Chapter 19
Oakley
“Istill can’t believe it,” I said, walking hand in hand with Cole towards his house.
Yesterday, after the guilty verdict, I’d gone home to Ali’s and spent a rather solemn couple hours with Mum, Jasper, Cole, Ali, and Lizzie.
It then took Jasper declaring it all ‘total bullshit’ before we admitted it was.
So, we decided not to mope around, wondering how we should act.
Miles took Mum out for a quiet dinner, Jasper and Lizzie went out with friends, Ali invited over her book club – wine club – and Cole took me back to his house.
We’d laid in his bed, laughing, play-fighting, and watching a John Wick movie. It was exactly what I’d needed.
My heart was a little freer today.
One down…
“You should believe it. He’s going down and you’re the one who did it. I’m so proud of you.”
“Right. The other people who testified, the cops who investigated, and the lawyers who brought it to trial were just piggybacking.”
He laughed. “They should be ashamed.”
I swung his arm as we headed up the path to his front door. We’d walked to the café for a late breakfast since it was such a beautiful day. I was now full of pancakes and bacon and relief.
Letting us in, Cole shouted, “Anyone home?”
Jenna’s car was in the drive, but she often walked to work or took Leona to the park.
“Kitchen,” she replied.
Guess not today.
Cole’s shoulders sagged, making me laugh. Someone wanted us to be alone. I got the impression that he had a lot he wanted to talk about. Neither of us had addressed Australia or my plans after the trial.
He knew I’d planned to go back, but nothing was clearcut anymore.
I wasn’t supposed to get back together with him. I knew we’d run into each other, but none of this was meant to happen. Though it felt inevitable.
“Oakley.” Jenna walked around the island and gave me a hug. “You don’t bring her here enough, Cole. I’ve missed you both.”
“Mum, we spent all of yesterday with you.”
Jenna had been at the court with Mia in the morning. They’d left when Mia had to pick Leona up from Chris and Jenna had work.
She waved her hand, dismissing him. “Before that.”
“We’ve been busy, and you’re often embarrassing.”
“Please, I watched you pee your pants when you were a kid. How much more embarrassing can it get?” I teased.
He turned to me with his mouth open. “I was five, and I’d had a load to drink.”
“Uh-huh.” Jenna laughed.
Cole narrowed his eyes at both of us. “We don’t need to discuss this again.”
That was one of my earliest memories. I was almost four.
We had all been visiting the Lake District and had taken a long walk.
We had been told to keep drinking water because it was hot.
Cole had needed the toilet but refused to do it outside in case a bee stung his winkie.
Bless him, he had to walk back commando in my white shorts—the only spare clothing we’d had.
Mia ran at me as she entered the room. She wrapped her surprisingly strong arms around me.
“Hey, Mia,” I rasped. “You’re breaking my ribs.”
“Hi. Sorry,” she replied, letting go.
“Hello!”
“Oh, hi, Cole,” she said as an afterthought. “Good to see you’ve let her come up for air.”
I shot her a look, but I guess she was right. We’d spent all night and most of the morning in his room. My favourite part being him waking me up with his mouth this morning. Still, not a conversation I wanted to have in front of their mum.
“What are you up to?” I asked, sitting down beside her at the table.
“Looking for a place. It’s time for me to go, too.I want a two-bedroom house with a nice garden for Leona to play in.”
“Where is Leona?”
I would’ve heard her by now, she loud and usually talking for dolls.
“It’s Chris’s weekend again, so she’ll be driving him up the wall instead of me.”
“Do you and Chris get along more now?”
She shrugged. “Most of the time. We’re arguing at the minute because he wants to introduce his new girlfriend to Leona, but I refused. This is the third one this year, and it’s not been that long. I don’t want random women walking in and out of Leona’s life.”
That sounded reasonable. Mia didn’t have men coming and going, so Chris shouldn’t have women. It didn’t surprise me to learn that Chris was a serial dater. Idiot.
“What did he say?”
“He didn’t look that happy when I said no, and we argued a couple of times, but he’s agreed to wait. I really don’t care if he’s happy about it or not, to be honest.”
“You don’t think he would just do it, anyway?”
“No. He wouldn’t do anything that could hurt Leona.
We agreed that she wouldn’t meet anyone either of us dated until we’ve been with them for at least six months.
Plus, we have an agreement that nothing happens with her unless we both agree.
Oh, look, this one is nice.” She pointed to a semi-detached bungalow.
It was quaint and pretty with cream-rendered walls and colourful flowers hanging in baskets.
I grabbed her mobile from the counter and handed it to her. “Call the estate agent.”
Both Cole and Mia were ready to move out. I wasn’t sure how Jenna and David would cope when they suddenly had a very quiet house. I bet they would miss Leona like crazy.
Jenna gasped. “You found somewhere?” She rushed over to look at the pictures. “What’s the address. Oh, good. It’s not too far. Closer to me than your house, Cole.”
“Cut the cord, Mother,” he replied, sitting down beside me. His hand reached around my shoulders, and he massaged the back of my neck.
I leant into his touch.
“When do you think Jasper will move out?” Mia asked.
“God, could you imagine him on his own? He’d be a total liability. He actually tried to get a flat last year because he wanted to be in the city, and we live near the beach.”
“I’d love to live near a beach,” Mia said. “How close are you?”
“Ten minutes. I walk it most days. It’s stunning and helped a lot, especially at first. Pete lives just down the road, too.”
“Who’s hungry?” Cole asked, dropping his hand, and getting up.
I winced, exchanging a look with Mia. That was a bit too much Australia talk. Any mention of it was, to be fair.
Neither of us wanted to face what was coming.
Jenna, still by the island, put her hand on his arm.
“He’ll be okay,” Mia whispered.
Would he?
Would I?
“So, Jasper never actually moved to the city?”
“Not when he realised he’d need to get a second job to pay for it.” I leant closer to her. “Mia, Cole’s never asked me anything about Australia.”
Only very briefly the day I got back.
“It’s a… difficult topic. If he ever heard us mention anything to do with your move, he’d leave the room. I’m not telling you this to make you feel bad, but I don’t think he will ever want to discuss those years you were gone.”
I glanced up. Cole and Jenna were talking on the other side of the room, their voices low like Mia’s and mine.
“I wish he would. We had a bit of an argument about me leaving but nothing since. We need to talk about it, right?”
She nods. “I think so, he needs to because he’s kept everything bottled up for so long.”
“But?”
“He was messed up, Oakley. Like, really messed up. He didn’t eat or sleep. Refused to talk about it. After a while, he functioned again but it was like… he was hollow.”
I pressed my hand to my mouth, closing my eyes as her words cut welts into my heart.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t say that to hurt you.”
Flicking my eyes open, I smiled at her. Well, I tried to. “No, I’m glad you did. I want to know what I’m dealing with here. How to talk to him.”
I was dealing with four years of pent up hurt and anger. There was so much inside of him I wanted him to tell me.
“Hey, want to go watch a movie?” Cole asked from across the room.
“Yeah, sure.”
Mia gave me a smile as I got up—one that said good luck. I had a feeling I was going to need it because I couldn’t ignore what just happened, and he clearly wasn’t okay.
Cole took my hand, leading me upstairs, but his grip was a bit too loose and his jaw holding a bit too much tension. It felt like we were going into battle.
I closed the door while he sat on the bed, blowing out a long breath.
Turning to him, I said, “We should talk.”
“About what? I thought you wanted to watch a movie.”
“No, you wanted to watch a movie, and that’s only to get us away from the conversation downstairs.”
“Not now, Oakley.”
“Then, when?”
“I don’t know. You’re here, let’s not go back to the past.”
“Everything is about the past.”
I walked over to him, climbed onto the bed, and straddled his legs. There was no getting out of this conversation.
Sighing, he looked up at the ceiling, mad at me, but his hands did come down to caress my thighs. I wasn’t going to let him turn this into sex, though.
“Mia said you shut down when I left.”
“Yeah, well, Mia’s a meddling fucker.”
“I did the same.”
“Don’t want to talk about this,” he told me, his voice ice cold.
“Hey, don’t do that,” I said, wrapping my arms around his shoulders. “I need you to know how sorry I am.”
“I do.”
“Why won’t you talk to me?”
“When you’re sitting on me like this?” He arched his hips, pressing his erection into me.
I shook my head, not allowing him to distract me with how much my body wanted him. This was too important. “Cole.”
“How do you fucking think I was back then?” he asked with no anger in his voice.
Let go of that control.
“I don’t know about you, but I felt like I was dying.
Mum and Jasper tried to make me feel better by giving me my favourite things and nothing worked.
Hot chocolate tasted bitter, ice cream sour, movies were flat, books were boring, gymnastics was…
awful. Nothing was the same, nothing made me smile, and I was wilting. ”
Cole’s lips parted, and his eyes snapped up to mine.
“It took a long time to see that the ocean was beautiful and feel that the sand was soft. It was the only thing that brought me just a little bit of joy, just enough to keep going.”
“Stop,” he whispered.
I pressed my forehead to his. “Never, because you need to know that I was just as messed up over being away from you.”
Tension rolled around his eyes. “Stop. Talking.”
“I thought about you every second of every day.”
“Oakley, I swear to God…”
“Living without you felt like–”
He grabbed my hips and flipped us over, laying me on the bed. His eyes, now angry as hell, bore into mine. “I said stop talking.”
Claiming my mouth, he kissed me, pouring every ounce of fury felt, showing me how badly he was hurting back then.
His hands were everywhere, sliding from my back into my hair, biting into my skin in the most deliciously maddening way.
I didn’t care about not talking in that moment. We hadn’t always needed words, and this time it was his turn to let his actions do the speaking.
So, that evening, I held on and met his desperate kisses and frenzied strokes of his hips.