Chapter 30 Stone
Stone
Soon as things settle down with Coco’s family, I grab her, and we talk until the party thins. The world feels new, like there’s a chance to experience it all at once, all over again.
I wasn’t lying before when I said Coco was an anchor. She secures the Stone ship, and I’ll do whatever it takes to protect her.
We talk during the short ride back to her cottage, all the way into the house, and even when I tell Hercules to lie down in his doggy bed.
Coco mesmerizes me at every turn—when she scrunches up her face while thinking, how she lights up a room when she walks into it, how she is a star in the night sky. Luminous.
When we’re in the kitchen, she grins up at me. “Thank you for tonight.”
“You sure about that? I thought you might curse me after your family showed up.”
A flash of worry flickers across her face before it melts into quiet acceptance. “No, they should have been there. My mom would’ve been upset if they hadn’t been invited. And this is a small town. She would’ve known about the party sooner or later, probably by tomorrow morning.”
She laughs, but it’s bitter. I ask, “Why do you think your sister is like that?”
A startled look crosses her face. “Like what?”
Coco knows what I’m talking about. I don’t understand why she pretends otherwise. “Brittany’s obviously jealous of you to undercut your happiness.”
“She wasn’t undercutting m—”
I wave away her protesting. “Did you hear her? It’s a happy day for you, and she brought up something that happened when you were three. She’s jealous.”
“No she’s not.”
I take a step forward and cup her cheeks. Coco’s breath goes still. She gazes at me like a deer in headlights, like she’s terrified.
She doesn’t know this new me, so of course she’s worried. But I know this new me, and I’m all in.
“Brittany is jealous of you, and I can see why.”
“You can?” She cocks her brow slightly as if she’s waiting for the punch line to a joke.
There is no punch line.
“Yes.” I press my lips to her right cheek, and her breath hitches. “I can.”
She pulls back a second and peers at me as if she’s trying to decide whether I’m telling the truth, her shoulders tight as if she doesn’t believe me. Like she doesn’t think she deserves to hear this.
Well, she’s going to hear it loud and clear.
I press my lips to her left cheek. She smells like cotton and strawberries—clean and sweet, just like her. “Your sister’s jealous because you’re beautiful.”
“Stop it.”
“I’m serious. I don’t just give out compliments because I want to. You are, and sometimes I wish you could see what I do.”
Coco bites her bottom lip as she watches me timidly.
I brush my lips over her forehead. “And you’re kind.”
Her body goes still.
I kiss her nose. “And thoughtful.”
Her lips. “And caring.”
My lips hover over her mouth.
“Should I go on?”
There’s what feels like an infinite pause. Her gaze flickers between my eyes like she’s testing every word, weighing whether or not to believe it.
I brush my lips across the top of her forehead, where the hairline meets her flesh. “I’m not blowing sunshine up your ass.”
She laughs, and in that moment she breaks open, and I take everything she’s willing to give.
“You can go on if you want to,” she admits.
I drop my gaze to meet hers. “I could go on all day about you.”
She rolls her eyes, but I keep my focus on her. She squirms a bit, like she’s got ants in her pants. But then she looks up at me, and I’m there, staring back at her, not going anywhere.
That’s when her body settles, and the room suddenly buzzes with energy.
No, not the room.
She does.
Coco buzzes with electricity. Like there’s a firecracker living inside her, dying to get out.
Oh my God. The magic.
There literally is a fire inside her.
I’m not sure she even knows it.
But she should. She should definitely know it and celebrate it.
Good thing I’m here to help her.
My mouth drops closer to hers, and Coco tips her lips toward me.
Our mouths meet and it feels like the world has slipped away, that I’m falling with everything I have for this woman, no barriers between us, nothing stopping me.
And then just a thought, a flicker flares inside me. Betrayal. Having my life ripped away. Knowing I was lied to and it changed everything I knew to be the truth.
That ache I’ve felt before, the one that felt intimately familiar, threatens to surface inside me, take over, whisper lies in my ear.
But I push it aside because that memory has no right to invade this perfect moment. I kiss Coco deeply, with everything I have, because I know this will be different, this time everything is different, because a past I don’t remember doesn’t equal a future that’s on the rise.
Because this is real.