Chapter 36
36
COLE
I heard Paige’s voice and woke immediately. Sitting up, I shook off sleep and stared at her, the television still playing softly in the background. “What’s wrong?”
“She had them!” she whispered excitedly.
“What?” I rubbed my hand over my face. “Who had what? And what time is it?”
“It’s midnight, and I’m talking about Hazel,” she answered. “She had the kittens.”
I shook my head one more time, finally waking up. “Is she okay?”
“Yeah.” She yanked at the covers. “Come see.”
I lay back down and threw my arm over my forehead. “I’ll see them when the sun comes up.”
She grabbed my arm and started pulling, laughing the whole time. “Come on. It’s only midnight. You’ll still have all night to sleep.”
With a groan, I rolled to my side and threw my legs over the edge of the bed. “Fine.”
“Geez, you’re grumpy tonight.”
Grinning, I stood. “I’m only grumpy when someone wakes me up.”
I followed her from my room into her bedroom and the little area in the corner she set up for Hazel, according to Bridget’s instructions. We both knelt, and Hazel lifted her head but then almost immediately laid it back down and closed her eyes.
“How many are there?” I asked, unable to see well with only the night-light on in the room.
“Six,” she answered. “I woke up to go to the bathroom, and when I came out, I saw her cleaning them. I have no idea what time she actually had them, though.”
“Six.” Groaning, I once again rubbed my hand over my face. “I don’t think this apartment is big enough to contain six growing kittens.”
She flicked her hand in the air. “They only stay with their mom for twelve weeks.”
“Twelve weeks?” I hissed, eyes wide.
“Yeah.” She gently rubbed Hazel’s head. “Bridget said that’s what's best for the kittens, and then they can be adopted.”
“Twelve weeks,” I muttered again. “You know that’s three months, right?”
“I know.”
“That’s a long fucking time,” I stressed, wondering why she was acting as if it wasn’t.
“It’s not that long.”
“It’s twelve weeks,” I repeated.
“Considering there are fifty-two weeks in a year, I don't think twelve is that many.”
I studied her, unable to argue with that logic, and she grinned. She knew there wasn’t much I could say.
She stared down at them. “Look how small they are.”
“They kind of look like rodents.”
She slapped her hand against my chest. “No, they don’t. If you’re gonna be mean, go back to bed.”
“Quit trying to boss me around,” I replied with a smirk when she looked at me over her shoulder. “You’re as bad as my dad.”
Her jaw dropped, and I laughed harder when she reared back. “I can’t believe you said that.”
I held up my hands. “Wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t true.”
She shifted to face me and pointed at the door. “Get out of my room.”
“Technically”—I looked around the dimly lit room—“this is my room.”
“That’s two strikes, Cole,” she warned with a small grin on her lips.
Enjoying this way more than I should have, I leaned close to her. “What happens at three?”
She laid her hand on my chest and eliminated the distance between us. Not an inch separated our faces when she spoke. “You don’t want to find out.”
My body roared to life and caught me off guard. What had been playful somehow turned into something more. Lifting my hand, I placed it against the side of her neck, and my eyes dropped to her lips. “Not sure there’s anything I want more.”
She inhaled sharply when I dropped my head beside hers and skimmed my lips along her jaw. When she didn’t protest, I wrapped my arm around her waist and yanked her closer, but we could only get so close with our knees between us. Sliding my lips, I paused when I got to her mouth and let mine hover just above hers. I wanted her to either give me permission or stop me. This needed to be her choice, but it took everything in me to be patient.
Turned out, I didn’t need to be patient for very long.
She pushed her lips against mine, giving me the green light I was desperate for, and I wrapped my arms around her. We kissed hungrily, almost as if we’d been starved for each other. With my arm around her waist, I pulled her onto my lap, groaning when she wrapped her long legs around me. I ran my hands up the back of her shirt, reveling in her soft and warm skin under my fingertips.
She moaned but then abruptly pulled her lips from mine, and for a moment, I thought something was wrong. “What’s wrong?”
“We can’t do this.” She panted and looked over her shoulder.
“What?”
“Hazel and the kittens are right there.”
I shook my head. “You’re stopping us because of the cats?” When she was silent, I read between the lines. “Or are we just stopping?”
She smiled, but it was hesitant, and she slid off my lap until she was once again seated across from me on the floor. I missed her being close immediately. “We’ve been getting along. I’m just worried that this could change that, and I don’t want to sacrifice what we have now. We didn’t have this friendship the last time, we, umm…well, you know.” She bit her lip. “I love spending time with you, and I’ve never had that with a man. I actually want to hang out with you even when you’re annoying.”
Her lips tipped at the corners, and I realized she was trying to lighten the moment. She was friend zoning me, but she had to have guessed by now that I didn’t only consider her a friend.
I raised my eyebrows. “Friends?”
“I don’t want to mess this up,” she said quickly.
She wasn’t wrong. What we had was something I’d never expected with her, and I didn’t want to do anything to lose it, but I sure as hell didn’t want to be friend zoned.
Lifting my hand, I wrapped it around the side of her neck again. “I get it, and I don’t want to lose what we have either.” She smiled softly, but I wasn’t done. It was time to be honest. Time to give her the words I’d been holding back for too long now. The words she needed so she knew without a doubt where I stood. “But I also don’t want to be just your friend anymore. I won’t pressure you or ask for more than you’re willing to give, but if you change your mind, you just have to say the word.”
She glanced down at her hands before meeting my stare again. “And if I don’t change my mind?”
I knew exactly what she was worried about. Our friendship had come to mean a lot to us, and I wasn’t dismissing it. If that meant spending the rest of my life only having her as a friend, then I’d make my peace with that because I never wanted to consider the idea of not having her in my life at all. “We’re friends. We worked hard to get where we are, and nothing will change that.”
She nodded and shifted her attention back to a sleeping Hazel before pushing to standing. “I guess we can go back to bed now.”
I stood and grinned. “Thanks for waking me up.”
She tilted her head to the side. “Do you really mean that?”
I snorted out a laugh. “Absolutely not.”
She laughed like I hoped she would, and I left the bedroom, needing to put some distance between us.
But there was no way in hell I was going back to sleep any time soon.