Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6
HANNAH GRACE
T he door hasn’t even fully shut before Cole is tossing my suitcase on the second bed and turning back around.
“Let’s go,” he says.
“Go? Go where?”
Haven’t we gone enough? I’m exhausted and just want to unpack and crawl into bed and forget today ever happened. After Cole finished cleaning hairspray off his shirt, we had to wait for the police to come take a statement and Cole wanted to go buy a new lock for the back door. He’d installed it while I grabbed a trash bag and removed any trace of the flowers from my bed after the two officers had taken their pictures. They’d even taken a few samples, although Cole didn’t think that was worth anything.
“We both could use something to eat, and I don’t know about you, but I could use a beer.”
I open my mouth to argue, to tell him I’m not hungry, but my stomach betrays me, growling loudly into the room. The corners of Cole’s lips twitch and he arches an eyebrow as he waits for my response.
“Ugh. Fine. I’m starving.”
He makes me wait until he opens the door first, but I follow him out and down the elevator to the bar in the lobby. It’s almost empty, the drone of a TV the only noise on a weeknight after eight.
The bartender takes our food and drink orders, and my lips are on the glass the bartender drops off before Cole speaks again.
“I want to ask you some questions.”
I set the glass down and shift my stool to face him.
He’s already facing me, his arm resting casually on the back of the chair, legs spread wide. For anyone looking, it would look like a relaxed posture. Only I can see the tension in how he holds himself. His poised body ready to spring into action if need be.
“Why?”
“We need to figure out who would want to scare you. Or I at least need to give Sydney some ideas of where to look.”
“There’s nobody that I can?—”
“Why not let me be the judge of that?” he asks.
“Aren’t you a little close to the situation to be objective?”
Does it bother him as much as it bothers me that we’re forced together like this? If so, he doesn’t act like it. Meanwhile, my stomach churns and my palms are clammy.
“I know how to be professional.”
I wouldn’t know, would I? The Cole I knew was a teenager going off to join the army. And in some ways, he’s stayed that way in my mind. But the proof that he didn’t freeze in a time capsule is evidenced by the man sitting in front of me.
Rolling my eyes, I reach for my glass. “Fine. Ask your questions.”
“Tell me about your dating history.”
The question—can I even call it that?—has me choking on the drink I’ve just taken.
“Excuse me?” I manage to croak out between coughs.
For his part, his expression hasn’t changed. So either he really is asking from a professional standpoint or his poker face has gotten way better in the last seven years.
“Stalkers usually have some sort of romantic connection—either current or past—with their victims.”
“I’m not with anyone!” I shout and immediately lower my voice as the bartender glances away from the TV they’re watching at the other end of the bar.
“What about Zach?”
“I knew you were going to ask about him. Tell me again how this is going to help Sydney.”
I knew it. I fucking knew it. Cole isn’t asking me these questions for my case. He’s asking for himself.
“Look, I don’t give a shit if you and Zach are together or not,” he says, but a twitch in his jaw tells me he’s lying now. “What I care about is if I should be looking at anyone else.”
“It’s not Zach. He’s my best friend.” I cross my arms over my chest and fume.
“Then tell me who else to look at. For example, who’s he?” He lifts his phone, swiping until he finds what he’s looking for and showing me a picture.
I recognize it from one of the preliminary events during the Miss Tennessee pageant I won. I’m dressed in an evening gown with my arms wrapped around the former college football player.
“Brody?”
“Is that his name?”
“Yes, that’s Brody. He’s my sorority sister Casey’s husband. Although I guess then he was her boyfriend. She’s the one taking the picture by the way. They came to Miss Tennessee to support me during the competition.”
Something I had needed even if I never uttered the words out loud. I may have been smiling on the outside, but inside I was still reeling from the Dear Jane letter Cole had sent me to break up with me.
He swallows slowly and glances away, setting his phone down and reaching for his own glass for a drink. The bartender drops off our food, and it sits untouched in front of both of us.
“Any other questions?” I ask and finally reach for a fry that came as a side to my burger.
“Sydney told me to ask you about the other apps you subscribe to. Ones with a social setting.”
“Huh?” I ask, grabbing my burger finally.
“You know. Friend apps, ones that give you ideas for what’s going on for the week or weekend like activities, dating apps.” He says the words so fast, I almost miss them.
But like a double take, my attention focuses on them.
“Dating apps?”
“She didn’t specify outside of social apps. Just wanted me to ask you. What do you subscribe to?”
“Nothing. Not anymore anyway.”
“Not anymore?”
Shit. I’m not sure whether to appreciate the fact that Sydney didn’t tell him or be pissed at the fact that I’m left to explain. But these were my decisions, and I don’t owe anything to either one of them. The guilt currently pricking at my stomach and the two bites of burger I’ve had can go right to hell.
“I used to pay for a few dating apps.”
Because supposedly those were more reputable.
“A few?” The short phrase sounds strangled as he chokes on the words.
I shrug and grab another fry.
“It’s not like one for hookups or anything. These are more serious than that. For people who want relationships instead of the casual thing.”
Or at least that’s what they touted. There were still plenty of men on those apps only looking for hookups too.
“Anyone we should look into?”
“I…don’t think so? I went on a few first dates. Two second dates. But…”
How do I explain that neither of the guys that made it to the second date stage created the chemistry that existed with Cole? Even now, my body is tuned to his like we’re on the same frequency—no matter how hard I try to pretend otherwise.
“But?”
I shrug. “It just didn’t work out.”
There’s more nonchalance than I feel, but I’m good at faking it until I make it.
Hence the pageant title.
He grunts and takes a bite of his sandwich, chewing for a minute as I take a deep breath.
“Anybody else?”
“Like whom?”
He sighs.
“I don’t know, Hannah Grace. Was there anyone who showed interest in you while you were at Vanderbilt? Guys that hit on you? Anything like that?”
“Worried I cheated on you while you were gone?” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I focus on the remaining fries on my plate, rolling them around the glossy surface.
“You were never that person,” he murmurs.
The words melt my insides into a large pile of goo.
“No,” I whisper.
Because he was the only one I thought of when I was in school. Even after we broke up and I was still there.
“Anybody not want to take no for an answer when you shot them down?”
“Not really—wait. The grocery store guy.” I look up as the memory of the creepy produce guy surfaces.
“Grocery store guy?” he asks.
“I used to go the store closest to my house. And would see the same guy in the produce aisle—like he always got there right when I did and started his shopping. He asked me once about picking out watermelon and we started talking. Michael. That was his name.”
“Did you tell him yours?”
I shoot him the duh look. “Of course. What else do you do when someone introduces themselves to you?”
“You make up a fake name,” he mutters.
“He seemed harmless enough.”
“But?”
“He asked me out the second or third time I saw him there. Offered to make me dinner.”
“What did you say?”
“I may be na?ve, Cole, but I’m not that stupid. I know better than to go to a strange man’s house. So he asked me for drinks instead.”
“Did you go?”
Cole looks at me expectantly, waiting for my answer much the same way that Michael had all those years ago.
“No,” I start and his entire body deflates. “There was just something in my gut that told me I shouldn’t. I told him I had plans and switched my shopping day so I wouldn’t risk running into him again. Only he was there when I did that. And he asked me out again. I told him no, thanks and he told me that he knew I was lying because he followed me home after the last time and I didn’t leave my house. That was when Zach came to stay with me for a few weeks and I switched grocery stores.”
“How long ago did this happen?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a year ago or so?”
“Do you know his last name? What he drove? Anything like that?”
I shake my head. “No. Why? You think it’s him? Now?”
“Fuck, Hannah Grace, I don’t know.” He blows out a breath. “It could be. But I have a whole lot more could bes than anything definitive right now. Switching gears, what about the pageant?”
“What about it?”
“Are you still involved with it? Alumni lunches, anything like that?”
“I was more so during that first year, but I’ve only gone to two of their events over the last couple of years.”
“Any of the girls pissed at you about something? Any drama?”
“There was a reason Miss Congeniality was such a hit, Cole. There’s always drama,” I say.
“Anybody willing to scare you like this? The runner-up maybe?”
“Josie? She’s the sweetest. And funnily enough, she was our Miss Congeniality.”
“Organizers? Employees? Rumors? Anything like that?”
“I mean one of the girls accused me of sleeping with one of the judges. Actually, that wasn’t the only rumor about him. In my year or anyone else’s.”
“Name?”
“You want me to remember his name? Cole, that was four years ago. He was just a perv who liked to surprise the girls backstage. Wait, that’s it. Pervy Pete.”
“Jesus Christ, Hannah Grace.” He drops his head in his hands, and his thumbs dig into his temples.
“What? What did I say?”
“You’ve literally given me a minimum of seven different suspects in the span of thirty minutes. And you’re telling me no one has checked on any of these guys?”
“I don’t see why you’re getting upset with me. None of them ever seemed connected.”
“Until we find out who the fuck decided to leave you a present, just assume that everything is connected. And tell me everything.”
“What if I don’t?—”
“Everything,” he repeats, locking eyes with me.
The snarky comment I want to make—the one about him not being the boss of me—dies on my lips.
“Okay. I will.”
Cole pays the bill, and we both head upstairs where he follows me into my room.
“Hello, privacy. I’m not sharing a room with you,” I say.
“I’m through there.” He points at the connecting door.
Of course he has a logical, professional reason for coming in. Especially given the connection between the two rooms.
“Oh.”
The corners of his lips twitch but he doesn’t smile. Good. I’d probably slap it off his face with the way I’m feeling right now.
“I’m going to review a few files and pass on the information you shared with me to Sydney and Sawyer. Let me know if you need me.”
“Does Sydney need any of my passwords?”
Cole huffs a laugh.
“If she does, she’d never tell me. But more than likely not. She won Sawyer’s hacking contest when she was seventeen. She can get in anywhere. But I’m sure she’d appreciate your permission.”
“Of course. If I can answer anything for her, you can have her reach out directly. You don’t have to keep playing the middleman.”
“Sydney is…a lot for people to handle. It’s better I buffer you from her full antisocial personality.”
“Just because she’s a strong woman doesn’t make her too much to handle,” I tell him.
“How did you?—”
“She’d have to be incredibly strong to be successful in a male-dominated world like IT. Also, she has to put up with you.”
A surprised laugh escapes him and he lifts his hand.
“I’m sorry I said anything. I’ll pass on your contact info.”
“Thank you.”
“Anything else?”
“No. I think I’m going to unpack and watch some TV.”
“Let me know if you need me.”
“You said that already,” I point out.
“I mean it.”
I’m sure he does.
But it doesn’t mean I’m any more likely to ask for help.
Especially from Cole Strickland.
He finally leaves, and I let out the breath I’ve been holding.
“Okay, Hannah Grace, let’s get moving.”
Because maybe if I move, I won’t think about the fact that my ex-boyfriend still sets off sparks in me. I move from the dresser to the bed, unpacking my clothes as I attempt to ignore the male presence through the connecting door. It should be easy given that he’s out of sight. But his cologne still lingers in the air which means he might as well be in the same room.
It doesn’t take me long before my suitcase is empty, and I hang one of the dresses I brought in the closet. I try not to crane my neck into Cole’s room, but I can’t help but see him hunched over his desk, switching his attention between his phone, his laptop, and a notebook that he scribbles furiously in.
Keep your distance, girl . That boy is trouble .
Only he never was. Even when we were younger he almost never broke the rules, and I was always looking for the loopholes. With a sigh, I sit next to the suitcase on the bed and reach for my own phone.
It might be late, but it’s not like I’m sleeping anytime soon.
Between the “gift” on my bed, my conversation with Cole at the bar, and just his reappearance in my life, I’m tired, but not sleepy.
The TV is set on some sitcom rerun, the volume low. But the show doesn’t hold my attention. Instead, I pull up my social media and start scrolling until my sister’s latest post pops up. Laura Leigh is a sophomore at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville which is a little closer to home than I chose. She and her sorority had done some volunteer work, and she’s posed with several of her sisters holding a puppy.
“I’m sure Mom and Dad had a hard time telling Laura Leigh no on the dog,” I murmur.
“What was that?”
Cole’s voice from the door startles me and I drop my phone.
“Sorry,” he says and moves close enough to pick up my phone where it skittered away and hands it to me.
“Laura Leigh”—I show him the picture—“and her sorority sisters did a volunteer event with a shelter in Knoxville. I’m sure she wanted to adopt the puppy she’s holding, and I’m wondering if Mom and Dad were able to tell her no.”
“Fuck. She’s all grown up, isn’t she?” he asks and sits on the end of the other bed.
It takes me a minute to figure out when the last time was that he saw her.
“Well, the last time you saw her was what…when she was twelve?”
He reaches behind him, squeezing the back of his neck, and for a heartbeat his face is full of…regret.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
A part of me wants to reach over, to comfort him for the regret that’s written so clearly in the way his body hunches in on itself. How often had I offered comfort over a bad grade or a lost football game when we were younger? Or tried to comfort him when we would talk while he was deployed when something had gone wrong and he’d lost friends? And where had that led?
Me getting my heart broken.
This isn’t a happy reunion with a fun-filled walk down memory lane.
“What did you think? That she was forever going to be twelve? Things change, Cole. It’s been seven years since you saw her last. Just because you forgot about us doesn’t mean we stayed frozen in some time capsule.”
I surge from the bed and pace to my empty suitcase, zipping it up with angry motions.
“I know,” he says the words quietly.
Almost a whisper.
They might as well be shouted with how clearly they resonate.
How they pierce my heart and make me want to forget. To forgive.
But I can’t.
I walk the suitcase to the closet and toss it in. I don’t turn around. I can’t. I don’t want to lose my anger in my sympathy toward him.
My traitor of a body can sense him though. I know when he stands from the bed with a sigh. Out of the corner of my eye, I can barely make out his steady movement to the door that connects the two of our rooms. I turn, with every intention of shutting the door after him and locking him out, but he pauses between the two rooms. His fingers grip the cheap wood, but he doesn’t turn back. Just stays where he is, facing forward.
“For what it’s worth, Hannah Grace, I’m sorry.”
“You’ve said that before.” My voice is hoarse and I clear the lump from my throat.
“I meant it.”
“Saying you’re sorry doesn’t change anything, Cole. You still…”
You still broke my heart.
I don’t say the words, but I don’t need to.
His knuckles whiten for a beat before he takes a deep breath and releases it, letting go of the wood.
“I know.”
“Then why are you here? Why did you come back?”
His shoulders drop, but he still won’t look back.
“What time do we need to head for your school?” he asks, changing the subject.
A scream bubbles inside me, but I tamp it down and stalk toward the door.
“Early.”
I close the door, pushing him the rest of the way into his room as I lock it.
“Good night, Hannah Grace.” His words come clearly through the door as if nothing is between us.
But there is.
Four years of heartbreak and a whole lifetime of memories.
??????
And karma, bitch that she is, replays every stupid memory on a repeat loop from hell.
Riding bikes in the summer through town before we got ice cream from Scoops, the ice cream parlor on the main street, to eat in the town square. Elementary field trips and middle school lockers. Boy-girl parties when it started to mean something. Him asking me out to our first date and that first kiss. Nights spent at football games or pretending to do homework at each other’s houses until everyone left us alone to make out. That first time in his old pickup truck.
Seeing him when he graduated from basic. I’d ridden with Cole’s older brothers, Justin and Jared, when his parents had to stay home with his sisters who both had gotten sick just before we were all due to leave for North Carolina. Instead, his brothers and I had a road trip and then they disappeared and left us their hotel room for the night.
Cole had looked so different. His normal unruly hair had been short, his back ramrod straight. He’d carried himself with a different kind of confidence than he had in high school. But the night we had in the hotel room—and the morning—is more vivid than a memory, and I wake up hot and bothered. There’s an ache between my thighs that begs me to finish what the dream started. My fingers are already breaching the edge of my sleep shorts before I recognize what I’m about to do.
“I don’t think so.”
I fling my arm to the side before shrugging out of the covers.
Touching myself to thoughts of Cole? To the few memories like that I had with him?
That was something I did before he broke my heart.
Since then, it was only thoughts of Justin Hartley or Ryan Reynolds that occupied my private time.
Liar, liar, pants on fire .
“Not for long,” I say out loud and head for the bathroom.
Cranking the handle, I don’t wait for the water to warm up before I’m shedding my clothes and stepping into the cool spray. I gasp as the cold tingles along my skin and stand in the frigid stream for several agonizing heartbeats. Finally, when I’m ready to jump from the ice-filled shower, I lift my frozen fingers to the knob and shift the water to a more palatable temperature. My limbs relax, and I grab my shampoo to squeeze into my palm.
“He’s not even that good-looking,” I grumble as I scrub my scalp.
Yeah, because the scruffy, sexy Hemsworth look-alike doesn’t do it for you?
“It’s not about the looks.”
It’s not not about the looks .
“I—” Snapping my mouth shut, I focus on rinsing the suds from my hair and grab my body wash.
I’m not going to argue with myself. Is he good-looking? Yes. He always has been. And the softer teenage-heartthrob features have faded to strong lines covered in an intriguing looking scruff. He’s better looking now than he was when I was in love with him.
But that doesn’t change the last four years of history between us.
“Why did he have to show up?”
The shower head doesn’t answer my question, and eventually I have to get out and finish getting ready. Before Cole had shown up at my front door night before last, I hadn’t given him more than five minutes of thought in over a year.
Apparently that was not okay with the universe.
And now he was here, sharing a wall with me, for however long until he figured out who was behind the flowers on my bed.
“That sounds ridiculous,” I murmur as I rub the towel over my skin.
Ridiculous as it may sound though, it still creates gooseflesh that ripples down my arms at the memory of the roses.
The letters before had been one thing. Eventually whoever had sent them stopped. I could even sort of ignore the perfume being out of my purse. But I couldn’t ignore the loud warning bells clanging that someone had broken into my house and left a mix of fresh and dried roses and rose petals all over my bed.
A shiver skates down my spine and I hurry to my room, flipping on all the lights before I reach the dresser and grab the white sweater and light purple pants I packed. It’s one of my favorite outfits—the sweater is soft and warm and the pants just make me happy.
A glance at the clock tells me I’m up even earlier than normal. I’d rather not be alone with my thoughts so the key is to stay busy. So even though I normally do minimal hair and cosmetics, I spend a solid forty-five minutes between blow-drying my hair and doing my makeup.
And anytime Cole tries to intrude on my self-made zen?
I start humming Duo Lipa’s “New Rules” as loud as I can—a firm reminder.
But once I’m done, I have no choice but to remind myself that Cole exists.
I trudge to the connecting doors like a death row inmate standing at the door to my execution.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” I tell the door and unlock my door before opening it.
I expect for Cole’s door to be closed too.
But it’s not.
“Cole?” I ask, stepping into the dark room.
The lights in my room cast everything in shadow, but there’s enough light that I confirm the bed is empty at the same time my brain registers the sound of a shower from his bathroom.
The polite thing to do—the safe thing for me to do—would be to go back to my room and wait for Cole. But my attention snags on a stack of papers and file folders strewn across the other half of the used bed, and my curiosity gets the better of me.
Closing the distance, I lean over the bed and read the first file label.
Whittaker .
Directly beneath the manila card stock of the folder is the notebook with Cole’s neat scrawl.
You have handwriting that’s prettier than mine .
I take my time, Honey Girl . With everything .
The breath of Cole’s murmured words from a conversation we had in high school tickles my neck and I glance up, half expecting him to be next to me. But I’m alone with the memory and the subsequent one where he had proven how he liked to take his time by kissing every spot on my neck and discovering where I liked his lips best.
Shaking my head, I clear the memory and focus on the words that appear to be a summary of what’s in the file as well as a summary of what I had shared with Cole. Finally come the questions.
Who is “Pervy Pete?” How is he affiliated with pageant board?
Michael? Which grocery store? Security footage?
Have Sydney check dating apps. Background checks on everyone.
Who is Zach to Hannah?
That question is different from the rest. I’ve already explained to Cole that there’s nothing between Zach and me other than him being my best friend. Why is this still a question?
“What are you doing?” Cole’s question startles me and I whirl around, dropping the notebook.
Busted .
But that word scatters as I take in Cole as he stands highlighted by the bathroom light. His dark hair is still damp, moisture clinging to every line and ridge of muscles that sculpt toned shoulders to a well-defined chest with the smattering of chest hair. My eyes betray me and continue their perusal south to the faint outline of washboard abs that disappear along with the twin dimples on either side of his waist below the low-slung towel.
Oh. My. God.
Every ounce of saliva that existed—that even had the chance to exist—dries in an instant as desire pools in my belly. His spicy scent reaches out, wrapping around me and tempting me like the Pied Piper.
The groan he lets out sounds pained, and he clenches his hands at his side.
“Honey Girl.”
How many times had he whispered that nickname to me? And every time without fail, it had the same effect on the strength of my knees.
Even now.
“Hmm?”
It’s like I’m under some spell that the sight and smell of him has created—paralyzed, waiting.
Wanting.
“My eyes are up here.”
His words are a bucket of ice water on my libido, and I scramble to lift my gaze back into a safe spot instead of centered on the towel knotted at his waist. Once my gaze finds his, the amused smirk kills any lingering desire.
Asshole.
“See something you like?” he asks.
“Nope.” I pop the p and give him a wide berth as I make my way back to the connecting room.
Holding my breath like that will help me ignore that damn mesmerizing cologne that clings to him and mixes into the room. At the threshold, I release the breath, finally in the clear.
“Hannah Grace.”
“What?” I snap and spin back around.
He tilts his head in my direction.
“Can I have my notebook back?”
I glance down, surprised to see my fingers still gripping the yellow paper. Embarrassment overwhelms me—a combination of being caught snooping and ogling and anger for feeling anything more than indifference toward the man who broke my heart when he broke his promise.
“Here.” I toss it at him.
He leans forward, stretching all those delicious looking muscles and scooping up the flying pad with ease.
“You can ask me, you know,” he tells me quietly.
“Ask you what?”
“About your case. My notes. Anything you want.”
Is it as obvious to him as it is to me that he didn’t add anything about our past to his list? Opening my mouth, I almost ask him about it. About why he did what he did. Maybe then I could finally move on if I knew the answer and get closure.
But having an answer wouldn’t change the past. And I am over him. Momentary lapse of sanity just now notwithstanding.
“Hannah Grace?”
Cole’s question snaps me from my internal debate.
“Let me know when you’re ready to go,” I say and step through the door, closing it behind me.
Cole better figure this out soon.
It’s been one day. Less than a day. More like twelve hours. But my sanity—and my heart—can’t take this proximity for much longer.