Chapter 23
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
NATALIE
Not long ago, I would have scoffed at the notion that I’d soon find Cole Sinclair more appealing than Caden, or that the heating pad, which always soothed me, would lose its top spot in my personal Never Lets Me Down Hall of Fame.
No, scratch that. I wouldn’t have just scoffed at the notion.
I would have told whoever fabricated such a story that they sat on a throne of lies and smelled like beef and cheese.
Today, however, I can say with certainty that my love for my heating pad has been eclipsed by something grander.
The heavy weight lying on me has taken its place.
It’s bigger, more comforting, and just as hot.
All hail the weighted, heated blanket.
It turns out Cole didn’t have a body he needed to bury in his duffel bag. He was hiding the greatest gift anyone has ever given me.
When I laid down on the mattress and burrowed under the blanket, my mind quieted for the first time in years, like the blanket hugged my anxiety away. Soon after, though, Cole flipped a switch on the blanket. Heat coursed through the coils and soaked in my bones, and my mind promptly exploded.
My entire body and soul are happy. On the first full day of my period, who ever heard of such witchcraft?
I’d argue there are parts of me that are too happy lying in the crook of Cole’s outstretched arm. Luckily, the blanket has killed my combative spirit, so I won’t argue that.
On the TV, snow falls around Bridget Jones in her massive undies as we end our private viewing of Bridget Jones’s Diary.
Outside, frozen rain patters against our windowpanes, distorting the faint midday sun into fractals of light. Rainbows dance on the ceiling and surrounding walls.
Having taken my painkillers a little over an hour ago, sleep is close, but this moment, this feeling is too perfect to let my eyelids close—this won’t be forever. This may only be for tonight.
I curl further into Cole, resting my hand on his chest. He brushes some hair out of my face, delicately running his finger along my cheek.
“Best birthday gift ever,” I hum.
“Are you talking about me or the blanket?”
I scoff. “The blanket, obviously—like you could lie on me and keep me this warm and pain free.”
He snorts. “I can do so much more than that stuffed thing.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re being overly confident. This is the best thing that will ever lay on top of me.”
“Well, now I feel compelled to prove you wrong.” He tries to move, but I don’t budge, dead weighting on top of him.
Suddenly, his fingers pry open my arms and tickle my armpits. I screech with surprise. “Cole, no! I’m super ticklish! Please!” I squirm, laughter ringing out through the living room. He lands on top of me and pins my arms over my head.
All oxygen stores in my body consequently empty as his essence floods my system and pulses through me.
He glances down at me. Faint lines of mirth edge the corners of his eyes.
Butterflies explode in the pit of my stomach. You love him. They seem to say as they flutter about.
Annoying, nasty little things.
It’s a sensation, a whisper in the back of mind, that I’ve chosen to ignore because I can’t trust myself.
Am I falling in love? Or do I love the idea that someone has been so nice to me?
I thought I loved Caden, but why? It all had to do with the meet-cute heroics I attributed to him, right?
Well, what if I’m just re-assigning my feelings now that I know who really was there that day?
A few days ago I hated Cole with every fiber of my being. The same fibers that are now screaming to intertwine with his, to become part of the same fabric, as if we were cut from the same cloth and we need to be woven back together as part of the world’s tapestry.
I thought Cole hated me too. Now, he’s cupping my face and staring at me like I am the tapestry—his entire universe, all the cosmos and the stars bound together, set below him.
Slowly, he trails a finger down my face, tracing my jawline, before coming to a rest on a freckle that sits just below my earlobe. “I always feel like I have your freckles mapped out, but then I see one I never noticed, and it becomes my new favorite.”
A frantic rhythm hammers against my ribs. With a desperate thump-thump-thumping, my heart thrashes against its cage, desperate to be free and return to its rightful owner. “You’ve mapped my freckles?”
“Just the ones I can see,” he says, raking a slow gaze down my face, towards my collarbone, down past where the collar of my shirt starts.
“If you let go of my hands, I could show you some more.”
Cole nods like a man possessed and releases my hands with widened eyes.
I take my chance. “Sucker!” I yell before going straight for his armpits. He clamps down my fingers and we flip over on the mattress. With an oomph, I fall on his chest.
Inches from the one thing I haven’t stopped thinking about in days—his lips.
“I should have known you’d be a dirty player,” Cole says, his breath ragged and his chest heaving. “Exploiting a man’s interest in your freckles for personal gain. That’s low even for you.”
I blush, because I’ve always been self-conscience about my freckles. Dillon used to comment when I’d plaster on coverup how much better I looked without them, and well, I guess I just took everything he said as gospel for way too long.
“What’s that blush for, sugarplum?” Cole asks, his thumb once again softly grazing my cheek.
“You,” I say. Because it’s more than the freckles, it’s how he’s looking at me too.
Everything I think I’m feeling—all the intense sensations, the need to be closer to him at all times, even when we’re touching.
They’re all mirrored in Cole’s stare, and it’s unfair to him for me to move forward without fully understanding my own feelings. “What happens when you leave?”
“Whatever you want,” he whispers.
“What if I don’t know what I want?”
“Then it’s a good thing we have a week to figure it out.” He smiles, like he knows how this ends already, like he wrote the book and I’m the one reading it—and he can’t wait until I get to the happy ending.