Chapter 2 Xaden #9
“Listen? To what, Xaden?” I laugh like a maniac. Isn’t there a song about being a maniac? Yeah, well, that’s me. Maniac on the pavement. “You want me to listen to how everything with you is one lie after another?”
He opens his mouth, then closes it.
“You let me think you’d become one of them. That you’d given up on… everything.”
On me, you idiot.
I don’t let him speak. “And meanwhile, I had to hear people whisper things like, poor Cole, he must be devastated — Xaden robs banks now. Or libraries. Or Earl’s cinnamon rolls.”
“Cole, listen—”
“I don’t want to hear another word, because it’ll just be another lie.” I turn my back and start walking.
“Please,” he says.
His voice is small, almost breaking. Smaller than I’ve ever heard him.
I stop.
“I wanted to tell you. From the beginning. Ever since I was able to come back. But I couldn’t.”
My heart is pounding so loud it hurts. I turn back, slowly. “Do you have any idea what it’s like,” I whisper, “to constantly doubt yourself? To feel like the one person who ever really saw you is just another lie?”
His eyes soften, but his voice is low, rough. “I do. More than you know.” Silence. It feels endless. He takes a single step toward me. Slow, careful. Like I might shatter.
“What happened to your dad?” My throat closes, but I force the words. “Was my dad involved?”
He hesitates. Then: “Dad made the fatal mistake of always being honest. And Willard couldn’t stand that.” His gaze is steady. “But your dad wasn’t part of it.”
It still hits me like a blow. So it wasn’t an accident. Eli Bailey was murdered.
And Xaden’s carried that alone for all these years.
I lift my hand to touch his cheek, and he crumbles. He pulls me into his chest, arms locked around me, and I let him.
For a while we just stand there, holding on to each other, our connection the only thing keeping us from collapsing.
I don’t cry. Not fully. But I shake.
“I’ve got you,” Xaden murmurs, his breath warm against my temple. His voice is low, rough, almost pleading. Like insisting it will make it true. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
I look up at him, eyes wet, legs trembling. He looks back like I’m the only thing tethering him to this earth.
I don’t even give myself time to think. My body decides before my brain can argue. I lean in, brush my lips against his. Soft. Careful.
It’s the kind of kiss you give when you’re not sure the other person will still be there tomorrow, but you need them to know they matter today. He breathes in sharply, then kisses me back just as gently — trembling, reverent, almost afraid to want more.
It reminds me of our first kiss, all those years ago, under the stars. When we part, our foreheads rest together, and we just breathe.
His fingers are still trembling on my back. “Cole,” he whispers. My name like it’s holy and broken at the same time.
“I won’t let you go through this alone,” I say.
His eyes close, his jaw tight. “That’s what scares me,” he murmurs.
“Well, tough,” I say. “You don’t get to be scared of that. Not anymore. Because I’m not walking away.”
We stand together for a moment longer. The world outside keeps spinning — Willard, secrets, my dad, the danger ahead.
But right now, in this breath, it’s just us.
And that’s more than enough.
XADEN
I park down the street from Cole’s house. Suddenly, I’m nervous. First-date nervous. Which is stupid, because this isn’t a date. Cole just wants to show me something. So. Not a date.
Although we kissed. Like we were still teenagers experiencing the wonder of touching another person’s lips with your own.
I can’t stop thinking about it. How Cole instinctively knew how to give me the very thing I needed the most.
I catch my reflection in the side mirror and rake a hand through my hair, somehow making it worse.
Still not a date, dude.
Warm light spills from the windows. I take a breath and head up the walk. Cole opens the door before I can knock.
Sweatpants, a worn-out Blondie sweater, hair still damp from a shower. He looks tired. He looks beautiful. My chest does that dumb flip and I tell it to behave.
“Hey,” he says, offering a small smile.
“Hey,” I say, suddenly not sure what to do with all my limbs. I hand out the chocolate I grabbed while shopping for Frankie. Cole blinks, surprised; a blush creeps in. “This is my favorite.”
“I know.”
God. I couldn’t be less subtle if I tried.
“Is Noah asleep?” I ask before I accidentally propose.
Saying Noah’s name feels like touching a live wire — too intimate, too revealing. Cole nods, leading me into the kitchen.
“You want anything? Tea, coffee… room-temperature milk?”
I laugh, startled. “You remember that?”
“It’s burned into my memory,” he says dryly. “There’s a whole collection, the best of Cole’s awkward moments.”
I stare at him, helplessly. I don’t have a guidebook for dealing with this bolder version of Cole, and my brain is making a dangerous-sounding noise like it’s about to shut down in total bliss.
“I’ll take tea,” I say. It comes out weirdly low, like I’m trying to seduce him with chamomile.
I clear my throat. Cole’s mouth tips. “You eaten? I can heat something up.”
He says it like it’s nothing. Like feeding someone is in his muscle memory. But to me, it’s everything. I just nod, because if I talk, I’ll say too much.
He turns to the fridge, and my gaze drifts to the open notebook on the table — pages crowded with arrows and names. In the center, circled hard: WILLARD.
“May I?” I point.
“That’s actually what I wanted to show you,” he says, clinking around for forks. “I drew a very convincing deerstalker so I’m thinking of a career in fashion design.”
I smile at the lopsided hat, then scan the written chaos: his dad, JJ and Ronnie, the Bloom sisters, my dad, Earl, me.
Then my eyes catch something in the corner: small, messy handwriting, half-scratched out but still legible:
The truth is, I’ve never stopped being his.
Right below it, in frantic lines:
Could he end up in jail again? God, I hope not.
I have no intention of becoming a prisoner’s boyfriend.
I mean — I have no intention of becoming his boyfriend. Period.
…I might consider it. If it weren’t for JJ and Ronnie.
I freeze. Read it twice. Three times.
Cole turns just in time to see what I’m staring at. His face drains, then flushes bright red. “Oh my God. I forgot I wrote that — it’s just shorthand, a code for… I wasn’t…” He reaches for the notebook.
I set my hand on the page, gentle but firm.
“You might consider it?” My voice is a rasp. “You’ve never stopped being mine?”
He looks like he’d like the floor to swallow him. But he doesn’t retreat into silence like he used to.
He’s standing here, pink-eared and mortified, but still looking at me. And that feels… pretty damn good.
“Can we just forget it?” he grimaces. “Anyway, here, eat.” He puts a plate before me and steps back, rubbing his neck.
I don’t want to forget it. I want to frame it. But I hear the near-panic in his breath, so I close the notebook.
Still, I can’t resist. I meet his eyes. “JJ and Ronnie,” I say evenly, “are basically out of the equation.”
He makes a strangled sound, scrubs a hand down his face. “I’m going to pass out. That’s it. I’m going to die right here, next to the microwave,” he mumbles.
“Calm down Earl,” I smile.
“This chicken is suspiciously good,” I add because if I keep staring at his flushed ears I’m going to do something stupid and I’m going to do it now. “Are you sure we’re not on a date?”
He shoots me a look that says don’t push it. But he’s smiling.
COLE
Xaden insists on helping with the dishes, and it’s so domestic I almost break a plate. He’s meticulous with the towel, like he doesn’t want to leave. Well. I don’t want him to leave either.
We clean up in a comfortable silence, but when we sit down on the couch, the silence shifts.
The quiet’s suddenly fully charged.
I try not to notice how close he is. Fail immediately. The heat off his arm turns my skin into an antenna.
I steal a sneaky peek at the elaborately inked text on his left forearm and make an embarrassing gasp when I finally make sense of the swirly words.
See something you like?
He has that written on his skin. The question he asked me the day I finally found the courage to speak up — if we can call my flustered squeaking that.
The day I admitted I had feelings for him.
“When did you, um, that?” I ask, blushing, and point at the tattoo.
“The first fall in Briar Gap,” he says, voice low. Raspy. “Police academy,” he clarifies.
“O-okay.”
I’m cool. Not melting with desire. Nope.
(I’m not cool.)
Xaden’s looking at me; I can feel it, but instead of shrinking into myself and closing my eyes, I let myself meet his gaze and hold it. Although it makes me all tingly and nervous and squirmy.
It also adds new levels to the whole melting-with-desire thing.
His fingers brush mine, slowly. I turn my hand and thread our fingers, just for a beat, just enough to say I’m here.
We look at each other.
Not kissing him right now would be a crime against humanity, and I can’t take any risks, not when I know he’s a cop.
Buzz.
It takes a second to realize it’s my phone, and not my body overheating. I fumble my phone from my pocket.
CASPIAN : “Help! Antonio sent me a ghost, a devil and a tongue???”
I groan.
CASPIAN : “I don’t know how to reply!”
“I, uh… Caspian,” I mutter, showing the screen to Xaden while I type:
COLE : “He’s flirting with you. Send something similar back.”
“There’s this guy Caspian really likes,” I tell Xaden, putting my phone away.
“He got his number, then,” Xaden says, amused. I blink. “How do you know about it? Is it because you’re a cop?” I whisper, eyes wide.
Xaden’s face goes solemn. “Yes. I’ve had him under surveillance for some time,” he murmurs. It takes me a full two beats to catch the tease. I huff; he tugs me closer, thumb dragging over my knuckles. My heartbeat stutters, but I don’t hide it.