Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
Cole
My body instantly remembers hers. It’s like riding a bike again after so many years. The feeling of her soft skin beneath my hands sends a dozen different memories flying through my mind.
It doesn’t make any sense that this is happening, but I don’t care. My need to kiss her is overwhelming any other reasoning that could exist in my brain. Her lips are a beckon I am powerless to resist.
I take a breath, ready to close the minuscule space keeping her lips from mine.
The door opens, all the gears in my head screeching to a halt.
“Ri—oh…”
I know it’s Finn without even turning to confirm.
I hate the hollowness that settles over me when Riley and I step away from one another. We both turn to face Finn, who’s sporting a shit-eating grin.
“I wanted to make sure you were still alive in here, but I guess you are very much alive and well,” he says to Riley with the same smile stretched across his face.
I’m glad he isn’t bothered by the sight of us nearly kissing. Not that I thought he would care.
Who am I kidding? I wasn’t thinking about anything other than her.
“I’m fine,” Riley replies. Her voice comes out raspier than usual.
“I’m guessing you’re more than fine,” Finn says, giving her a wink.
Her eyes roll, but she gives him a small smile. Her cheeks and neck are crimson. I don’t know if it’s from what we were about to do or from Finn’s words.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Finn says, turning to walk out the door.
“Hold up,” Riley says, walking after him. “I’ll come with you.”
Knowing that what we were about to do was wildly stupid does nothing to quell the sinking feeling in my chest from the sight of her walking away from me. Her leaving with him doesn’t make it any better.
I desperately don’t want to care about what is going on between Riley and my brothers, but I’m a human being. I care, despite my best efforts not to.
The rest of the wedding is pretty uneventful, or at least it is for me. The newlyweds are bustled from one tradition to the next. They look utterly blissed out and far more in love than should be allowed.
I might be a little jealous, seeing how deeply they care for each other. It makes me yearn for the same kind of connection.
It’s something I’ve always wanted, but as the years tick by, I’ve found that possibility to be further from my grasp. There’s only ever been one woman who I thought could be my forever.
That very same woman holds my attention the rest of the night.
Whether she is dancing, eating a piece of cake, or talking to a group of women across the room, I can’t drag my eyes away from her.
I know I shouldn’t even be looking. She isn’t mine to look at anymore.
My eyes should be focused on something or someone who hasn’t broken my heart.
It doesn’t matter. I’m drawn to her like a moth to a flame, and my heart doesn’t seem to care about any rational thinking.
1:17 a.m. Why am I not asleep? That’s a good fucking question. I kick the blankets off, seeing if I’m too hot.
Nope. I’m still tossing and turning twenty minutes later.
With a groan, I crawl out of bed. I walk out of my room with every intention of going to get a glass of water, but my feet come to an abrupt stop when Riley’s closed door comes into view at the opposite side of the hallway.
She’s probably not even in there. More than likely, she’s sleeping in one of my brothers’ beds.
I don’t even know if that’s something they’ve been doing. I have made it my mission to avoid anything and everything related to Riley’s… whatever you want to call it, with my brothers.
As hard as I fight it, my feet carry me to her door. My hand is turning the knob before I can stop myself.
I shouldn’t be doing this. That is abundantly clear, but I can’t change the trajectory I’m already on.
Only a sliver of moonlight seeps in from the window—just enough for me to make out where Riley is snuggled up against her pillows.
I expect her to be fast asleep, but she isn’t. She doesn’t move a muscle, but her eyes are locked on me.
I’m vaguely aware that the way I’m hovering over the end of her bed in the middle of the night is serial-killer behavior. She doesn’t look terrified, though, so I’ll take that as a good sign.
She looks confused and maybe still a little turned on. I’m not going to contemplate whether that’s emanating from whatever happened with Finn and Theo or from our almost kiss.
“Why did you leave?” I blurt out the question with zero finesse, but it’s out there now. There’s nothing I can do about it.
She jerks upright. Her eyes narrow on me. She knows I’m not talking about the way she left with Finn earlier.
“You’re asking me this now?” she whisper-shouts.
I drag in a deep breath, trying to calm the feelings building within me. The anger I felt toward her has slowly been fading, but it is by no means gone.
And I don’t have a chance in hell of actually letting it go until I get some answers from her.
“Yes, I am. I deserved an answer years ago.”
Her eyes fly wide with her own brand of rage. “You deserve answers? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I’m dead serious, Riley. Why the hell did you leave? Things were…. you were there, you know how it was. Then, poof, it was just done.”
She looks like she’s clenching her jaw hard enough to crack her molars. “I figured it out, Cole. It was all a game to you, so let’s stop this fake martyr act. You are the furthest thing from innocent in all of this.”
My eyes dart from side to side as my mind tries to process what she just said. It was a game to me. What was? Our relationship?
I have no fucking clue what she’s talking about. Nothing about us was a game to me. It was the most genuine thing I had experienced in a long time.
“I heard you. I heard every damn word you said on the phone that day.”
If a death stare could kill someone, my heart would have ceased to beat several minutes ago. My body is utterly still, while my mind is moving a thousand miles an hour.
“Get out,” she says, pointing at the door when I don’t respond.
I don’t want to leave, but I honestly have no idea what to say. My mind is still roaming over every word that just fell from her mouth as I walk from her room back to mine.
I’m sitting against my headboard with my journal in hand, scribbling down page after page of the gibberish clogging my mind. The pen jerks across the page, realization slamming into me like a train moving full speed ahead.
I’m pretty sure I know what she overheard. It’s the only thing that makes any sense. But what she thought she heard was light-years from the truth.
I wasn’t even talking about her. I was talking about a damn logging machine we had rented for that summer.
I fly across the room, ready to explain everything. But my hand stills on the door handle. A new wave of frustration builds within me.
If she had just talked to me before she ran out of town like her ass was on fire, all of this could have been cleared up with a simple conversation. Instead, she decided I didn’t matter enough to take the time to just fucking talk to me.
She bailed without a single word.
My fingers angrily tug at my hair. I’m so mad. I just want to shake her. I want to go back in time and make her sit her ass down and talk to me.
We never had to end. None of this had to happen.
I toss my journal to the far side of the bed, flopping down against my pillow. I stare at the white ceiling for hours.
If she wasn’t willing to talk to me back then, I’m not going to give her the courtesy of talking to her now.