Chapter 3 #2
“I actually have to go because the man in my life just got here,” I say, throwing the blanket from my lap as Cole approaches onto the porch.
What am I saying? This is insane. This can’t be what Laney meant.
“Ugh,” Hannah says. “I’m so happy for you but also so mad you’re leaving me on that cliffhanger. But I guess I’ll get to see him in two days, right? Ah! This is turning out perfectly after all! Do you want to tell Megan, or should I?”
“You can.” I’m not prepared just yet to dig my heels into the lie I just told.
Hannah and I hang up just as Cole knocks. I’d planned to change out of my scrubs before he got here, but he’s a bit early, and I kind of forgot he was coming over amidst the chaos of finding out Brady will be joining the best part of my holidays.
I take in a big breath and open the door.
As a dental hygienist, fixation on people’s smiles is a job hazard. I see amazing smiles, totally average ones, and truly disturbing ones.
Cole Bradley has a nice smile. Like, really nice.
I’d work on that mouth any day.
Professionally.
“Hey again.” He’s wearing an unbuttoned flannel shirt with a white tee beneath. The sleeves are rolled up to just below the elbows, a chalky substance streaked along sinewy forearms.
“Hey again,” I echo, moving aside to let him in.
There’s no way in Hades I’m asking this man to come with me. Not with that jawline. Not with those forearms.
Would I be delighted to show up with him on my arm and see the look on Brady’s face?
700%.
But that doesn’t mean I have the chutzpah to make that type of request of a near-stranger who could easily be the love child of Adonis and Aphrodite.
Maybe I can still salvage something out of my lie, though. Hey! My made-up boyfriend could fall down the mountain! He’s so klutzy.
No, adventurous! An adrenaline junkie. I’d be a jerk not to stay with him in his time of pain, which would, sadly, require me to miss the cabin getaway.
I shut the door behind Cole, setting aside the problem of how to handle the Christmas cabin mess later.
Cole puts out a hand, revealing a rubbery, gray circle in his palm. “Your seal.”
“Oh, right! Thank you so much.” I take it and rub it absently between my fingers, my mind still running away with my idea. “You really didn’t have to do that.”
He just smiles. Again, excellent dentition.
It’s not a perfect smile, but perfect smiles are boring.
His is as much about the vibe behind the smile as it is about the teeth.
“I have more random parts like that seal than I know what to do with. I’m happy to install it for you if you want.
Consider it my apology for clogging up your mailbox. ”
“Honestly? The mailbox would be depressingly empty otherwise. You don’t need to fix the sink.”
He shrugs. “It’ll just take a few minutes, and then you don’t have to pay a repair guy. I actually meant to fix it before the sale closed. Lemme just grab my toolbox from the car.”
I should say no, but my wallet is screaming at me to take him up on his offer. “Will it really just take a few minutes?”
He smiles, then turns back the way he came.
I let out a big breath as I watch him jog back to his car and open his trunk.
Since he left the other night, I’ve gone through my house a bit differently, like knowing who lived here before me has changed the way I look at things.
I find myself wondering whether Cole ever used the bay window seat and how he arranged the bedroom furniture.
My phone buzzes.
Hannah
Is it too much to ask for a picture of him? Even a blurry one will do. Also, a name. And a Social Security number if you have it.
I shove my phone into my pocket as Cole jogs back up to me with his toolbox in hand.
I shut the door behind him, and he leads the way to the kitchen. He’s walked these hallways way more times than I have. It’ll take me a long time to know this house the way he does.
“I’m surprised you let me come back given what I roped you into last time,” he says as he kneels on the floor and opens the cabinet.
I set the seal on the counter behind me and watch him get to work. The puzzle pieces of what I know of Cole are starting to make me think he works or at least moonlights in the home improvement sphere.
“It was no big deal,” I say.
He chuckles and sets a couple of parts on the counter, then grabs a cloth from the toolbox and disappears under the cabinet. “Another day, another fake boyfriend, huh?”
“This may shock you, but you’re actually my very first fake boyfriend. Ex-fake boyfriend, I guess.” I’m kind of kicking myself for breaking up with him over Reese’s Pieces.
“You need to get out more.” He flashes me a teasing grin from the dim under-cabinet. “You sure handled it like someone who’s had a lot of practice.”
I take a little bow, even though I have no idea if that’s a compliment. A lot of practice with fake boyfriends doesn’t sound like one.
“I must have the genes for it.” My heart double-beats a few times in a row as he reemerges and sets the cloth aside. “In fact, I might’ve turned you back into my fake boyfriend again just a few minutes ago.”
His gaze darts to mine, intrigue glinting in his blue eyes. “Did you, now? I feel like I deserve some details.”
I smile through clenched teeth. “It was dumb. Really dumb. And spontaneous. Which usually go hand in hand for me.”
His mouth tugs up at one side. “Now I really need details.”
“And if I’m too humiliated to give them?”
He looks at me for a second, amused. “You think my situation wasn’t humiliating?”
I snort. “What? That a girl was so obsessed with you, she tried to stalk you to”—I do air quotes—“return your sweatshirt? Yes, Cole. How very humiliating for you.”
His head falls back in a laugh that helps me understand on some level why Bree was desperate enough to do what she did. He grabs the seal, then disappears again. “That’s one way to put it.”
I shoot him a look, even though he can’t see me. “Is there another way to put it?”
“Yeah.” His back is to me as he works at putting the things back together.
He isn’t a bodybuilder, but his back is broad and his muscles developed enough that I can see them shifting and flexing beneath both of his shirts.
“A guy thought he could go out with someone with bedroom eyes and zero chill and still land it as a casual thing, so he had to rope a beautiful, innocent woman into fixing his cocky mistake.”
I studiously ignore his descriptors, even though they give my heart a little electric shock. “Nice try. Still not humiliating.”
“Yours probably isn’t either. Try me.”
I watch him for a few seconds, deciding whether my pride can withstand what he’s asking me to reveal.
Who am I kidding? What pride?
“I dated a guy for a couple months during the summer—Brady. He broke things off.”
“Idiot.”
I suppress a smile. “That’s not the humiliating part.”
“Not for you.”
“Oh, stop,” I say, dead-pan. “Anyway, he’s dating one of my close friends now.”
Cole pauses, then emerges from the cabinet to look at me.
“Still not the most humiliating part.” Humiliating enough, though.
That’s for sure. “My three friends and I do this annual Christmas cabin party in Snoqualmie. We’ve done it for years.
This year, two of them are bringing their significant others—a husband and a long-time boyfriend.
Anyway, just as you were arriving, I found out Megan is also bringing Brady. ”
One of Cole’s brows lifts.
I offer a grimacing smile. “Rather than show up by myself to spend the weekend watching the guy who dumped me drool all over my friend, I blurted out that I was bringing someone too.”
Cole’s lips steal upward at one edge. He knows what comes next.
I shrug. “You happened to be pulling in at that moment.”
He pushes himself up and dusts off his hands. “So, that’s your humiliating story?”
“That’s my humiliating story.” The abridged version, at least.
He wipes his hands on the cloth he set on the counter, a little smile building on his lips. He takes a step toward me, and my nerve endings pulse. “I had a feeling it would come to this, Reese’s Pieces.”
“Come to what?”
“You begging for me back.”