Chapter 13
HEATHER RESTS HER CHIN ON my shoulder, giving me a hug from behind. “You okay?”
“It looks like the furniture’s been raptured,” I say, and she laughs, coming to my side to survey what little remains in the bedroom I shared with Cole. The dresser, bed, and nightstands had been mine, so all that’s left is the mattress and piles of Cole’s things.
“He made zero effort to consolidate,” I say, pointing to the phone charger and books on the floor beside his side of the mattress, which I’ve elected not to take. Bringing a surface on which I’ve experienced intimate contact with Cole into the next chapter of my life felt…icky.
“His drawers in the dresser were still full, and he left a bunch of crap on top.” I sigh. “But I was the one to move out with zero warning, so do I have any room to bitch?”
“Are you kidding? His ‘break’ bullshit absolves you of anything. And he left one of your fancy bowls dirty in the sink,” she reminds me. “He’s lucky you haven’t set this shit on fire.”
“It crossed my mind.” The sight of one of my handmade gold-rimmed soup bowls in an inch of standing water and swollen pasta flotsam, its white interior ringed with marinara sauce, had me distinctly incendiary.
“He isn’t worth the arson charge,” I say, and turn around, Heather following me from the room.
I’d convinced her and Mark to try the endurance workout at Firehouse this morning, and once I got Cole’s tersely worded text that he’d left on his Saturday group bike ride, we came to pack.
The guys arrived about an hour later to load up.
Ian even lent them his truck, which was a godsend; Mark overestimated the capacity of his SUV.
To my understanding, the Explorer has been relegated to transporting my houseplants, which Mark has been coordinating down in the parking garage for the past half hour. I have… too many plants.
I do a final sweep of the guest bedroom.
That mattress is bare, the bedding now bundled in the back of my car, and the only signs of the office furniture Grant and Diego took downstairs are the divots they left in the carpet.
The living room is similarly barren, now devoid of my couch, coffee table, and miniature jungle.
My favorite chair, a wide-set wingback in channeled navy velvet, waits by the open front door, but I figure Heather and I can manage it.
Which is good, because the designated muscle with us is distracted.
By the open front door, Alistair palms Mushu, one of my potted dragon tails.
He’s draped its long, leafy vines over his shoulders like a boa.
Paired with his standard shorts-only status, he has a distinctly jungle-hunk look that I’m sure anyone with masculine preferences would find appealing, had they not witnessed said hunk lick a nine-volt battery.
Like Heather, who is actively ogling. Lord. She’d about had a stroke at the abundance of muscled torsos at Firehouse earlier. Ian had been among the few to remain fully clad, but even so, he’d inspired colorful commentary from Heather. I’m going to let her discover the nude for herself.
“This is the last of it,” I say, nodding to the armchair, on the chance that it will remind Alistair why he’s here. “I don’t know how y’all managed to get everything loaded in one go.”
“Huh? Oh, no way,” he says. “Ian and Grant have made, like, two runs to the house.”
“Ian—” My eyes bug. “Ian’s here?” Here. Where I lived with Cole. The same icky feeling crawls over me as when I thought about taking my mattress.
“Maybe? He could be on his way to the house, or at the house, or—”
“You guys said you ‘had’ his truck,” I interrupt. “I thought he’d let us borrow it.”
“Nah. He came with.”
Ian. How has he been helping this whole time and no one told me? Then again…I glance at Alistair, who’s caressing his cheek with the tip of Mushu’s bottommost leaf. I can absolutely believe it.
Before I can decide whether to obsess over Ian’s unexpected involvement, a door slams out in the communal hallway, followed by the sound of quick, heavy footsteps. Heather shoots me a confused look, and a moment later, Mark bursts through the doorway.
“Cole!” he wheezes. “Lobby. Calling the elevator. I took the stairs. Two at a time!” Each statement comes out between quick gasps.
Dammit! I check my watch, ignoring the painful squeeze to my chest. “We should have had another hour before he got back.”
Mark slumps into my chair, tossing his hands up in helpless apology.
“You took the stairs?” Heather asks him.
“Five floors!” Mark gasps.
“Hell yeah,” Alistair says, supportively, and reaches out with Mushu’s bottom leaf like a high five. Mark accepts, reaching out limply with his index finger to brush the offered leaf.
Before I can fully appreciate just how routine this degree of absurdity has become, the distinct clink of Cole’s bike cleats sounds in the hallway. My stomach drops. I fluff my hair, and Heather comes to stand closer to me, giving my hand a quick supportive squeeze. We wait.
A few seconds later, Cole stands in the foyer with his bike, arm through the outrageously expensive, feather-light frame on his shoulder.
He looks from me, to Heather, to Alistair, to Mark, then to Alistair again.
Or, at least, that’s who he’s facing; he still has his stupid wraparound shades on, so I can’t tell.
He tears off his shades with his free hand, and despite the this fucking guy of it all, I stifle a laugh.
His face is the shade of red that precedes sunburn, the contrasting white around his eyes so stark, it’s like a raccoon’s mask in reverse.
He forgot sunblock. Of course he did! Because I wasn’t here to remind him.
“You’re early,” I say, not bothering with niceties.
“The wind picked up, so we called it short. Did you hire movers—” Cole’s attention fixes behind me, and his eyes go wide. Sunglasses in hand, he points to the empty space where the couch had been. “You took the couch?”
“The couch that I bought? Yes. And that’s Alistair. Grant and Diego are here, too—”
“They’re her roommates,” Heather finishes for me, with no shortage of wicked glee.
“Her—” Cole wheels toward Alistair, the clips on his bike shoes grinding audibly into the hardwood, one week having been enough time to abandon my no footwear beyond the threshold, bike be damned, policy. He gives Alistair an affronted once-over. “You’re, what? Twenty?”
“Dude, whatever,” Alistair gripes. “I turned twenty-one, like, a month ago.” He turns to me.
“Imma load this up,” he says, indicating the plant, which in no way constitutes a load, and extends a curt “Excuse you” to Cole, who stiffly maneuvers his bike so my bevined roommate can toe on his sneakers and step out.
Cole stares after him, then fixes his pale eyes on me. “Are you living with undergrads?” He looks to Heather and Mark. “Did you know this last week?”
“Do you think we’d have told you if we had?” Heather asks. Mark just glares. Probably because he’s still catching his breath. He had his butt kicked at endurance earlier.
I don’t know what to expect from this interaction, and while I appreciate their loyalty, I do know that I’d rather not have an audience. “Would you give us a moment, please?” Heather nods and helps the still semi-incapacitated Mark from his seat and into the hallway.
Cole purses his lips, and with hauteur subverted by his head-to-toe highlighter-yellow riding ensemble, shifts the bike from his shoulder to hang it on the wall stand beside him.
He refused to store his precious in the communal bike cage downstairs, so I scoured the internet for an in-unit solution and installed the little rack—custom, because of the hyper-aerodynamic design of his frame—while he was at work one day not long after we moved in. I even used a stud finder.
And he couldn’t spare the seconds it would have required to wash a goddamn bowl.
He crosses his arms. “Why won’t you answer my calls? You won’t even text back.”
No How are you? No I’ve been worried, or anything relating to the MS prospect. Five years together, and all I get is a pissy How dare you? Disappointment settles over me like a physical thing. Not at his response, but because I honestly hadn’t expected anything more from him.
I conjure some dirty-bowl anger to combat it. “Because there’s nothing to say. You’re not strong enough for this,” I say, pointing at my right eye, “on top of this”—I clutch my abdomen. “What’s left to cover?”
He tosses up his hands. “That doesn’t mean that I don’t care—”
“But it does mean that you don’t care enough. Which is fine,” I insist, wanting him to get this through his still-helmeted head. “We’d been done for a while, Cole. We both knew it. We could have split amicably and raised a glass of whatever outrageous wine you ordered—”
“The cab,” he says, with just enough superiority to set my teeth on edge.
“Which is a red. Which you know kills my stomach but ordered anyway. On a night we were supposed to be celebrating me, if you’ll recall.”
“It was going to pair beautifully with my pasta—”
“You are not helping yourself,” I say, my voice dark.
Cole shuts his mouth, blinking in surprise. That wasn’t very his Ellie of me.
“Instead,” I continue, “you made it clear that you could only be with me conditionally.” I look into his still-wide eyes, hoping to convey how painful it is to even say it out loud, but he’s looking at me like I’ve sprouted a second head.
“Do you not get how much worse that is than just splitting up? I already deserved better than what we had. So I sure as shit deserved better than to sit around here waiting for you to decide whether I’m worth the effort of being with me. ”
“I never said any of that!” he complains, the surprise replaced by a defensive edge.
I shake my head, the disappointment crushing. He doesn’t get it, and there’s no point in trying to make him. You can’t make someone care.