sister Maby and her boyfriend Husher,” Teller introduces me to a short blonde girl with eyes the same shade as his, and her shy-guy, who addresses me with a shrug and a wave. Charmer then points to an extremely beautiful sandy-haired, bronze-skinned stunner standing behind Maby. “And that’s Nicolette, but ignore her. She’s a bitch.”

  “Go fuck yourself, Tell.” Nicolette pushes past Teller to stop in front of me before she continues by.

  “Do yourself a favor and run as far away from him as you can. He will eat you alive.”

  “Come on, Nic. Don’t scare the poor girl off,” Maby pleads as she storms by. “He didn’t mean it. “

  “The fuck I didn’t,” smugness replies, standing so close the heat from his body warms mine. “She’s just mad I wouldn’t eat her.”

  “You’re foul.” His sister scoffs, and her boyfriend chuckles.

  Nicolette keeps walking, and I don’t see her again until the next day when my brother arrives to pick me up from school. A head taller and twenty pounds heavier than my tattooed escort, Emerson only has eyes for her and apprehension for Teller. Future physician Reddy is calm under Em’s cynical father-like glare, pre-warned about his protective manner beforehand.

  But it turns out Nicolette isn’t the only one capable of casting a spell on my brother. After Em and Teller share hard looks of understanding, complete with arched eyebrows, curt nods, and a fist bump, conversation appropriately switches to the red 1965 Fastback my brother inherited after our father passed.

  “It needs some work but runs like a beast,” Emerson says, lifting the rickety hood. Dust-like rust sprinkles over the engine, layering it in an orange-red powder.

  “I know a guy who can hook you up with a deal,” Teller says, officially winning Emerson over. By the end of the discussion, they’ve exchanged phone numbers and made plans to get together sometime during the weekend for brews and car talk.

  And this is how Teller ends up at our apartment Saturday night with a six-pack and Nicolette. I answer the door with the bowl of cereal I just poured, ice-cold milk dripping over the sides as I rock back, surprised by our guests’ arrival. My three-days-dirty hair is tied in a knot on top of my head, shampoo thirsty and tangled. For my brother’s sake, I’m wearing a bra under an old band tee, threadbare and stretched around the neck.

  “Nice to see you dressed for the occasion.” The intruder cracks a half-smile, taking a step toward me … coming closer.

  He’s gorgeous magnified, killing me as he steps by, brushing his warm lips across my cheek. I smell alcohol on his breath, warm and stinging, mixing with the overwhelming scent of soap and ginger that’s naturally Teller. His cheeks are flushed and his eyes glossy, drunk but steady on his feet and confident.
/>   “Don’t worry,” Nicolette utters. She steps past me, flipping her hair in my face, and unknowingly, into my bowl. “I drove.”

  “I wasn’t worried,” I reply, kicking the door closed. “I’m not his mommy.”

  “Not yet,” Teller says, cracking open a beer and handing it to me as I drop wasted marshmallow charms into the kitchen sink. He winks and pulls out of reach when I motion for it. “You live in Venice Beach, and it’s only nine o’clock. Why the fuck are you in pajamas?”

  “We live in Venice because the rent’s cheap.” I cross my arms over my chest. Not because I’m angry, but because I think my shirt might be see-through.

  “The rent is not cheap!” Teller laughs, giving me the beer. Our fingers touch again, and again, I’m a little out of breath.

  “It’s not Beverly Hills expensive,” I say accusingly. “We all don’t have millionaire parents who can afford to live in gated communities next to famous actors and pop stars.”

  “My parents live in Beverly Hills. I just stay there.” He narrows his eyes, but the smirk curving his lips gives his arrogance away.

  “Whatever.” I scoff, taking a swig of the bitter golden liquid. “Richie Rich.”

  While Teller and I bicker about outrageous rent in Los Angeles and money that doesn’t belong to him, but only to his pharmaceutical bigwig father, my brother emerges from his room, having been the one to invite the pain in my ass over.

  Nicolette pushes him back in and slams the cheap hollow wood door closed, leaving nothing but the scent of floral perfume and glitter in her wake.

  “When did that happen?” I ask, pointing the neck of my bottle in the direction of Emerson’s room. “They met two days ago.”

  “The fuck if I know, but it’s why I brought her over.” Teller pulls a fifth of whiskey from his back pocket and places it on the counter between us.

  My throat catches fire looking at it.

  “Get dressed,” handsome and lush says. “I want to take you somewhere.”

  Twenty minutes later, my hair is powdery with dry shampoo, and I manage to get a curl on the ends and braid my bangs out of my eyes. Teller stops me before I bother to put any makeup on.