Chapter 29 Cole
This was wrong.
It was so wrong on so many levels.
How could something that felt so good in the moment feel so awful after it ended?
All I knew was one moment I was thoroughly enjoying myself for the first time in years, and the next, this strong wave of guilt and remorse came over me. It wrapped around my neck like a noose, strangling my very essence.
But it wasn’t Samir’s fault. It was never Samir’s fault. It was mine and mine alone. Because I was broken.
I was so completely and utterly broken it wasn’t even funny or cute anymore. It was frustrating. It was infuriating. It was gross.
What business did I have running around with a charming kind man and giving him false hope when I was so broken I might never be fixed?
So I hid. I ran. I shied away. What else could I do? How could I explain the mess in my head?
Of course I hid away. I went back to work. Buried myself in my routine. Buried myself in the past I thought I could outrun. Put myself back to square one because that’s where I deserved to be. That way I didn’t hurt people. That way I didn’t hurt myself.
It was surprising how easily I managed to slip back to old habits. Surprising and depressing. I worked on Sunday, and I worked on Monday too even though I wasn’t supposed to.
And yet the more I worked, the more I thought about him.
About Samir and me. Together. In bed. Our limbs tangled under sheets.
Our lips knotted in a passionate kiss. Our fingers interlocked as if we were meant to be one.
It was impossible to stop running through the events of last week in my mind over and over again.
It was impossible to stop picturing us in unison.
To stop fantasizing about who we were that night in Boston and who we could be forever more.
And somehow, the shame and guilt and remorse turned into want and need. But I had no right to feel that way. I had no right to mess Samir about like that when it was clear I was unwell. That I shouldn’t be anywhere near other people for fear of poisoning them with my toxicity.
When Monday turned to Tuesday, and I tried to clock back in to work, Grayson, my battalion chief, pulled me aside and into his office.
“You can’t stay, Williams,” he said.
“Oh, but I can. I don’t mind. I’m fi—”
Grayson glared at me and huffed.
“Cole, I don’t give a shit if you can or if you want to. I’m telling you to go home.”
“Chief, with all due respect, I want to stay. I need to.”
Grayson stood up and raised his arm, slamming it to my shoulder, and gave me a good shake.
“I don’t know what’s going on with you, Williams, but pull yourself together. You’ve got a kid. Do you really want her to grow up without you?”
I opened my mouth to reply, but he glared at me even more intensely, and I shut up.
“Go home. Sleep. Wake up tomorrow and try again,” he said.
I laughed.
As if it was that easy. Nothing about me and my life was easy. I was a walking, breathing, sometimes talking disaster.
“I can’t, chief. I… I need to work. I need to forget, to…”
Grayson pressed his lips together and squeezed my shoulder again.
“Work won’t solve your problems, Cole. Trust me. I would know. Now go home. You know it’s against protocol to work more than one shift, but I turned a blind eye yesterday. I won’t let you work a third shift in a row.”
I started to protest, but Grayson raised his voice and shut me up.
“That’s an order. I can’t have you out in the field collapsing from exhaustion and putting yourself and others at risk in the middle of an emergency. Now go. Get before I call to tell on you.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“I still have your friend’s phone number, and I’m not afraid to use it.”
I gasped.
Grayson? Threatening me?
What had the world come to when you couldn’t trust your boss to have your back?
“Fine. Fine. I’ll go,” I relented and turned around, pulling away from my boss’s grip and office.
“And I don’t want to see you for another couple of days. Understood?”
“Understood,” I mumbled and made my way to my locker to collect my keys and jacket.
I had to return to reality at some point, I guess. And what a reality. A reality without Samir.
This sucks.
I suck.
I suck so bad.
But even though I wanted to, I didn’t text him. I didn’t call him. Even though I missed him.
Remorse might have slipped back into oblivion, replaced by desire, but what guaranteed I wouldn’t lead him on again only to feel the exact same way after another night together?
I didn’t want to play with Samir’s feelings. And I didn’t want to experiment with mine when I was so clearly broken. Broken beyond repair.
It was funny actually. How I always thought Sandra’s death would haunt me forever and would cast a shadow over the rest of my life.
How I thought I could never move on from her, and now that I wanted to, now that I felt ready to do so, it was my own fucked-up head that stood in the way.
Not Sandra, not grief, but my stupid broken self.
“Oh my God, will you stop moping already?” Carson said, and I barely registered him.
I barely registered anything these days. Every day and every moment passed me by in a blur. Just like the whole week had, and somehow I’d gone eight days without talking to him, without seeing him, without kissing him, and yet he lived rent-free in my head.
At least in there I hadn’t fucked up. At least in there I hadn’t been an ass. At least in there I wasn’t broken.
“Yeah, it’s Christmas for fudge’s sake. Pull your ship together,” Enzo added, making Ella giggle.
Was it really?
I looked around me. At my brother and my friend. They were now engaged, but of course even the memory of their proposal was hazy at best. I looked at Lilian. My daughter.
Ella was opening Christmas presents. Lilian was cooking something up in the kitchen and Carson and Enzo were picking up the mess Ella left behind in her gift-opening frenzy.
That wasn’t how I pictured Christmas this year. I didn’t even realize I’d pictured it differently until it was too late, but… I’d wanted more this year.
I wanted Samir to be here, by my side. I wanted him to be the one helping Ella open presents.
I wanted us cozying up on the couch, watching Christmas movies while Ella slept in our arms. I wanted us to enjoy a meal together with my family; to be dreaming of a future together and making wishes to that effect for the new year.
“I can’t,” I said. “I fucked up.”
Lilian shushed me from the kitchen, but it was already too late. Ella started saying “fucked up” over and over again like it was a Christmas beat.
I sighed.
“What the hell happened in Boston?” Enzo asked.
I shook my head, refusing to recount how embarrassing I’d been.
Carson stood up, grabbed me by the shoulders and gave me a good shake.
“Cole, you better start talking or I’m gonna whoop your ass like I’ve never whooped your ass in your life. Talk! Now.”
I refused.
“You’re ruining your Christmas and ours. How can we help you if you won’t let us?” Enzo added.
“I don’t need your help.”
“Clearly, you do,” Lilian said and offered me a cookie. “Toffee?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Just toffee?”
“What else did you expect?” she asked.
I shrugged.
“I don’t know. Toffee love spell or toffee happiness?”
Lilian laughed.
“Please. I always use alliteration.”
“So, it’s just toffee?”
“Just toffee.”
“Okay,” I said and bit into one.
It was gooey and crumbly and delicious, and I sank back into the couch, closed my eyes, and savored the treat.
“Cole, sweetie, what happened in Boston?” Enzo asked, settling at my feet and rubbing my knee affectionately.
I stared at his engagement ring and sighed.
“We slept together,” I said.
“O…kay,” Enzo said.
“We slept together and it was so good, and it was so much fun but then… when… when we were done, I got scared. I felt guilty and regretful, and I ruined everything. But I don’t feel guilty anymore.
I want him. I really do. I think… I think I was just scared because it was the first time in forever, and it was different, and I was away from home and it felt so, so good.
Oh my God, was it good? Why the fudge did I freak out?
I don’t know why when it was so good. He was so good.
He was perfect, and I’m not. I’m fudged up in the head and—”
“Breathe! Breathe,” Enzo whispered and it was only when I stopped that I realized how out of breath I was.
“Huh. You never fail me.” Lilian chuckled to herself staring down at the plate of toffee cookies.
“Mom!” Enzo groaned.
I didn’t even have the energy to tell her she tricked me with her magical truth serum. I just… I needed to lay down, close my eyes, and try to forget I was ever in love.
“Hmm,” I hummed and squeezed my eyes.
I needed to figure out where that thought had come from. Was… was I in love with Samir?
No!
It couldn’t be.
Then again, his eyes were awfully pretty.
And his kisses were addictive.
His touch was to die for.
And his company…
“Fuck!” I exclaimed, setting off Ella again.
“What? What?” Enzo and Carson asked me.
I sighed.
“I think… I think I’m in love with him.”
“That’s great,” Carson said, rubbing my arm.
“It’s not. I screwed it up.”
“You can always apologize.” Enzo grimaced.
“Wh-what if it happens again? What if I apologize and tell him how sorry I am and how much I want to be with him and… and the remorse comes back?”
“It won’t,” Carson said.
“How do you know?”
He shrugged.
“You need to talk to him. You need to explain—” Enzo started.
“Explain what? The mess in my head?” I laughed. “Yeah, that will go down like a lead balloon.”
“Balloon!” Ella exclaimed, and I chuckled.
My daughter was always so on topic.
“If he loves you too, he will listen. He will understand that some things might be hard.”
“No pun intended,” Carson scoffed and earned a punch from his boyfriend. No. Not boyfriend. Fiancé.
Had that really happened, and I hadn’t retained any of the memories?
“I don’t know,” I said.
“You want to know what I think?” Enzo asked.
“No, not really,” I snapped, but then he glared at me, so I nodded.
“I think you should go and apologize and tell him how you feel.”
“And what if… what if it happens again?”
“You deal with it when and if it happens.”
“And if he doesn’t forgive me?” I asked.
“If he doesn’t forgive you, then you weren’t meant to be, and you can move on with your life.”
Oh, God. That sounded even scarier.
But I knew Enzo was right. The very least I could do was apologize for my shitty behavior.
“Okay,” I murmured. “I’ll do it.”
“Good luck,” Enzo said, clapping his hands together.
I glared at him.
“What? Now?”
“There’s no time like the present!” Lilian sang behind her son.
“Yeah only the present is Christmas day. I shouldn’t bother him on Christmas day.”
“Honey,” Enzo said.
“Hm?”
“Yes, you can. Besides, he’s Muslim anyway so he won’t care. And even if he wasn’t, what better gift for Christmas than being told you’re loved?”
“Oh, it’s the best,” Carson said, and I turned to my brother.
Enzo had told him he loved him last Christmas too. And look at them now. Engaged to be married.
“Right. I need to do this,” I said. “I need to do this now.”