Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
SOPHIE
Loads of people crowd the small pub, and I’m constantly grazed by an elbow or accidentally bumped by someone. But Jules’s laughter and the sparkle in her eyes are so infectious that I quickly put aside my initial doubts and now dance with her among all these strangers.
"Just imagine them naked," she said when I looked around uncertainly, afraid of embarrassing myself. With that, she had already made me laugh so much that I didn’t even need the imagination. Since then, I just dance. I move without knowing what I’m doing, but I don’t care.
I also don’t care about the other people.
Instead, I concentrate on this joy that flows through me because, at this moment, I feel as free as I’ve ever felt.
Every now and then, I look over at Cole, who’s sitting on one of the high stools at the bar.
He’s drinking that amber liquid again, smoking, and watching us.
He’s dressed in black from head to toe. The heavy boots, the slightly worn jeans, the tight-fitting T-shirt, and his black hair make him look mysterious and almost dangerous.
The muscular arms with the countless tattoos amplify this impression even more.
But every time our eyes meet, the left corner of his mouth lifts a tiny bit, making my heart jump.
I don’t know if he fits the common ideal of beauty, but when Cole smiles, his otherwise stern features soften, and he becomes more than just beautiful to me.
Jules’s hand lands on my arm and pulls my attention to her. "You like it?"
I nod before looking at Cole again. "Doesn’t he dance?"
Jules bursts out laughing, tilting her head back before looking at me again. "Cole and dancing? Never. I’m not even sure he knows how to pronounce it."
"Too bad." The words come out of my mouth before I can stop myself.
Jules’s grin widens. "Do you want to dance with him?"
Startled, I look at her and feel my cheeks grow warm.
"I can ask him," she offers with a wink. "Maybe he’ll make an exception for you."
Quickly, I shake my head. "No, it’s okay."
She shrugs. "I have to pee," she then says aloud. "Are you coming along?"
"No, I’ll wait here."
She nods before making her way toward the restrooms. I stand there for a moment, swaying to the music, but then decide to go to Cole instead of staying alone on the dance floor.
"What are you drinking?" I ask as I reach him while he sips from his glass.
He’s sitting wide-legged on the stool and looks at me, shaking his head after he puts the glass down. "You’re never going to stop asking questions, are you?" His voice is a little raspy, making the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand up in an exciting, pleasurable way.
Lifting my chin a little, I return his gaze. "I’m just curious."
"Yeah, I guess you are," he muses. "It’s Jack Daniel’s."
I frown. "Jack… what?"
"Daniel’s. A Tennessee whiskey."
"May I have a taste?" I ask and take the glass from him as he hands it to me. The smell of the drink reminds me of the liquids my mother uses to soak her herbs in. It’s so pungent I scrunch my nose. "Is there a lot of alcohol in it?"
Cole grins. "Yeah."
I hold the glass under my nose again and then decide to just taste it.
The second the liquid touches my lips, I realize this was a bad idea. When I feel the sharpness on my tongue, everything inside me recoils, and I can’t help but instantly spit the whiskey back into the glass. A shudder runs through my body, and I want to wash my mouth out with soap.
When I realize what I’ve just done, I widen my eyes and glance at Cole. He sits frozen, staring blankly at the glass in my hand. I’m sure he’s going to cuss at any moment but instead, he starts laughing all at once, which confuses me even more.
"You’re really one of a kind, darling."
As I look down in embarrassment, he takes the glass from me and places it on the counter behind him.
"I’m sorry."
"You don’t have to be." Still laughing, he puts a finger under my chin to lift my head. "Was it that bad?"
"Yes." I grimace. "How can you drink that?"
He shrugs. "You get used to the taste. And it drowns the bad thoughts."
"What bad—"
I falter and hold my breath as he reaches out and gently strokes my lower lip with his thumb.
"You had a little Jack there," he explains with a slight grin before bringing his finger to his mouth.
Heat spreads across my cheeks. I don’t know if it’s from shame or because his touch has caused an almost unbearable tingling in my stomach. It could also be the way his lips rest against his thumb as he licks the whiskey off it, his eyes never leaving mine.
Before I can form a clear thought, he turns around and orders a new drink. Meanwhile, I wish the ground would just swallow me, and I hope no one was watching us.
Suddenly, someone bumps into me, and I stumble between Cole’s thighs, bracing myself with my hands on his broad chest.
Before he even looks at me again, he reflexively puts his arms around me.
All at once, we’re so close that I can inhale his unique scent and feel the heat of his body while I stare at him in shock. He looks behind me, though, but either can’t make out who caused this mishap or decides that it was an accident.
I can’t move. Instead, I become aware of how incredibly hard his chest feels under my fingers and how softly curved those constantly cursing lips are.
"You okay?"
I watch his mouth form the words, but his voice barely reaches me.
There is only the scent of leather, tobacco, and campfire, and the feeling of his strong arms holding me.
I nod, still a little dazed, having swallowed my tongue.
At least that’s how it feels because I can’t move it anymore and thus can’t make a sound.
"What’s going on?"
Jules’s voice snaps me out of my daze, and I take a step back after Cole releases me.
A weird silence falls while he takes a sip from his new drink. I still want to vanish into thin air, and Jules looks back and forth between the two of us.
"She tripped," Cole mutters after setting the glass down, and takes out his cigarettes. "Someone bumped into her."
"Tripped," Jules drags the word unnaturally as a grin spreads on her face. "Uh-huh." She looks like she knows something I don’t.
"What is it?" I ask, but she just shakes her head while her grin gets even wider.
"Nothing." Then she puts an arm around my waist and throws a glance at Cole I can’t read.
He returns it almost angrily as if he knows exactly what’s going on. "Whatever you’re thinking right now, forget it," he warns. "She tripped. That’s all."
"I didn’t think anything," she drawls innocently, guiding me back toward the dance floor.
They seem to hide something from me, but the spitting-out-Cole’s-drink thing, his touch on my lip, and the sudden proximity as I literally stumbled into his arms have my head already spinning, so I decide that I don’t need to know or understand everything.
I have no idea what time it is or how many glasses of this awful drink Cole has had, but when we get home, he is swaying slightly.
"Is he drunk?" I ask Jules quietly as we follow him up the stairs.
"A little bit."
I’ve never seen a drunk person. My mother always said drunks are loud, violent, and unpredictable. Cole seems slightly clumsy, but otherwise, he acts completely calm. He doesn’t yell or lash out, and it doesn’t seem like he’ll do anything unexpected.
Still, I’m a bit worried. "He’s going to fall down the stairs."
Jules laughs softly. "No worries. He’s nowhere near that drunk."
Reaching the upper floor, Cole heads for the couch, but Jules grabs his hand and drags him to the bed.
I stop at the landing and watch her as she helps him take off his shoes and jeans. Then she slips the leather jacket off his broad shoulders as she speaks softly to him, and he murmurs in reply. Even though I don’t understand the words, the gentle undertone in Jules’s voice warms my heart.
When Cole finally lies down, Jules tucks him in and gives him a kiss on the cheek before returning to me.
"Is he okay?" I whisper as she takes my hand and leads me to the bathroom.
"Yeah. He’s going to regret that he drank so much in the morning, but he’s fine." She tries to hide it with a smile, but I catch the sad undertone.
"Why does he drink so much?"
Jules pulls a wet wipe out of a box and starts rubbing it gently over my face, pressing her lips tightly together, but not answering me.
"Jules?"
Her face turns serious as she lets her hand sink and finally looks at me. "He’s grieving. He’s grieving and incredibly angry with himself. That’s why he drinks so much."
My throat tightens. "But why is he grieving?"
She shakes her head. "He’ll have to tell you himself." Then she takes a new wipe and tells me to close my eyes so she can remove the rest of the makeup.
While she’s doing that, I think about her words and what Cole said to me earlier in the pub.
It drowns the bad thoughts.
How I wish I could get more out of Jules, but I’m afraid she won’t tell me.
She has already fallen asleep after a few minutes, while I still lie awake.
Since this room is in the middle of the floor and has no walls facing outside, it has no windows and turned pitch black as soon as Jules switched off the light.
I’m not used to sleeping in complete darkness.
My curtains at home were never closed. A faint light always filtered in, the colored glow of the traffic light never fading, even in the dead of night.
I liked that. Not because I was afraid of the dark but because it reminded me that there was still something outside of the house.
But here, I can’t even see my hand in front of my face, so I feel my way blindly to the door to open it because I have to go to the bathroom.
As I walk through the big room, my gaze lands on Cole lying motionless in his bed, deep asleep. A part of me wants to walk over to him and study him in the warm light of the streetlamp, but it feels wrong, so I head to the bathroom.
On the way back, however, I hear him mutter something and freeze.
"You okay, darling?" His voice is even raspier from the alcohol and fatigue than before, instantly sending goosebumps all over my body.
I make a few tentative steps toward the huge bed and stop beside it, answering him quietly. "I can’t sleep. It’s too dark in there."
Cole lies on his side, right arm curled under his head, left hand resting on the empty space beside him. At my words, he contorts his face slightly. Because I’m afraid he might be worse off than Jules suspected, I bend down a bit and look at him more closely. "Are you okay?"
He hums softly, opening his eyes just a little, vainly searching for my gaze before letting them fall shut again. Still, his fingers find mine and gently wrap around my hand. "Did you have fun tonight?"
His rough, warm skin and the gentle circles of his thumb on the back of my hand make my heart beat faster, which is why I can only answer with an mm-hmm.
A barely visible smile spreads on his lips before it gradually disappears again, and the movement of his finger also slowly dies. But he does not release me.
I stand next to the bed, not knowing what to do or what to think. Cole seems to have fallen asleep again, and because I don’t want to wake him, I sit down next to him.
In the warm light of the lamp outside, his features look softer, almost vulnerable. I remember Jules’s words and now also recognize the sadness, although it seems so absurd to me that a man like Cole could be sad about anything. He seems too big. Too strong. Too untouchable.
Endless minutes pass while I just look at him, and my eyelids become heavy as well. After having to stifle a yawn, I carefully try to free my fingers from his grip.
A quiet growl comes from Cole’s throat before he moves to the middle of the bed. "Come here. You can sleep next to me."
All at once, I’m wide awake again.
He wants me to lie down with him? Why? Wouldn’t that be terribly inappropriate? And do I even want that?
Those and a dozen other questions run through my head while my stomach does somersaults. But at least I know the answer to the last one.
My body acts on its own and slips under the covers, where it is warm and cozy.
Facing Cole, I lie there and wait, but he says nothing more and remains still.
His expression is soft as our hands rest between us, and I wonder what I’m doing here.
It’s hard for me to form a thought, though, as everything in me is focused on Cole and his deep, slow breaths.
My own breath stops the moment he lets go of my hand, wraps his arm around my back, and gently pulls me close until his chin is resting on my head and my face is buried in the crook of his neck.
The heat of his body sets me ablaze as he tilts his head until I feel his lips on my hair. "You smell so good," he whispers, whereupon I close my eyes.
While reading my books, I have often wondered what it would feel like to lie in someone’s arms. The strangest sensations were described there, and although they all seemed good, I could never imagine what it would be like.
There was even a time I believed it had to be scary to be that close to a man.
But this…
Nothing is scary about lying in Cole’s bed. Even his touch and the weight of his arm soothe me rather than frighten me. His breath grazes my scalp and sends ripples of warmth through my body again and again, making it nearly impossible for me to keep my thoughts together.
"Sophie?"
His raspy voice makes me want to snuggle even closer, but I resist the urge.
"Hmm?"
"You looked absolutely beautiful tonight."