Chapter 11
eleven
Cole
A mug in my hand, I pause at the back door, looking through the glass pane.
Reese is curled up under a blanket on the deck couch. She holds her cup of cocoa with hands hidden by the sleeves of my gray sweatshirt. The rim of the mug is pressed against her mouth like she’s inhaling the steam while she looks up at the sky, a fire burning in the grate in front of her.
It’s wild what different emotions the sight of Reese in my sweater elicits compared to when Bree wore it. It’s just a sweater, but it’s my sweater, and it’s like my brain is interpreting Reese being in it the same way. Mine.
Everyone else is inside watching a movie. I thought Reese would want to join them, but once she got a peek at the starry skies, she put on her newly clean pair of wool socks and asked if I wanted to have hot chocolate on the back deck.
I’ve never said yes to anything so quickly.
She must sense my eyes on her because she looks over and smiles.
It’s the sort of half-shy smile that’s a callback to earlier, and I feel it in my chest.
She kissed me out there. With no one to fool and nothing to prove. She kissed me like she wanted me, and I’m still riding the high from that feeling.
I open the door and step into the biting air.
She makes room next to her, and I sit down, slinging my arm over the back of the couch.
She resituates, snuggling into the place below my arm in a way that makes me almost ache with the feeling of well-being.
The stars are bright against the blanket of inky sky. It’s free of clouds in the way only a clear, frigid night can be. Too frigid to melt the ice so we can go home.
“Why’d you sell the house?” Reese asks.
I blink at the sudden, unexpected question. “Do you wish I hadn’t?”
“Of course not. I’m obsessed with it. I just wondered….It seems like such a perfect house.”
Pleasure flushes through me. “Thanks.”
There’s silence after. She’s still waiting for a response to her question.
“I just…felt like it was time for something new.”
She turns her mug in her hand absently. “Because you get bored of things quickly?”
My gaze flicks to her, trying to discern why she would say something like that. “It’s not that. I didn’t build that house for me. I built it for a family.” I take a sip of my cocoa, trying not to picture Reese there with a husband and kids.
She looks up at me. “You don’t want a family?”
My chest clenches, but I force a smile. “Life hasn’t really sold me on the concept.” And yet somehow, as I look down at her, I still want it.
Her eyes scan mine like she’s waiting for me to expound, and my muscles tense.
“How so?” she finally asks.
I want to tell her, to explain why I want nothing more than a family of my own to shake the walls I built with their laughter, to play catch with on the lawn I helped install, but that I’m too scared to let myself hope for that.
It would mean talking about my mom, though, and I never talk about her. It just hurts too much.
Reese’s gaze turns forward. “Families are complicated.” She lets out a soft sigh, then takes a sip of cocoa and looks up at the sky.
I think of what she said about her parents and how they never come to see her. I think of how Brady broke up with her and she wasn’t expecting it. Maybe she understands not being wanted more than I think.
“For what it’s worth,” she says, shifting her body so her back rests against my chest, “you’d make a great dad.”
My throat thickens, and I try to swallow the feeling down, but it persists.
I always felt like I grew up with the best dad on earth. He worked hard, but he always made time to play with me, come to my games, and take me out for Slurpees. He was fun and kind and just…good.
Then my mom left, and it rocked my world. All of our worlds. If she could leave her own kids and the perfect husband, no family was safe.
I want to get it out—to let it out. I want to tell Reese everything. About my mom, about my dad, about how I feel for her.
Instead, I rest my mouth against her hair and inhale, hoping it’ll calm this feeling until it goes away.
“Did you bring me what you promised?” Reese asks suddenly.
I smile. “I did better than that.” I reach into the pockets of my hoodie, and Reese sits up to get out of the way.
I pull out a handful and unfurl my fingers. An assortment of Reese’s candy sits in my palm. “What do you say? Should we settle the debate once and for all?”
“There’s no debate, Cole.” She takes a Reese’s tree from my hand, leaving the other things there.
“No no no.” I snatch the tree right back. “We’re doing a taste test.”
She shoots me a flat look, but it’s ruined by the smile taking over. “Fine.”
We start with Reese’s Pieces, and she frowns and shakes her head as she chews them.
“The ratio is all wrong. These don’t even have chocolate in them, Cole.
That’s the Reese’s promise—chocolate and peanut butter—and these are a blatant violation.
They’re failed Peanut Butter M the next morning, she was gone. When my dad sat my sister and me down to tell us she wasn’t coming back, I didn’t believe him.
It made no sense, you know? My dad always said we had the greatest family in the world. Why would she leave that?”
It goes quiet, and Reese’s fingers thread through mine.
“But she did leave,” I continue. “She left my dad, who’s the best man I know, and she left my sister and me—the kids she made. We just…weren’t enough for her anymore, I guess. She didn’t want us.”
Reese still doesn’t say anything, but after a million seconds slip by, she moves Biscuit aside and scoots toward me. She drapes her arm over me and rests her head on the soft spot between my chest and my shoulder.
I swallow and put a hand on her arm. It’s as warm as the message it sends: I want you.
Her fingertips trace a soft pattern on my chest, and I close my eyes, then turn my head so my lips just graze her hair.
“Your mom’s choice says nothing about you,” she finally says in a soft voice, “and everything about her.”
My throat thickens. Reese’s head is on my chest, but the weight on it feels lighter than it has in a long time.
As a kid, I worried I’d done something wrong to make my mom leave—maybe I didn’t clean my room well enough, or maybe I’d complained about the onions in my spaghetti one too many times. I’ve known for a while now that it must’ve been more complicated than that.
But knowing something doesn’t always mean believing it.
“Reese?”
“Hm?”
“I know it’s not my business,” I say, “but I think you should tell Megan.”
Her hand stops tracing shapes.
“Tell her how you feel,” I say.
She sighs softly. “All that would do is make her feel bad—and she already does.”
“She feels bad because she knows what she did was messed up. She wasn’t being a good friend to you.”
“I told her she could date him, Cole. In fact, I insisted.”
“Did you mean it?”
“Yeah.”
It’s not convincing, and she knows it.
“I wanted to mean it. It felt petty to deny her a chance at love.”
“Look, Reese. I understand you wanna keep the peace, but you deserve to be heard. I wish I had the chance to tell my mom what it did to me and my dad and my sister when she left. How I can’t even go on three dates because I’m scared to be left again and feel like I did.
Or that I had to sell the house I built because it was making me want to start a family.
It’s not about wanting Megan to feel bad.
Right now both of you probably feel bad, and the only way to fix that is with honesty. ”
There’s silence for a few seconds.
“But what if it ruins our friendship?” Reese asks quietly. “What if it can’t withstand the truth?”
I take in a big breath. “Then maybe the friendship has run its course. But that’s not your fault. Strong relationships don’t just withstand the truth. They require it.”
Her fingers start to trace again, more slow and thoughtful this time. “You’re probably right.”
“Of course I am,” I say, letting her hair tickle my smiling lips.
The tracing on my chest gets less defined, and a few minutes later, her breathing deepens.
I stare at the ceiling.
I’m a complete hypocrite. I’m preaching to Reese about speaking the truth when I’m keeping the biggest secret of all.
I’m in love with her.