20. Cole #3
“Everything can kill you,” I say with a shrug. “Might as well have fun while we’re living.” I look back out over the city. “Besides, I like riding. The noise in my head shuts up for a while when I’m on the bike.”
She slips her arms into the sleeves of my jacket. “Painting does that for me,” she mutters, setting the empty chip bag on the ground beside her. “I feel like I can just… put everything I’m feeling onto the canvas.”
I tilt my head and look over at her. “Why’d you come to Colton?” I ask. “Westbrook has a good art program too.”
She meets my eyes, and something shifts in her expression before she looks away and shrugs. “I had something I needed to do here.”
I snort. “What, annoy me?”
She shoots me a glare. “What about you?” she asks. “I remember Chase saying you had scouts looking at you.”
My jaw tightens. I hate hearing his name out of her mouth. Hate how much of our history is tangled with him.
“Colton made the best offer,” I say. “Full scholarship, decent coaches, and it’s far enough from home.”
She must catch something in my face, because she doesn’t push. She just turns back toward the town, and I do the same.
The silence stretches between us for a minute before I look back over at her. There’s something I’ve been wondering for weeks, and before my brain can tell me to keep my mouth shut, the words are already out.
“You still working at the strip club?”
She pauses, her fingers tracing the hem of my jacket where it rests against her knee.
“No,” she finally says after a while.
I watch her profile in the dim light. “Why’d you do it in the first place?”
She lets out a quiet sigh, her gaze fixed on the streetlights miles below us.
“I thought…” She shakes her head slowly.
“I don’t know what I thought. I guess I just wanted to make my own decision for once in my life.
” She lifts her gaze to mine, and pastes on a forced smile.
“The breakup clearly got to me more than I would have liked.”
A muscle jumps in my jaw. “He’s a fucking idiot,” I blurt out.
Aurora stops messing with the jacket. She slowly turns her head, glancing at me. She holds my gaze, her blue eyes searching mine, like she’s trying to figure out if I actually mean it, or if it’s just a trap.
The sky has gone dark while we’ve been sitting up here, and it hits me how long we’ve been up here. Usually, I can’t get away from her fast enough, but being up here with her was… easy. Fun, even.
And that’s the part that fucks me up most.
Clearly she feels the same because she shifts, tugging my jacket a little tighter around herself. “This is weird.”
I glance over at her. “What is?”
She meets my eyes and lets out a sigh. “Being…” She grimaces. “Friendly with you.”
I arch a brow. “Prescott, you tasted yourself off my fingers.” I hold her gaze and watch the heat climb up her throat into her cheeks. “We’re not fucking friends.”
Her lips part slightly and my eyes drop to them before I can stop myself, wondering what it’d be like to kiss her, to feel her lips against mine.
The thought is so wrong it makes my jaw tighten.
“It’s getting late,” I say, pushing up to my feet and dusting gravel off my palms. “I should drop you off.”
She nods and stands, shoving the empty packet in her pocket. We head back down and head toward my bike.
I grab the helmet, slide it on her again anyway, and pull the strap snug beneath her chin. My eyes lock on hers and my chest feels weird. Her breath hitches when my fingers linger for half a second too long, and that tiny sound is enough to snap me out of whatever the hell just happened.
I climb onto the bike and she swings a leg over behind me, her hands sliding around my waist, interlocking her fingers against my stomach. It shouldn’t feel as good as it does.
I start the engine and pull out onto the road. The ride is quiet on the way back. She doesn’t tease me or give me any shit, and it’s oddly peaceful.
I pull up in front of her building a few minutes later and kill the engine.
She swings off, unstrapping the helmet, and hands it back, but she doesn’t immediately walk away. She just stands there, holding my gaze, the wind blowing the ends of her hair across her face.
Neither of us says anything, but we’re probably thinking the same thing.
We didn’t fight.
We didn’t fuck.
And somehow, we actually had a good time.
“Thanks for today,” she says, breaking the silence between us. “Riding on the bike was fun.”
I lift my shoulder, and she turns, heading toward her building, but before she can get too far, her name is out of my mouth.
“Aurora.”
She stops and looks back at me, her brows drawing together.
I hold her gaze, my mouth dry all of a sudden. I lick my lips and blow out a breath. “Don’t go out with Holden.”
She blinks a couple of times, clearly caught off guard.
Hell, so am I.
But she doesn’t say anything. She just turns and walks inside, leaving me out here with my head completely fucked, trying to make sense of why the thought of her with another guy makes something twist in my chest instead of the burning hatred I used to feel for her.