Chapter 1 Cole #4
It feels like my insides are being scraped out with a dull spoon, but I knew it would.
Seeing Cole again was always going to break me.
I never once thought it wouldn’t make me want to beg for him.
But I’m stronger than that. I’ve lived with pain before; I’ll live with this.
One day at a time. Giving up now is not an option.
At least Cole looked okay. He looked happy, even carefree, before his eyes landed on me.
That’s good. That’s what matters. He hasn’t changed much; still gets those freckles in the summer, still has those impossibly green eyes, still makes my chest feel like it’s caving in.
Still makes me think thoughts I have no right to think anymore.
To this day, Cole Hudson is the only person who’s ever made me feel anything real.
Being his best friend was easy until suddenly watching him walk into a room felt like taking a punch and a prayer in the same breath.
I tried to bury it, hide it. But eventually, it happened.
We happened. And it was slow, careful, perfect.
He was my forever.
I should’ve known better. A guy like me doesn’t get that kind of forever.
“Yo.” JJ elbows me. “You know Cole Hudson?”
“Everyone in Baywood knows Cole Hudson,” I say, shrugging.
“It sounded more than that,” Ronnie says, eyes narrowing like he’s trying to read my face.
I fake a yawn, lean back. “Nah. School. You wanna look somewhere else or are we done?”
Ronnie’s gaze lingers, just a beat too long, but he doesn’t push it. Not now, anyway. “Marina tomorrow. We’ll find the fucker.”
We start moving. My pulse hasn’t slowed.
Cole is my everything. Which means, to them, he has to be nothing.
If JJ, Ronnie or Sam even suspect he matters to me, they’ll use him. Cole could become a pawn in their petty power games, or worse, just a toy to break when they get bored.
I’ve heard the stories.
So I do the only thing I can. I bite down on the ache. I play their game.
And I pray they didn’t already see through me.
COLE
Caspian drives quietly beside me, one hand on the wheel, his expression unreadable in the soft dashboard glow.
In the backseat, Noah’s asleep, head tilted, mouth slightly open, fingers curled protectively around his T-Rex.
I stare out the window, watching the porch lights flicker past like slow blinks in the dark. Baywood at night always feels quieter than it should, like the whole town is holding its breath.
I haven’t felt this awful in a long time. Or this alive. Messed up as it is, I welcome the pain. It means I’m more than a single dad running on autopilot. It means I’m still me.
We pass the Stone family barn, and for once, I don’t look away. I welcome the memories.
Xaden had been gone all summer, working at a farm across the state line.
Said he’d be away all of August too. I missed him — pined after him, honestly — but there was also relief in not having to hide my feelings for a while.
I’d been a blushing, barely functioning idiot around him for months, and I worried he was tired of it.
With him gone, I threw myself into the band. Alex, Devon, and I spent the summer rehearsing in Devon’s garage, dreaming big and joking around.
Then, the last weekend before school, Caspian threw one of his epic keg parties in his family’s renovated barn.
We played our usual set. I was singing Wicked Game when Xaden walked in. I almost dropped the mic.
***
He wasn’t supposed to be back yet. He wasn’t supposed to look at me like that, like I was the only secret worth keeping.
Tanned from the summer, broader, impossibly hot, smirking like he knew every thought in my head.
I barely survived the last verse. Afterward, I followed him outside like some moth to the most dangerous flame.
“You’re here,” I said, wincing at how obvious I sounded.
He just smiled. “Came to hear the band.” Then, after a pause: “I like their singer.”
He said it like it meant something. Looked at me like I meant something.
I froze, like always.
I wanted to tell him how badly I had missed him, but the words got stuck in my throat.
He reached up, brushed something out of my hair, fingers lingering just enough to wreck me. Then he muttered something about an early start and walked away.
And I just stood there like a fool, hands in my pockets, watching him disappear into the shadows.
***
“Hey,” Caspian says gently, like he knows exactly where my mind’s gone. “We’re home.” We sit in the driveway a little longer. Noah stays asleep.
“You know,” Caspian says, leaning back, “when I saw him tonight, I wanted to ask if you were okay. But I figured that was a stupid question.”
“It’s not stupid,” I murmur. “It’s actually a very valid question.”
Caspian smiles, tired and knowing. “Yeah. I haven’t forgotten how it was between you two.”
“You noticed?” I deadpan. Pretty sure the entire school noticed. Later, there was even a group who claimed to ‘totally ship us’.
“Yes. For some weird reason I was paying close attention,” he says, meaning before he came out.
I smile faintly. “Yeah. After the Pumpkin Dance you basically cornered me at the lockers, asking if Lisa was telling the truth.”
Caspian groans. “I was a dick. ‘Did Xaden really tell Lisa he likes a boy?’ None of my business, and you were right to tell me so.”
“You had your reasons,” I say. “But Lisa and Justin and his stupid friends… I was so pissed at them.”
We fall quiet again. Not uncomfortable, just both caught in our own thoughts. Eventually, Caspian reaches back to unbuckle Noah’s seatbelt.
“Come on,” he says softly. “Let’s get you both inside.”
I tuck Noah in, stroke his cheek, watch his eyelids flutter.
When I tiptoe out, Caspian’s standing in the hall, ready to go. “I helped myself to a sandwich,” he says, yawning. “But I also made you one. And there’s tea. Noah get back to sleep okay?”
“Yeah, he barely woke up when I brushed his teeth,” I smile, glancing at the kitchen table. There’s a sandwich on a plate, a teabag already in the mug. A painstakingly tender mix of love and gratitude washes over me.
“What would I do without you?” I ask quietly.
“Fall apart like a house of cards,” Caspian says, but he’s joking. He pokes me lightly in the ribs. “You’d be fine.”
We say goodnight after that, Caspian leaving with a slightly embarrassed nod. He gets that way when I call out his kindness. He grew up in a family that treated kindness like weakness, and yet it’s the very thing that made us friends.
It was soon after Xaden’s dad died. My parents and Lizzie were constantly fighting, throwing cruel words like knives, and in the middle of it was Noah, Lizzie’s brand new baby.
Lizzie refused to tell us who the father was.
I still don’t know. She doesn’t want to talk about the pregnancy: how she found out so late, or about her reasons for leaving Baywood.
If someone asks about Noah’s biological dad, Lizzie shuts down.
The first month after Noah was born was horrible: Mom, Dad and Lizzie in a nonstop shouting match, Xaden slipping away under the weight of his grief. The two people I’d leaned on most, Lizzie and Xaden, were unraveling, and I didn’t want to add to their burden.
***
One night, I escaped to Baywood Beans.
Caspian was there, reading on his Kindle. He looked up and smiled. “Hey. No offense, but you look like hell.”
That was all it took. I sat down, and the tears came without warning — big, ugly ones. I didn’t even know what I was crying for most. Lizzie. Her baby. Xaden. His dad. Me.
“Shit,” Caspian said, handing me what had to be ten napkins. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. You look really nice. You always do.”
That made me laugh. A full-body, ridiculous cry-laugh.
Later, he bought me a hot chocolate and a cookie. “It’s oatmeal raisin,” he said. “Please don’t start crying again, but they were out of chocolate chip.”
For the first time in days, I smiled.
***
I sit down now with my sandwich and tea, feeling raw. From the high of my gig to the low of seeing Xaden, I feel like I’ve been tumble-dried.
Steam curls from the mug, suddenly reminding me of Christmas.
Xaden always came over, even if just briefly.
Sometimes he stayed for dinner if his dad was working through the holidays for better pay.
After dinner, I’d sing him carols in my room.
I always chose the silliest ones, just to hear him laugh.
The memory fades, the ache doesn’t.
I’m used to exhaustion, but the single-dad kind. I love Noah so much I’d die for him, but there’s always something going on. A new phase that “only lasts a little while.” When that ends, another one begins.
Maybe Mom’s right: maybe I’m in a phase too.
The one where I pretend everything’s fine when it isn’t.
It really isn’t. Seeing Xaden again made me realize that.
Sometimes I’m barely keeping up. Especially when things change overnight.
Like the way Noah hated socks for two years and then suddenly loved them.
Or like Xaden coming back.
He has no right to be back.
And I have no idea what I’d do if he left again.
XADEN
The garage smells like oil, dust, and my childhood.
A chaotic kingdom ruled by Frankie Dawson, an unimpressed frown of a man who’s always been around.
He looks every bit of his fifty-six years, though he probably was born looking a little tired.
He’s not just Baywood’s most dependable mechanic, he’s Baywood’s most dependable man. At least to me.
I sit across from him, oddly moved by his solid presence. Seeing Cole tonight was pain and regret. Seeing Frankie? A different kind of ache. The man rarely smiles, but I know he’d take a bullet for me without blinking.
I clear my throat. “Most of your hair’s gone.”
“It flew out the window with your manners,” he shoots back.
I grin, raise my can. “I owe you. No way was I spending the night in Kieran’s trailer. Smelled too much like ball sweat and stupidity.”