Chapter 12
12
JO
I’m drowning again. Water surrounds me. I’m swimming in it, and I can’t catch a breath.
I flail my arms, thrashing my way to the top, where my head pops out of the water.
I’m in an indoor pool at a hotel, and my mom is sitting in a lounge chair, texting on her phone.
I look at Mom with yearning.
“Mom?” I rasp.
She waves me off. “Busy, baby.”
There’s a birthday gift by her feet.
It’s my birthday.
I still try to get Mom’s attention.
Mom doesn’t react. Desperation fills the room, and I splash her.
Mom gasps, instantly snapping at me, “Jesus, Mary. Don’t get my fucking phone wet.”
I know the answer before I even ask. “Play with me?”
Mom gives dream me a pitying look, and it shoots ice into my gut, but not like I know her next words will. “No.” Mom stands. “I hate you, Mary Jo. I wish I never had you.”
My world implodes in on me, and suddenly, I’m drowning again. I can’t breathe. I can’t fucking breathe.
I jerk awake, gasping. Something is squeezing my neck.
“Can’t breathe.” I claw at my throat.
“Hey,” a low male voice says.
I snap my gaze over. Cole is driving, and he reaches his hand and puts it on my thigh. I try to ground myself. I’m in the front seat, not in my nightmare.
“You’re okay. It’s okay, just focus on me.” Cole squeezes once, twice, and looks over at me again.
My gaze darts around the car. “Where are we?”
“You passed out again.” Cole looks back at the road, his thumb rubbing circles on my leg. “Somewhere in Oklahoma.”
I sit stiffly back against the seat, still feeling like I’m in that hotel pool. The drowning was new for that dream, but everything else was the same. It felt so real.
I check the back seat. Jayden lays stretched out as much as he can, his eyes closed.
More swirling on my thigh. I shove Cole’s hand off me. “Don’t touch me.”
Suddenly, Cole’s hand snaps back to my leg, squeezing harder. “Don’t tell me what to do, little one.”
Rage burns through me. Does he think he can just pretend that nothing happened? Like everything is fine?
I whirl on him. “I’m not your little one; I’m your prisoner. Stop trying to make it seem different.”
For a second, Cole doesn’t react. Then his gaze slowly turns toward me, and he squeezes hard enough to make my leg hurt. “Is that right?” Anger flashes in his eyes.
“Yes.” I grip his hand with both mine and yank. It does nothing except send a bolt of pain through me.
“You’re hurting me,” I hiss.
Cole immediately loosens his grip. His jaw clenches, and then he slowly lets me go and flexes his hand.
I shove away from him. My dream is fresh in my mind, and everything feels so real and overwhelming. My mom’s dismissal of me, their dismissal of me, it all feels like one giant wave that’s going to crash over me and drown me in its emotions.
Cole’s jaw clenches again.
I want the emotions to stop. I turn to the window. “Why don’t you just fucking kill me? Just kill me like you did Sage, and don’t drag it out.”
“Jo…”
“No,” I bite back. Cole’s voice is so calm, and that just pisses me off more. How dare he try to be soft after that. How dare he ?
My eyes burn, and I watch the landscape go by. Giant wind turbines dot the landscape, turning lazily in the bright sun. Why can’t they be a little soft? I like their violence, but fuck. Do I?
A single, hot tear runs down my face.
“Lemon drop,” Cole tries again.
I ignore him, watching the turbines. Lonely, massive machines. Some of them are broken down and not moving. Carissa told me that people don’t tear them down once they break—it’s too expensive and dangerous. They just leave them up like a giant graveyard of lonely machines.
Somehow, that makes me even more sad. More tears trace silently down my cheeks, and the back of my throat hurts.
We drive in silence for a long while. Cole tries to talk to me, and I ignore him every time. I refuse to look at him, too. He tries all kinds of tactics to get me to talk.
Finally, he grinds out, “You’re being a bit of a bitch right now.”
What…did he just say?
Slowly, I turn my head to look at him.
Cole throws me a haughty look. “Oh, there she is. What, just needed a little shit to get you to come out and play?”
“Play?” I raise my voice. I thought I stuffed the emotions down, but they’re simmering at the surface. “This isn’t some little game, Cole. This is my life . You’ve stolen my life! Kidnapped me and treated me like shit. Worse than shit.”
“Would you guys keep it down?” Jayden groans from the backseat.
Cole throws me a look. “You’re ours, Jo. We can treat you however we like, and you like it.”
I laugh bitterly. “Spoken like a true man. Oblivious. I’ll never stop running from you.”
Suddenly, Cole swerves the car to the side of the road. I grip the door handle to avoid being slammed into the side of the car.
“What the hell?” Jayden growls.
Cole throws the car in park, jumps out, and rounds the front of it. He bends down for a minute, picking something off the ground. Adrenaline fills me. I’m not sure whether to run or fight, so I tense up and prepare for both.
Cole yanks my door open, and heat rushes into the car. He’s holding a handful of flowers from the side of the road.
“Is this what you want, Jo?” Cole cocks his head. “You want a man who will give you flowers? Be home at five every night, ask for sex once a week, and otherwise ignore you?”
I don’t take the flowers, and Cole drops them on my lap, putting each hand on either side of me. He leans into my personal space until we’re nose to nose. He smells like dirt and spearmint.
“No, I don’t think that’s what you want at all. I think you like the push and pull. The anger, the hate. I think you love it. I think it makes you feel alive.” Cole’s blue eyes spark with fire and excitement. He snaps his hand out, grabs the leash attached to the collar, and wraps it around his fist. He yanks me even closer to him, smashing my face into his and putting immediate pressure on my neck. “I think you want to be owned and forced, Jo. I think that’s what gets you going. So stop pretending like you don’t like it and stop saying that you’ll run, ‘cause I’ll never let you run again.”
I come to my senses and shove back against Cole’s shoulders. He doesn’t move for a second, staring down into my eyes, making sure I know he could keep me here all day. His gaze bounces between my eyes and my mouth. Then, he loosens the pressure on my throat.
I suck in a breath, then shove him again. Adrenaline rushes through me. “Get fucked, Cole. I hate you.”
He smirks. “Good. Hate me all you want, baby, but don’t you dare ignore me again.”
Cole walks around the car and gets back in. He smooths his hair down and looks in the mirror. “Wakey wakey, sunshine.”
Jayden huffs. “Want to get off the side of the fucking road and stop drawing attention to us?”
Cole gives a mock salute.
I shove the flowers off my lap.
Cole pulls back onto the highway and keeps driving. The car is silent for a long time. I want to pull the collar off my neck and throw it out the window. To scream that I don’t belong to anyone.
Under it all, there’s a nagging excitement that I hate. He’s paying attention, and I want to think that could last. I really do.
But I refuse to get hurt again.
Cole’s voice startles me. “Did you hear me?”
“What?” I glance at him.
“I asked why you go for douchebags?”
I stare at Cole. He grins, and I want to smack him in that pretty mouth.
“You tell me. You’re the biggest douche I’ve ever met.”
Cole rolls his eyes. “Please. I’ve studied the shit out of Kyle,” he grinds his teeth together, “and I still don’t get it. He did nothing for you, and yet you stayed. Willingly.”
I cross my arms as heat flares over my cheeks. “How do you know he did nothing for me?”
“Because I watched you, Jo! What do you think I’ve been doing these past few months? Before we knew you, you practically lived online, and I spent the last six months living every second with you.” Cole grips the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles turn white. “He made your eyes look dead, Jo.”
I look away from Cole, defensiveness bubbling under my skin. “Why do you care?”
“Because I do!”
“Well, for starters, Kyle never kidnapped me.”
“Sounds boring.” Cole smashes the radio on, switching to a rock station, and begins nodding his head to it. “He did kind of look like your dad.”
“What?” I sputter. “No the fuck he didn’t!”
Cole continues to rock out. “He never gave you any jewelry. Or if he did, you never wore it. Do you like gifts?”
I grit my teeth. “I like silence.”
“Not my specialty. Too bad. But I do give some nice gifts. And back rubs.” Cole winks at me.
“Sorry,” I snap. “I don’t accept those as payment for kidnapping and drowning me.”
Cole glances to the backseat. “Sounds like you’re shit out of luck, Jay. Cross back rubs off your list.”
Disbelief runs through me. He’s making this all a joke. My life is a fucking joke to him. He’s so cocky and self-assured like he’s already won me over. “You can’t tell me you’ve kidnapped and tortured your exes like this, and it’s worked for you.”
As soon as the words come out of my mouth, I freeze. I know exactly how Jayden treated his ex. And I know they mess around together. What if they’re serial killers? They grab a girl, mess with her life, fuck her at the same time, then kill her?
Suddenly, I feel sick.
“If you must know, I don’t have exes.” Cole glances over at me.
I want to swallow, but my mouth is too dry. Because they’re dead?
“I don’t.” Cole shrugs. “No one ever stayed longer than a night.”
“They were like a revolving door,” Jayden grumbles.
Something in me cringes at that thought. Of course a lot of women wanted Cole. On the outside, he’s the ideal man. And for some irrational reason, the thought of a bunch of women fawning over Cole angers me.
Cole winks at me. “I couldn’t settle down. The point still stands. Tell me what you want in a relationship because I’ve never done this shit before.”
My mouth dries up. The car goes silent except for the radio.
Did he just imply we were in a relationship? After all of this? This is the farthest fucking thing from a relationship.
I scoff, so angry I can’t put anything into words. I look out the window. As we drive, my thoughts bounce between my past relationships, these men, and what I actually want. Fuck, I want a boyfriend who actually cares. I’ve never been happy in my relationships. Turns out my first boyfriend was gay, and Kyle never cared about me. I just wanted them to care—to pay attention to me.
But I’ll be damned if I’ll tell Cole that. I will never beg someone to care. Not anymore. I want them to care because they want to, not because I beg them to.
“Jo,” Cole’s voice is tight. “I asked you a question. What do you want?”
I glance out the window again, saying mockingly, “I want breakfast in bed.”
“Okay. What else?”
I roll my eyes. “I want to live close to the grocery store so I can get whatever I want whenever I want. A 24-hour grocery store.”
“Okay,” Cole says as if that’s perfectly reasonable, even though I wasn’t being serious.
I laugh. This is the stupidest conversation I’ve ever had. “I want someone filthy rich so I can travel the world. I don’t want to work. I want to eat foods from all over the world while my man waits on me hand and foot.” Or men. I could have a harem of them while we’re just making shit up.
“That’s it?”
I roll my eyes. “And I’d like a unicorn.”
“A unicorn I can’t do. What about a real animal?”
“Unicorns are real.” They are in this fake fantasy we’re talking about.
Cole chuckles. “I’ll check Amazon for one. In the meantime, what about a dog?”
I sneak a glance at Cole.
“Don’t tell me you don’t like dogs.”
I do. I love them. I’ve wanted one for forever. I allow myself a shrug. “A dog would be fine.” In this imaginary world.
“Good.” Cole’s hand drops over my thigh, and he grips me. “Believe me or not, Jo, but I want to make you happy.”
Instantly, I’m uncomfortable. Cole looks over at me. I refuse to look at him, but I feel his eyes on my face.
“Okay, you don’t like emotions. How about this.” Cole’s voice drops an octave, “You can fight this. Us. But don’t try to actually get away. I’d rather kill us both than have you abandon us again.”
I freeze. Everything freezes, and I stop breathing.
Cole pulls away, the seriousness in his face dropping away to his happy mask. He winks at me. “Capiche?”