(song: "Sweater Weather" - Max & Alyson Stoner Cover)

"I knew it, I knew it!" Virginia gloated as she nudged Steve's arm. "Didn't I tell you, babe? Remember the other day I told you something was off about Gardner, right?"

"Yeah, you did," Steve agreed more to shut her up than anything else. He was too busy being distracted by a game on his phone.

Natalie sat in an armchair opposite the couch where Virginia and Steve laid together. The two of them were supposed to have been enjoying their date night in Steve's new apartment, but Virginia refused to let Natalie spend the evening alone. Somehow, in Virginia's mixed-up mind, being a third wheel was better than being home alone.

"But more happened than just finding out Gardner's sexuality," Natalie felt her face instantly turn crimson. "I may have made out with Kaden and stayed over at his house—and no we did not have sex."

Virginia practically shoved Steve away from her. She edged closer to Natalie with the widest smile spread across her pretty lips.

"I love it!" Virginia sighed. "It's all so wonderfully dramatic. I used to think my on-and-off-again relationship with Steve was drama, but yours tops mine. Not bad for a virgin."

Steve groaned and secretly must have wished for the ability to teleport himself to anywhere except where he was.

Natalie covered her face with both hands and let her hair form a curtain over them. "But I feel so horribly inadequate! I'm nineteen now and I've never dated anyone before. Most people my age have had at least one relationship if not several dating experiences. I don't know how you tell if a guy wants to officially be your boyfriend or not. I don't know what Kaden really wants. You saw his ex, she was gorgeous and they lived together."

"You just casually date for a while, don't rush into a relationship so fast. Steve and I made that mistake and we ended up breaking up immediately. I mean, I know we're together now, but you get what I'm trying to say," Virginia rambled.

"He still keeps all of her things in his room you know. . ." Natalie let her voice trail off.

"Oh," Virginia said, but with a tone that Natalie was all too familiar with.

"What? I know that 'oh' sound, Virginia. Tell me!"

"Well. . .that means that they probably broke up pretty recently, so you're the rebound," Virginia spoke uncomfortably. She leaned back into Steve and tried to delicately form her explanation.

"See, when a person has been in an intense and intimate relationship and it just ends, it's like being cut off from a drug. They instantly want that intimacy back and to feel loved and cared for, so they rush into another relationship. That's called a rebound. When they realize that you can't replace one person with another they end the rebound and are able to find a healthier and slower relationship with someone else. The rebound person is a temporary bump in the road."

Steve raised his hand. "We could also argue that Kaden is her rebound. From years of frustration for being set on a guy who never reciprocated feelings this time she's running at full speed with Kaden."

Virginia pursed her lips and looked at the ceiling before she nodded her agreement. "The point is, you should be very careful about throwing your heart into this situation too quickly. Just keep things fun and not serious. You both are very different and he's just one call away from going back to his ex."

"Okay, so I officially hate both of you," Natalie mumbled disdainfully.

Virginia tried to look sympathetic. "Look, this is just some advice from an experienced serial dater, okay?"

"Yeah, I know you're just trying to help." Natalie wanted an excuse to leave. Any excuse would work.

She lifted up her phone and stared at her very short contact list. Normally, she'd have contacted Gardner, but now there was only one person she wanted to reach out to.

[Me: Are you busy? Because if you are busy I can message you another time.]

Natalie winced. She didn't know how to talk to guys at all.

[Me: If you are not busy, but just wanting to have time to yourself to maybe play games or whatever, that's fine too.]

No, no, no, it was just getting worse! She had to fix it!

[Me: Not that I'm implying that you are lazy or anything by that.]

[Me: And I'm going to bury myself in a hole and shut up now.]

[Kaden: I want to see you.]

Natalie stared at the message on the screen. Her heart felt like it'd taken a swan dive into her stomach. She wanted to see him too—badly.

She texted him Steve's address and Kaden responded by saying he'd be over to pick her up in twenty minutes.

That only gave her more butterflies. Everything was so new to her, every gesture of his felt special instead of normal. God, she felt like such an idiot for being so giddy.

"I have to go, Kaden is coming to get me," Natalie informed them.

Virginia looked a little disappointed with Natalie's departure, Steve—on the other hand—looked excited to salvage their date night.

"Yeah! Go ahead and have a great time! If you two are looking for something to do, Ashlynn's party is in an hour." Steve quickly offered.

"Sure, maybe—could be fun right?" Natalie was trying to seem more open to spontaneous plans.

"Just remember everything I said!" Virginia called out.

No way, that was exactly what Natalie didn't want to do. She wanted to forget and move past it as quickly as humanly possible!

Natalie nodded a bit and forced a little curve in her mouth that could kind of pass as a smile. She then waved her goodbyes and decided it was better to wait outside. She adored Virginia, but it felt frustrating for her to be so inexperienced in dating, but so advanced in everything related to education.

It wasn't long before Kaden pulled up in front of the complex in a nice, heated car. Natalie slipped into the passengers' seat and turned to look at him.

Kaden had his hair up in a bun and chewed on a long string of stretched red candy. His neck was completely buried in the hand-knit scarf Natalie had become familiar with him wearing.

She reached out and carefully tried to remove the candy from between Kaden's lips. "You shouldn't eat red candy, it has Red40 dye, which can be bad for your system."

He snatched the candy back from her and smiled like a charming thief. He loomed over her in a way that made her skin tingle and her pulse race.

"Just admit that you wanted to take that piece of candy from my mouth because you wanted my lips to be free to kiss you."

She couldn't admit or deny anything, all she could do was stare at him.

Kaden pressed his hand against the side of her face and tenderly pulled her forward to press his candy-stained mouth against hers. As they deepened the kiss Natalie could taste the strawberry flavor that still lingered on his tongue.

The world around her melted away and all that seemed to exist was Kaden's kiss against the hot blasts of air from the car's heating system.

When she could finally come up for air she spoke. "Ashlynn is having a party. I thought maybe we could go. I don't really go to parties because of Gardner not liking them. I don't even know if I'm the fun party-going type of gal."

Why, oh why did she ramble so much? Who even says 'gal' anymore?

"We can go under one condition," Kaden withdrew back into the driver's seat. "You get through the entire night without mentioning my cousins' name."

"Deal."

Natalie didn't even need to give Kaden the directions. He seemed to already know exactly where to go. She wondered how Ashlynn and Kaden exactly knew one another, but didn't ask. They arrived in front of a home that was perfectly decorated with signs pointing out the direction of the party.

Ashlynn—from what Natalie knew of her—was the student-body-president type of person. She was much more uptight than Natalie could ever be. The key difference between them was that Ashlynn was also incredibly social. It was her goal to know everyone since she craved a life in politics and aimed to go working on campaigns the following year.

When the two of them arrived at Ashlynn's doorstep she opened the door to greet them and was completely shocked.

Natalie locked her fingers with Kaden to emphasize to Ashlynn that they were together.

"Well, this is unexpected!" Ashlynn said with a falsely plastered smile. "Nice to see you again, Kaden."

"Likewise, Ashlynn!" Kaden tugged on Natalie's hand to encourage her to follow him inside. "Lovely home, freezing my nuts off out here, mind if we come in so I can warm them by the fire?"

Ashlynn stood to the side so that they could easily get past her. Once inside it was easy to see that this wasn't a crazy college party like the movies often portrayed. There was music and lots of snacks, but it was mostly people drinking alcohol and casually talking.

Maybe everyone felt too cold to go crazy.

Kaden held the side of his head and groaned. "This party looks about as fun as getting a lobotomy."

His head lifted and every muscle in him suddenly just tensed. Natalie could feel the sudden change and it alarmed her.

"Is everything o—" Her words stopped.

She could see a girl with flaxen hair descending down the staircase. She was laughing, smiling, and carried herself with such grace and ease. She wore bohemian-looking winter wear and had charisma and confidence radiating from her.

It was the girl she saw the night Kaden asked her to trick his ex. Now she knew the name to match the beautiful face, it was Aubrey.

Kaden tried to smile and seem like he wasn't bothered by Aubrey's presence. "Awkward. I thought she'd be in New York by now. She got a modeling contract there."

Natalie nodded and pretended this information was new to her when she'd already heard it from Virginia.

Aubrey spotted them and made her way over with her head lowered. She must have been trying to test and see if it was okay for her to approach Kaden.

"Hey, Kaden," Aubrey greeted with her hands neatly held in front of her. "Hi, I'm Aubrey, I don't think we've met before."

"I'm Natalie—"

"Are we really doing this?" Kaden interrupted. His smile twitched just a little at the corner of his mouth with total irony. "We're just going to pretend everything is great between us and hang out? My ex and the girl I'm with, having a good time together. Don't you see how awkward that is?"

Aubrey sucked in her lip and looked either horribly embarrassed or uncomfortable. "I don't want things to be bad between us, Kaden. I just want us to get along. I am not going to New York, I decided to stay here."

"I don't care if you go or if you stay here. I don't mind you being in the same locations as me, but I'm not going to pretend like I can be your friend. You essentially ripped my heart out of my chest like some kind of prehistoric raptor, kicked it, peed on it, and set it on fire." Kaden kept his voice low and even-toned to avoid causing a scene.

Aubrey moved a little closer, but kept her voice just as quiet. "You never gave me a chance to explain anything, Kaden. I know that you and this girl aren't serious. I'm friends with Ashlynn, I know she is your cousin's girlfriend."

Kaden's nostrils flared, he breathed harder and tried his best to keep a lid on the anger he felt. "Really? You think we aren't serious? I'll prove to you how serious we are."

He tugged up his sweater and before Natalie could even process what was going on he lifted her sweater up too. He revealed their matching tattoos for anyone to see.

"If we weren't serious, then why would we have gotten these?" He added as his final blow to Aubrey's self-esteem.

Natalie felt totally humiliated!

She scrambled to try and pull down her sweater to keep any more people from seeing her bare flesh.

He had just made up a lie about how they ended up with the same tattoo. He turned what would have been an interesting story about how they met into a lie to make his ex jealous.

Maybe Virginia was right. Maybe she was his rebound.

She jerked away from him and stormed her way back outside into the cold. She felt his hand try to grasp her arm and she wasn't going to let him. The cold air hit her like being dumped into an icy shower. It was horrible, but it was better than where she stood only moments ago.

"Natalie, where are you going?" Kaden asked when he caught up to her.

Natalie tried to keep back any tears that threatened to enter her eyes.

"You're still in love with her, aren't you?" She shot at him.

"She cheated on me, Natalie. I'm not still in love with her."

She bobbed her head just a little bit and inhaled hard through her nose. "Then why do you still have all of her things in your room? You didn't even throw out her toothbrush, Kaden!"

Kaden didn't exactly have an answer for that. His eyes rolled up to look at the sky and Natalie knew he was just trying to think of an excuse that would sound plausible enough.

"You are. . .you still love Aubrey. You are mad with her because she broke your heart, but I saw the way you looked at her when she came down the stairs." Natalie lowered her chin and hoped her hair would hide the tear that managed to escape.

"Kaden, this is my first time really dating a guy who likes me. I don't want that first time to be a rebound relationship. I think we need to take a step back and just return to being friends."

"Natalie, that's not—"

"Listen, I jumped from being obsessed with one cousin to being obsessed with the other! You need time to get over Aubrey and I need time to focus on myself and not another guy again." Natalie turned her back to him.

She definitely didn't want Kaden to see how much she was shaking. She really didn't want to end whatever had blossomed between them, but she felt it was the right thing to do.

"Don't worry about getting me home, because I'm calling a ride. And don't call me, I'll contact you. . ."