Chapter 1 Cole #7
I can almost hear the swoosh of my legs turning to jelly.
He shifts his weight, close enough that I catch the faint clean smell of soap mixed with sweat. I’m ambushed by sensory memory — how he used to smell when I leaned into him, how I always felt steadier and safer when I did.
Realizing I have been staring at his chest for a minute or so, I avert my gaze, but not before my brain registers the new tattoos circling his arms.
I swallow. I still remember the first one he ever got — the constellation. Because our first date was under a starry night sky, and Xaden’s romantic like that. Used to be, at least.
Cole, you’re an adult and a parent. Get a grip.
But when averting my gaze makes me accidentally look straight into his dark eyes I totally fail to get a grip.
There’s something hot and unguarded flickering there, gone before I can name it, but enough to make my pulse quicken.
He looks almost amused, as if he knows exactly what I was thinking about.
Mustering all my dignity, I hold onto Noah’s T-Rex and wait for Xaden to say whatever he came to say.
I hope it’s an apology. Spoiler alert: it’s not an apology.
“Look, those guys you saw me with? They’re bad news,” he says in his new, deeper voice.
God, he sounded hot enough in school so why does he have to torture me with the kind of macho rasp that makes me want to close the space between us and…
well, I could start with tasting his lips. I miss his lips.
But I go with sarcasm instead: “Oh no, and I was just about to invite them over for tea,” I say.
Xaden exhales in a long-suffering manner. I glare. His right to blow frustrated air in my vicinity has long since expired.
“Cole, this isn’t a joke,” he says tightly.
“Wasn’t laughing,” I say in exactly the same tone. I’ve learned a few tricks from Noah, and it turns out I’m not above using them on Xaden.
He sighs again, raking his fingers through his damp hair like he used to do when he was nervous. It makes his hair look even more devastating. I used to love touching it. Just like he loved touching mine.
“They harass people for fun. They’re dangerous,” he says, more angrily now.
“Not a very nice way to talk about your friends,” I bite. “You met in prison?”
Xaden flinches. The silence hangs between us.
“So it’s true,” I say, voice flat. He doesn’t deny it. Just stands there.
I hold up the T-Rex. “Well, I have to—”
“Wait,” he says quickly, stepping closer. “You’re gonna hear things now that I’m back in town. Some of it’s true. Most of it isn’t.”
“You don’t owe me an explanation,” I lie. Because he does. He really, really does.
Xaden looks at me for a long moment, jaw working like he’s about to say something real. But then his face shutters. His voice turns flat. “Can we pretend we were never together?”
It punches the air right out of my lungs. My throat burns, but he’s not even flinching. My chest feels like it’s cracking open, and I stare at him, giving him time to take it back.
He doesn’t.
Okay. If he wants cruel, I can give him cruel. “That suits me just fine. Our relationship isn’t exactly my favorite memory.”
He steps back like I hit him. Something flashes across his face — a hurt so raw it almost guts me. But then it's gone, shuttered behind the same mask of indifference.
Whoever this stranger is, he’s not my Xaden. Not the boy who called me beautiful.
Who counted my freckles and kissed me like I was his entire world.
Who always waited with so much patience I didn’t deserve.
No, this is someone else.
Someone who graduated with honors from the University of Not Giving a Shit.
“Cole—” he starts, voice suddenly vulnerable like he didn’t just ask me to erase us.
“Don’t,” I say sharply, afraid I’m going to cry. “Stay away from me, Xaden.”
Then I step inside before I shatter completely.
“You were so slow!” Noah’s running towards me, his whole face beaming. “I already ate it all!”
I manage to give him a weak smile when I lean my back against the door, hoping my legs won’t give up.
XADEN
The door clicks shut, and it’s louder than any slam. I stand frozen next to the Volvo, chest aching.
I told myself I’d keep him safe by pushing him away. I wanted him angry at me. Better anger than danger. But I wasn’t prepared for his eyes flashing in fury like I was nothing but an old wound.
Not his voice saying he wished he could forget me. Did he really mean that?
I clench my fists, feeling so fucking powerless.
Of course he meant that. He’s with Caspian now, isn’t he?
I don’t blame him — I disappeared for four years.
But God, if I could just tell him the truth.
I almost did, I almost grabbed the doorframe and begged him to listen.
The Cravens aren’t just bad news, they’re poison, and if they so much as suspect how much he means to me, they’ll use him until there’s nothing left.
I square my shoulders, take a few deep breaths. Protecting Cole means letting him believe the worst. I always knew that. So I just have to find a way to deal.
I jog back to Frankie’s, take a quick shower and then I go find JJ and Ronnie.
As much as I hate the duo, I still need them.
They’re arguing again, this time about ice cream flavors. Cherry Garcia versus Half Baked. I’d laugh if I didn’t want to jam popsicle sticks in my ears.
I lean against JJ’s truck, their noise gnawing on my nerves, and remind myself for the hundredth time this is a job and not the real me.
Ex-con. Parolee. Small-town burnout with anger issues and no real future. The only part that’s true? I don’t have a future. Not the kind I want, anyway.
Everything else is bullshit. Even my time in prison was just a part of my cover.
I wasn’t always this single-minded. The day I left Baywood was the worst day of my life. I was raw and desperate, heartbroken for having to leave Cole behind. Finding out Dad’s killer became the sole purpose for my existence. Frankie’s friend got me into the police training program in Briar Gap.
That first week hit hard. Bunkhouse with six strangers, powdered eggs, blisters on my blisters.
I learned how to shoot, disarm, restrain.
I got nicknamed “Steel” by week three because I didn’t smile, didn’t talk unless I had to, didn’t flinch under pressure.
One instructor told me I looked like I’d either be a detective or a headline.
I didn’t care which one if it got me what I wanted: Dad’s killer, or killers, behind bars.
Frankie believed me from day one. Said quiet towns were the loudest when it came to secrets.
Said Dad had been sniffing around something before he died.
Maybe Dad would’ve told me what it was if I hadn’t been kissing Cole into a breathless, pink-cheeked puddle instead of helping him like he had asked.
The radio hums low, and I know the song instantly. Hozier. Take Me to Church .
Just like that, I’m sixteen again, on the floor of Cole’s room, trying to help him through equations.
Trying to understand my feelings.
***
Cole was sprawled on the floor with his guitar, pencil behind his ear, strumming like it was the only thing worth knowing.
I sat there, trying to focus on algebra, but my eyes kept drifting.
He hummed Hozier under his breath, curls falling into his eyes, and he looked so perfect it made me ache.
A sound slipped out of me before I could stop it — half a groan, half a sigh. “Cole.” I meant it as a warning, or maybe a plea.
He glanced up, freckles catching the afternoon light. “What?”
My hands were almost shaking. “Did you even try number eight?” I asked, too quickly, drowning heat in math.
Cole’s mouth quirked. “Define try,” he muttered. “I looked at it. Once. Didn’t make sense.”
He grinned, bashful and daring all at once, and it hit me straight in the chest.
My heart stuttered. I panicked. Stood so fast my book hit the floor with a thud.
“I should go,” I blurted.
“Wait. What?” His voice was careful now. “You okay, Xaden? I can put the guitar away.”
That was worse — him offering to tuck away the thing he loved, just to make me stay.
“No, it’s just… what I forgot. So yeah, bye.”
I didn’t look at him as I slipped out. Couldn’t.
I hid for three days, claiming I had a cold.
By the time I saw Cole again, I’d managed to plaster myself back together enough to pretend nothing had changed. Except everything had.
Because I had finally admitted it to myself.
I was in love with my best friend.
***
The song fades. JJ’s voice cuts in. “Where’s that fucker at,” he mutters, spitting on the pavement.
I breathe deep. This job isn’t the kind SBI files in a neat report. There’s no backup. There’s just me. SBI chose me because I blend. Because I speak this town’s language: small talk, silent suspicion, loyalty without receipts.
But not even my supervisor knows I plan to stay until the very end.
Until I bury whoever buried my father.
Until I burn the rot down to the bones.
COLE
The morning sun is warm enough to fool you into thinking the world’s fine. Noah skips beside me, still smug about finishing his cereal before I got back with his T-Rex.
My mind keeps replaying the words I spat at Xaden: “Stay away from me.”
He looked hurt, and it isn’t fair. He obviously doesn’t care anymore. Not if he wants to pretend we were nothing. He had no right to look so vulnerable. Okay, maybe I wasn’t on my best behavior. Then again, I wasn’t the one who disappeared for four years.
I’m still chewing on the burn in my chest, the guilt and the fury, when I hear heavy footsteps behind me.
“Morning!” an all-too-familiar voice calls. Sheriff Willard, coffee in one hand, paper bag in the other.
“Morning,” I say, instinctively pulling Noah a little closer. Something in me always bristles around him. Like he’s too smooth, too loud, like a smile that shows too many teeth.
I notice Delilah watching from the café window, frowning slightly. When she sees me looking, she smiles and waves before going back to wiping tables.