Chapter 10
CHAPTER
TEN
NATALIE
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
Frantic, panicked rummaging jerks me awake. A white-hot pain hammers behind my right eye, and I groan, yanking the blanket over my face. Where am I? Flashes from last night play in a succession of cringey reels in my brain.
Crying on Cole.
Drinking.
Way too much.
Smashing cookies with my face. Feral and unstable.
Oh, no. Oh god.
The next reel starts with me climbing onto Cole’s lap and him gently pushing me off. His words don’t come. Just the “No.” And then I fell asleep on the couch.
How I ended up tucked into this pillow-soft bed, drowning in cedar and lemon, is anyone’s guess.
“Fuck me. This is the last thing I needed.” Cole’s groan comes from the bathroom.
“You okay?” I ask, emerging from my cocoon and tiptoeing toward the warm light spilling from the bathroom.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“It’s fine. My parents want to get on the road by nine anyway.”
“Right.”
I lean against the door and press my throbbing temple against the cool wood. Very little relief finds me. “Hey. So. Are you still planning on coming? Because I understand if you’re rethinking the whole ‘two weeks with an emotional dumpster fire’ thing.”
There’s silence. A muttered curse. Still no response to my question. I get the hint.
“Yeah. Okay, that’s fair. Bye!” My heart sinks as I walk away, even though I shouldn't be disappointed.
“Sorry, you’re not getting rid of me that easy. I’m coming. How are you feeling?”
“I feel like I’m the one who got hit in the head at the game last night, but other than that fine. How are you?”
“Good. Good.” Cole says, his voice is calm, but there’s a decided edge to it, like the calmness is a sham. “There’s bacon and eggs on the counter for you.”
“Thank you? Cole? You really don’t sound okay.”
The more panicked Cole sounds, the more my hand shakes. I don’t want to face him yet, but something in my heart yells at me I have to make sure he’s okay.
“Cole? Can I come in?”
There’s a long-defeated sigh. “Fine. But you can’t laugh.”
“Why would I—”
The doorknob turns. The door swings open. My gaze sweeps from his thermal-socked feet, up his faded jeans, to the emerald green half-zip on his top half, then freezes on his face.
Thin, gold-framed glasses sit perched on his nose.
Not just any thin, gold-framed glasses.
But the gold-framed glasses Caden wore when I first met him, a pair I’ve never actually seen on Caden. I assumed it was because he quickly got thick black frames and just didn’t wear them. Or maybe they were his shower glasses and I’ve never been creepy enough to watch him shower but…
“Caden took my contacts with him and left his. His prescription is a lot stronger than mine, though.” Cole has the audacity to look sheepish, like this is a funny little mix-up and not the full-body identity crisis it is for me.
Because one: those glasses are the stuff slutty little glasses dreams are made of. And I’m having feelings and thoughts. Big. Ones.
And two. My brain is unraveling a very specific memory about the last time I saw those glasses, and currently screaming.
“And those are your glasses?” I ask, trying to sound casual, while somewhere deep in the recesses of my hollow meme-filled brain everything goes up in flames. It’s the “This is fine” dog in a burning room setting himself on fire, while Michael Scott screams “Oh my god, it’s happening.”
He tilts his head and looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. And honestly fair, because I clearly have. “Uh…yeah? I just don’t wear them much since I can’t wear them on the rink.”
“Right. But you’re wearing them now. So… they’re yours? Your glasses. The glasses you wear…on your face.”
“Yes?”
“Cool. Cool. Cool. And they’ve always been yours?”
Cole takes them off to look at them. In a reverse Superman/Clark Kent situation, he transforms to the person I instinctively loathe. True, I don’t know why I hate him anymore, but my body is accustomed to reacting negatively towards him.
“Yeah, these have always been mine. Are you okay?”
“Super!” I say, as he slides them back up his nose and is suddenly transformed into the man I once swore was fate. The man I wanted to love so desperately when I first met him.
Someone my body is instantly reacting to like he still is.
He scratches his head and crosses his arms. “Okay?” The word draws out between us.
When I saw Caden a few days after my initial run in with A Sinclair Brother, the possibility that the guy in the bathroom had an identical twin never crossed my mind.
And then I never thought someone would be a sociopath and pretend we had already met if we hadn’t.
Or keep the lie and accept the praise for so long.
And Cole? He’s possibly kept silent this whole time and let Caden take the credit for saving me. Why wouldn’t he say something? Was my dad right? Was I that much of a trainwreck that night he had to run away, and this was the easiest solution for him?
But if that’s the reason, why is he here now? My head throbs from all the beer and Bailey’s, and the world’s shittiest conundrum.
“Bacon!” I yell, regretting my high-pitch screech immediately. “Yes. I need bacon.”
Something warm and firm grips my hand, squeezing tighter until it’s restricting circulation to my fingers.
My body propels further in the warmth blanketing my side.
A car horn blares nearby, slicing through my cozy haze.
Jolting awake, I pop my eyes open to a world spinning out of control.
Outside our car, swirling snowflakes and muted lights appear in a dizzying display.
My pulse thuds in my ears until we finally come to a halt.
A collective sigh of relief ripples from my parents in the front seats to Cole and I in the back.
Snow crunches, and the car starts lurching forward again.
“What happened?” I ask, a panicked edge to my voice, but I can’t bring myself to sit upright, or properly react. I’m nestled somewhere safe and comfy. After suffering for more than three hours in the car with a migraine and nausea, this waking sleep has been appreciated.
“We just had a little spin-out but we’re fine. You can go back to sleep,” a soothing voice whispers and presses a kiss to the top of my head.
It’s Cole.
And I’m asleep on him.
And probably drooling.
In a panic, my body rockets upright, because that’s chill and not suspicious, and definitely something a girlfriend would do. At the sudden jerking, my seatbelt slams tight, locking me mid-movement, and now I’m stuck in this weird half-lounging, half-upright, fully uncomfortable position.
I have two options. I can either lean on Cole’s shoulder again, or I can sit in this weird, very uncomfortable position for who knows how long.
I decide to make a third option and wrestle with the seatbelt like a caged feral creature.
In hindsight, it’s probably the worst of the options and definitely a bad call. But bad call is my brand, so who’s really surprised?
A firm hand presses into my shoulder and guides me back into Cole’s warm side. “Easy there, tiger. The seatbelt is your friend.”
My father brakes and the car skids, locking the seatbelts even tighter. I’m pinned, strapped against Cole’s side with no more options to woefully execute.
“I think it might be a good time to consider pulling over for the night, Gary,” my mom says in hurried breaths. “The road crews need a chance to clean up, and you know the farther north we go, the worse it’ll be. I don’t want to deal with those Massachusetts drivers in this snow.”
I groan. Last thing I need is another day in the car under my parents’ watchful eyes with Cole when I’m trying to make sense of…everything?
Everything in my life for the past three years has been lie. Which is retroactive karmic justice, I guess, for the lie I’m telling my parents now.
A hand falls to my knee and pats it gently. “Don’t worry. I’ll book two rooms, so you don’t have to put up with your dad’s snoring, okay, princess?”
“Super.” I say through clenched teeth and suffocated breasts. So just kidding, this is actually the last thing I need.
“I could offer to get my own room,” Cole whispers, as if he senses my anxiety. His breath feathers the back of my neck, and the fine hairs lift in response as if they’re called to him.
“Not after yesterday. I’m pretty sure my mom thinks we’re in love and doing it twenty-four-seven,” I whisper back.
“So that’s the story we’re stuck wi—” The end of my sentence drifts away as I realize my lips are millimeters from his.
Even in my restricted state, I could capture them if he wanted it, if I was brave enough to ask.
But after last night and the revelation this morning, courage is the last thing I have.
Even if this closeness is making my heart pound faster and my breaths to quicken with each second we’re trapped.
“It could be worse.” Cole’s finger tucks under my chin. He raises my lips that last inch, nudging me with his nose. Slowly, he presses what should be a chaste kiss on my lips. Still, his soft brush of the lips melts away all my anxieties and tensions, like snow with the first kiss of spring.
“Booked!” my mom shouts. Cole pulls away, and I’m left embarrassingly chasing his lips, needing more than just a chaste embrace from him. Or wanting it, at any rate.
My mom turns around, beaming at us. “We were extremely lucky to get the last two rooms, too! Isn’t technology amazing?
You know, in the old days we had to go into the hotel to see if they had a vacancy and were at the mercy of their overcharging, but I just paid a hundred dollars total. Isn’t that something?”
“Super,” I say, trying to hide my breathless daze. I can’t bring myself to look at Cole. With the way I’ve been drawn to him the last few days, being trapped in a room with him overnight is a terrible idea. Ripe for more embarrassments by yours truly.
Well, at least I won’t be drinking tonight.
Hopefully, the romance gods and patron saints of making stuff awkward will take pity on me and the room will have two beds.
Please. I’m begging.