Chapter 1 Cole #17
“You pacing like that’s contagious,” I mutter. “Makes me antsy.”
JJ grunts, cracks his can. Ronnie smirks.
“Is Mike—?” I ask, slicing a finger across my throat like I don’t already know he’s behind bars.
JJ drags on his cigarette, flicks ash near my boot. “Got pulled over.”
“Big Sam got pulled over?” I fake surprise. Ronnie kicks a rusted pipe so hard it clatters against the wall.
“Sam, Keith, and Callum ran,” JJ says. “Left Mike in the car.”
“Jesus.” I whistle low. “Why?”
“Broken taillight,” Ronnie snarls. “Now the pigs got Mike.” I nod, pretending it’s just another bump and not something Keller orchestrated.
“Sam’s furious,” JJ says, voice caught between excitement and fear.
“I bet. Now what?”
JJ shrugs too casually. “Don’t know yet.”
Then Ronnie says, dark and deliberate, “There’s somethin’ else.”
My pulse ticks up. “Yeah?”
He flips open a knife, studies it. “There’s a rat.”
I force a short laugh. “A snitch?”
“That’s what people are sayin’,” JJ says, watching me. “Someone close to Sam.”
I keep my expression loose. “Let me guess. Sam wants it dealt with?”
JJ exhales smoke through his nose. “He’s gonna want it messy. Personal.”
Ronnie grins, nasty. “Maybe we don’t start with the rat himself. Maybe we start with what he cares about. Teach him what personal really means.”
The back of my neck goes ice-cold. JJ steps closer. Just one step, but enough. “You’d tell us if anything felt off, right? If someone was actin’ weird.”
I meet his stare. “’Course I would.”
“Good.” He flicks his cigarette away. “We’re family, after all.”
My skin crawls, but I nod. “Family.”
“And Bailey?” JJ’s voice is knife-cold now. “Threaten me again, and it’s you without teeth.”
I stare long enough to make it uncomfortable — exactly what ex-con Xaden Bailey would do — before shrugging. “Yeah. Got it.”
He smirks.
When they head inside Kieran’s trailer, I ride back to Frankie’s, my head spinning. They don’t trust me like they used to.
If Sam and his gang figure out who I am before I finish this, if they realize whose life matters most to me…
Cole might be the price they decide I should pay.
COLE
Morning hits like punishment. Sunlight slices across my bedroom, the kind that feels rude on principle.
I squint at the ceiling, vaguely aware I never really slept. Maybe an hour. Two at most. 7:12 a.m. That gives me eighteen minutes before Noah wakes up, ready to roar through the morning routine.
I am absolutely not ready. I feel like a crushed soda can. My body’s heavy, my brain fogged with the same looping thought: Xaden, Xaden, Xaden.
God, I tried not to. I tossed and turned, rearranged my pillow like that ever helped anyone. But he was in every dream I didn’t quite fall into. Every memory I couldn’t stop from playing, like a sad little film reel from a better life.
And for some reason, my subconscious went straight for the sultry ones. Yes, sultry. Who even uses that word? Besides heroines in Harlequin novels. Which I have definitely never read, by the way.
Last night my brain decided to replay one of our dates. Not that we were calling them dates, we just ‘hung out’. Not like in school, where we sneaked out somewhere private to kiss, or where Xaden’s fingers lingered on mine when he suddenly needed to give me a pencil fifteen times per class.
Evenings were different. He picked me up, walked me to the passenger side and insisted on opening the door for me. Then he kissed me like I was fragile and burning at the same time.
***
That night, Xaden drove us to the overlook.
“You always drive me to places with good views,” I said.
Xaden looked at me like I was the view, brushing my knuckles with his thumb.
I noticed he was still wearing his jacket and asked if he was cold. He got all tongue-tied, and it was so unlike him I almost panicked he wanted to break up with me.
But then he took off his jacket. And I saw the tattoo.
A beautifully made constellation on his bicep.
“I wanted something that reminds me of our first kiss,” Xaden said bashfully, and I just looked at him, eyes full of wonder. Thinking he’s the most amazing, loveliest boy in the whole universe. I ran my fingers along the stars while Xaden was looking at me like he couldn’t believe I was really his.
“Do you like it?” he asked, almost shyly.
“I love it,” I said, blushing, because when he looked at me like that, I just… melted.
“Good,” Xaden said softly, leaning closer. Then he whispered: “Cole — I love you.”
I remember climbing over the console, straddling him, kissing him until we were both flushed and dizzy.
I remember running my fingers along the stars and saying I loved him.
I remember his breath catching in his throat, and how I had never been happier.
***
I’m still thinking about it when I hear Noah’s door creak down the hall.
Tiny footsteps. Then the sound of something being dragged.
Soon, Noah appears in my doorway, hair sticking up like a science experiment gone terribly wrong.
He’s got his new stuffed triceratops on a leash. It’s almost his size. Thanks, Mom.
He stares at me. “Dinosaur the Dog is hungry. You look like a raccoon.”
I blink. “What?”
“You got big circles around your eyes. Are you turning into a raccoon?”
I smile through the fog. “No, I just didn’t sleep.”
He pats my arm solemnly. “Grandma says there’s nothing a little eye cream can’t fix.”
“Thanks for the advice, Dr. Noah.” The ache in my chest loosens a little. Raccoon eyes and all, I follow him to the kitchen.
We’re barely in when the back door flies open and Mom sweeps in on a cloud of Chanel and unfair energy. A brown paper bag in one hand, two takeaway coffees in the other, and a fruitie for Noah.
“Morning, my darlings! Croissants!” she trills. “Earl claims they’re now authentically Parisian, which I believe means a tourist spoke French near his oven.”
She deposits the bag, then zeroes in on me. “You look dreadful. So — how was last Friday?”
Right. The date with James. She’s been expecting a detailed minute log.
“It was.”
She arches a brow, then reads aloud the words stretched across my faded T-shirt: 404 Error: Sleep Not Found.
“Good grief, Cole. I know a clothes therapist in Raleigh. I’ll schedule you an appointment.” She waves a manicured hand like that’s settled.
“Anyway, I want details. Did James mention Milan? Ask where you stand on monogrammed towels? Use the word discipline? We could train him out of that.”
“Mom, I’m more attracted to this takeaway cup than to him. And he called me an ‘unpolished diamond.’”
Before she can respond, Noah perks up. “Like the one Auntie Lizzie sent me?” Mom stills.
“She said it’s a moon diamond. Magic,” Noah says. “Is it true?”
I try to smile, but the truth is Lizzie’s gifts are always like that. Shiny distractions she drops off from wherever she’s traveling. Trinkets instead of presence.
Mom presses her lips together, then nods. “If Lizzie said so, it must be.” She says it softly, but I see the ache in her eyes.
It’s the same ache I’ve carried since Lizzie chose escape over staying. She can’t sit still in Baywood long enough to fix anything. Not with us, not with herself. I don’t blame her. But I do miss her.
Noah beams. “I’m gonna put it under my pillow and wish for ice cream every day for breakfast!”
“Wouldn’t you rather have broccoli for breakfast?” I tease. Noah shrieks like I’ve suggested treason. Mom’s still watching him quietly, grief written in the set of her mouth.
And me? I’m caught between two longings — for the sister who left, and the boy who did too.
Neither of them here when I needed them most.
XADEN
Baywood Public Library smells like old books and peppermint tea.
“Xaden!” Juniper calls from behind the front desk, half-buried under a stack of paperbacks.
She’s wearing a purple cardigan that could either be a fashion statement or a fabric accident.
Her hair is dyed to a vivid blue. That could also be a statement or an accident, knowing Juniper.
“I was hoping you’d stop by! Did Frankie tell you I visited? ”
“He did. Still had muffin crumbs in his beard when he mentioned it.”
Juniper laughs, knocking over the book stack. “ Saatana !” she exclaims. Then she grins at me. “That was a Finnish swear word. I learned it from Earl’s special friend.”
“Earl has a special friend?” I ask, surprised.
“Yes, a lovely woman called Maija, she’s from Finland. Earl had her on the counter — on Zoom call, I mean. Not physically.”
I think of Finland and my mind produces reindeer and naked people in saunas with birch whisks. Weirdly, it fits Earl.
I help Juniper put the books back.
Then she comes around the desk to hug me. She’s so short I feel like I’m hugging an overenthusiastic Smurf. “What’s the name of your shampoo? Your hair smells divine,” she says. “I’d smell it properly, but I’m too lazy to get my rolling ladder.”
“I don’t know. One of those all-in-one things,” I say.
Juniper sighs. “I have a five-step coconut-friendly hair repair routine and my hair smells like printer ink got married and made babies with paper glue.”
“It looks nice,” I offer. “Very… blue.”
“Thank you. Did you hear I got married?” She flashes her ring. Instead of a diamond, it has a tiny sparkling book on top.
“I didn’t but congratulations. Do you remember how you broke up with me in a letter? We were seven. I didn’t even know we were together. And your letter had ten pages,” I smile.
Juniper snorts. “Oh my God, yes. Didn’t I send you another letter too, about the rules? You were supposed to whisper sweet nothings to my ear every Monday at lunch.”
I laugh, but then I falter.
Those letters might still be under the loose floorboard in my old room. The one I never went back to after Dad died.