18. After Midnight
After Midnight
Cole watched her taillights disappear down the road, that hazy blue glow of her dashboard fading into the dark like a door closing.
He sat there longer than he meant to. Long enough for Travis to shout something from the truck. Long enough for the deck lights to shut off behind him.
Long enough for the weight in his chest to settle into something he didn’t want to examine too closely.
He’d opened his mouth twice to tell her something real. And both times, the words had caught behind his teeth.
He wasn’t ready. Or maybe he was, and that was the problem.
Because what lived in him for Jenna Hart wasn’t a crush. It wasn’t just an interest. It wasn’t something he could shrug off at the end of a job. It was something with teeth. Something that had already taken hold long before he realized he was lost.
He started up the truck, pulled out of the lot, heart pounding in a way he couldn’t slow. He told himself the drive would clear his head, that a few quiet miles might make sense of the mess inside him.
It didn’t.
Cole made it all the way home before the ache really set in.
Capt’n Jack’s had been loud, warm, full of laughter, the kind of night that should’ve left him tired in the good way.
The roof was done. The crew had toasted to a job well handled.
Jenna had smiled at him across that sticky wooden table more than once, and each time it had hit him like a reminder he didn’t want.
This project was almost over.
He walked through his apartment on autopilot, keys on the counter, shoes at the door, shirt peeled off and tossed over a chair. He changed into gray sweatpants and a thin jersey tee, the kind that had survived too many dryer cycles.
He stretched out in bed, but he didn’t sleep.
He rolled onto his back. Onto his side. Back again. The ceiling stared him down.
He could still see her, hair loose, cheeks warm from laughter, leaning across the table as she told Travis that no, football was not a personality type, and yes, she did in fact have a personal vendetta against sprinkles.
He could still feel the moment she’d looked at him when everyone else got distracted, the quiet, searching sort of glance that slipped past every wall he’d built.
He’d almost said it then.
I want you, Jenna Hart. More than I should. More than makes sense. More than is remotely professional. More than is safe for either of us.
But every time he opened his mouth, something cut in. A joke. A toast. Emmie yelling for more fries. A boat horn. Anything and everything.
Maybe that was for the best, because if he said it out loud . . . what then?
He imagined the end of this job. The bakery finished, the house perfect, his clipboard full, and his excuses gone. He imagined walking up to the porch like he always did, and instead of her opening the door with that crooked half-smile, she’d blink and ask, “Why are you here?”
The thought made something cold settle in his chest.
She rode bikes with him because he was there every morning. Walked with him because he was across the yard. Ate ice cream with him because he’d caught her between spreadsheets. Would she do any of that if he didn’t have a reason to show up?
He didn’t want to find out.
He threw the blanket off, swung his legs out of bed, scrubbed a hand over his face, then just stood there.
Before he could talk himself out of it, before rational thought could grab him by the collar, he was grabbing his keys, stepping into his boots, and heading out the door.
He didn’t remember the drive. One minute, Cole was pulling out of his driveway, the next he was parked in front of her house, heart pounding so hard it felt like a mistake. The porch light was off. The windows dark.
She was home. Alone.
He sat there for a full minute, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles ached.
Then he got out.
The night was thick and warm, crickets loud in the grass. He stepped onto the porch and started pacing, back, forth, back, trying to string together a sentence that wasn’t reckless or needy or something that would send her running to a different state again.
He dragged a hand along his face again. What was he doing here?
What was he thinking?
The longer he paced, the worse it got. The truth pressed harder, more merciless with every step.
He was in love with her.
Desperately, stupidly, bone-deep in love with her.
The kind of love he had no business carrying into the home of a woman who had already lost too much.
He could build her a roof, but he refused to be another weight on her shoulders.
His hands shook, actually shook, as he raked a hand over his scalp, the motion rough with nerves. He’d tried to tell himself it was the heat, the leftover adrenaline from the job, the late hour.
But it was her. It was always her.
And if she opened that door right now . . .
If she looked at him the way she did in the parking lot . . .
If she asked, gently, what he was doing here . . .
He would ruin everything. The porch light flicked on.
* * *
Jenna woke to footsteps.
Not the creak of Biscuit jumping off the bed, or the hum of the A/C switching on, but of heavy steps. On the porch.
She blinked at the clock.
2:03 AM.
Her chest thudded once, hard, before she shoved out of bed and padded through the dark hallway, heart hammering with every step. She flipped the porch light on.
Cole Bennett stood there. Barely breathing. Panic on his face. Her hand flew to the doorknob, and she pulled it open.
“Cole?” she whispered, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “Is everything okay? Is Emmie okay? What, what happened?”
He lifted both palms, slow, as though approaching a frightened animal.
“As far as I know, Emmie is fine,” he said. “Nothing happened. Nothing’s wrong. I didn’t mean to wake you, Jenna.” He ran a hand over his jaw, exhausted. “I just needed to see you.”
Jenna’s pulse jumped. “What?”
He opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
She stepped onto the porch, pulling the door shut behind her.
She blinked against the porch light, trying to make sense of Cole standing there.
She got a look at him, all of him, for the very first time.
He wasn’t dressed for company. Grey sweatpants hung low on his hips, loose but not loose enough, the soft fabric clinging in a way that made it very clear Cole Bennett was . . . proportional everywhere.
He shifted his weight, and her eyes tracked the movement before she could stop herself.
His T-shirt, a thin heathered jersey, was damp at the collar and under the arms, darkened with the kind of sweat that came from tossing and turning, or from pacing on a porch for too long, working up the courage to knock.
She told herself the heat had done it.
But Florida humidity had nothing on nerves, and his whole posture was wound tight with them.
Her pulse kicked, sharp and unexpected. She’d never seen him like this.
Not composed. Not careful.
Not the man who paced his breathing to hers on bike rides or kept a steady hand on the stern of her paddleboard.
He looked undone.
And the sight of him, rumpled, restless, and those sweatpants slung low, did something to her she was not prepared to name.
She opened her mouth to speak, to ask him why he was here or if he was okay, but the words caught somewhere in her throat, unable to escape. He seemed to see that, whatever flickered across her face, and it made something like panic flash through his own.
He shook his head, stepped back, breath uneven. “Go back to bed, Jenna.” The words punched straight through her.
Go back to bed, Jenna.
Just like the night of the tarp. Just like standing on this same porch watching him walk away. Cold. Distant. Leaving without giving her anything to hold onto.
She looked down, and his hands caught her attention.
They weren’t steady. Not even close. His fingers trembled where they hovered near his sides.
Cole didn’t shake. Cole didn’t rattle. Cole was an anchor for her, for everyone, for everything around him.
Whatever this was. Whatever had driven him here at two in the morning. She couldn’t let him leave.
“No,” she said before she could stop herself.
“I’m sorry,” he said, turning to leave.
She reached out, hand closing around his forearm. Warm, solid, familiar. He stopped instantly, as if the touch froze him in place. He looked at her, and the storm in his eyes was louder than the one she’d dreamed about weeks ago.
“Cole,” she whispered, “don’t leave like that. Not again.”
His breath hitched.
And then somehow—she wasn’t sure who moved first, but the space between them closed. Her hand slid up his arm and around the back of his neck.
His fingers brushed her waist.
And their mouths met.
It wasn’t tentative. It wasn’t shy. It was months of almosts and nearlys and not-yets crashing into each other. Cole’s hands came up to cradle her face, and she rose onto her toes, the world tilting under her as his lips claimed hers, slow at first, then urgent, then overwhelming.
Heat surged through her like fireworks detonating along her spine.
She heard her own gasp, and he deepened the kiss for half a heartbeat, then tore himself away, breath shaking. His chest rose and fell like he’d just surfaced from underwater, eyes wrecked, mouth still parted from hers.
And then his expression shattered. She felt him pull back, fingers curling like he needed to hold on to something. Or to her. Cold rushed in where his body had been, leaving her skin prickling.
“Please,” he whispered, voice raw in a way she’d never heard.
Her chest tightened. She swallowed. “What?”
“Please, Jenna…” His thumb brushed her cheek, gentle even as he stepped back. “I can’t do this right now. It’s too important.”
She stared at him, stunned, breathless, wanting to pull him back and demand answers, or demand more, maybe demand everything, but he was already stepping off the porch.
“Go back to bed,” he said with pained resolve. “Please.”
And then he turned, crossed the yard, and disappeared into the cab of his truck. The engine started. Tail lights glowed. He drove away.
Jenna stood alone on the porch, fingers still trembling, lips still tingling, pulse still racing. “What the hell,” she whispered to no one, “just happened?”
He’d come here.
At two in the morning. To tell her . . . something. Something he still couldn’t say.
His words, “I can’t do this right now. It’s too important,” didn’t even make sense. What was so important that he came here but still didn’t tell her?
Jenna closed the door slowly, leaned back against it, and let her head fall forward.
Then she walked to her bedroom, crawled beneath the covers, and curled around Biscuit, who huffed like she’d woken him from a royal sleep.
Her heart didn’t settle for a long, long time.
* * *
Cole gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles went white. His lips still tingled. His chest still hurt. Jesus. He’d kissed her.
He’d finally kissed her.
And instead of letting himself stay in the warmth of it, instead of holding her the way he’d wanted to for months, he’d torn himself away so fast it felt like something inside him had split clean in two.
He didn’t know how he made it home. Didn’t remember the turns. Didn’t remember the road. All he could see was the look on her face when he stepped back. She was shocked, hurt, and reaching for him like she wasn’t ready for the moment to end.
He wasn’t ready either. Not even close.
His breath shook. His pulse still hadn’t settled.
That kiss had undone him, every wall, every careful line he’d drawn between them, ripped apart in one impossible, perfect second.
He’d tasted Jenna’s breath, felt her hands, heard that soft gasp when he pulled her closer, and every part of him had snapped into place like it had been waiting, aching, for her.
And then he’d walked away.
She wasn’t ready, and he wanted her too much to risk ruining whatever this was becoming.