Chapter 35 Coco
Coco
“It’s too damn cold for this,” Stone exclaims the next morning, his breath heaving.
He stands in the chilly water, having jumped in to retrieve the stick that Natalie has lost. Again. About every ten minutes or so, the stick she uses to push away from the creek’s edge gets lodged between rocks and she drops it, leaving her big brother to jump in and save it.
Natalie presses her lips together, but the sparkle in her eyes gives her away. The little gremlin is absolutely doing this on purpose.
Methinks the tiny puppet master is pulling strings just to watch her brother suffer in soggy swim trunks.
He grabs the stick before it can float away and hands it back to her. “Aren’t you cold?”
“Nope.” She gestures with the stick like she’s the conductor of a river symphony. “I’m just getting started. After this, we’re having unicorn waffles for brunch.”
Natalie floats past us, and Stone rubs a hand down his cheek like he takes waffles seriously. “I could go for unicorn waffles. What about you?”
“I’m just tagging along,” I reply, even though it feels like I’ve been folded into something warm and impossibly perfect. “Today is about y’all. Whatever you want to do, I’m up for it.”
He shoots me a firm look. “You’re more than just tagging along. Hey, Natalie!”
“Yeah?” she calls back.
“Is Coco just tagging along?”
“No! She’s with us all the way—from tubing to waffles! She’s part of the group. There’s no just tagging along.”
“See? What’d I tell you?” Stone sinks back onto his tube. “Waffles it is. And after that, no more cold river water.”
A splash hits the surface and Natalie twists her body to look back at us. “I lost it again!”
He shakes his head and jumps from the tube. “That’s it. I’m walking the rest of the way. I’ll be the guy dragging a tube and my dignity downriver.”
Natalie cackles and I laugh. He turns toward me, fake frustration on his face. “Oh? You think it’s funny I’m wet?”
He begins heading toward me and I see where this is going, so I say, frantically, “No! I don’t think it’s funny! It’s terribly tragic. The indignity of it all!”
“That’s it,” he announces. “I know fake sympathy when I see it.”
Before I can paddle out of reach, Stone scoops me up and dunks me into the water. The shock of the cold steals my breath. He lifts me as quickly as I’m put under, and I come up sputtering, clutching his shirt.
“It’s freezing!”
“I know! That’s what I’ve been dealing with!”
Our gazes lock and we laugh. I tip my head back, reveling in the sun’s warm rays and how luxurious it feels to be held by him.
He kisses me, and all is right in the world.
“Get a room, you two!” A splash yanks us apart, and I look up to see Natalie striding toward us. “You can’t leave me out!”
“You want to be dunked?” Stone asks.
“Yes!”
He gently places me back in the tube before he picks up Natalie and submerges her in the water. My heart swells as she shrieks, and we all laugh as we continue down the river.
We finish tubing about an hour later, and true to his word, Stone walks the rest of the way, retrieving Natalie’s stick whenever she needs it.
By the time we reach the tubing station, he’s shivering, Natalie’s laughing, and I’m soaked and blissfully happy.
The unicorn waffles are delicious, and we spend an hour walking among the tourists downtown.
All the shops are open, selling everything from hand-carved wax candles to key chains with unicorns on them, to novelty socks and hot sauce.
Mystic Meadows is almost like a tiny Gatlinburg, except in Georgia instead of Tennessee.
We take pictures of Natalie standing in front of the unicorn statue, and then Stone pulls me into a selfie—his arm around my waist, my cheek pressed to his shoulder as the sun catches our grins.
Behind us, the bridge crosses over the river. Stone looks down, spots a couple of other people floating, and shouts, “Don’t lose your sticks!”
I bite back a laugh at the good-natured bitterness lacing his voice.
I nudge his arm. “Admit it. You had a great time.”
He side-eyes me. “If by ‘a great time,’ you mean slowly freezing my balls off in the name of sibling love . . .”
“That’s literally my definition of romance.”
Stone snaps his fingers. “I knew it.”
Natalie skips over, dragging her fingers across the dozens of tiny padlocks fastened to the chain fence. As they hit the steel, they tinkle and clink. “Why are these here?”
I crouch beside her, pointing to a rusty lock near the bottom. “Couples write their initials on one, then fasten it to the fence and toss the key in the river. It’s a promise. Unbreakable love. Forever and ever.”
She wrinkles her nose like the locks just confessed to being into autumn-themed Hallmark movies instead of piggycorn cartoons. “Is that supposed to be romantic?”
“Supposed to be?” Stone echoes, stepping up behind us. “It is romantic, Nat.” He reaches into his back pocket. “I brought my own.”
I blink. “You did not.”
He holds up a small heart-shaped lock. It’s incredibly cringe, terribly cliché, and hopelessly romantic.
“Oh my gosh.” I grin despite the tightening in my throat. “You’ve done this.”
He shrugs, a little sheepish. “You said you just were tagging along for the morning. I was hoping you’d want to stay.”
A breeze lifts the hem of my dress and my hopes with it. Stay. Stay forever? Is that too much for me to want?
What happens when it all comes crashing down?
“Go on,” he encourages me. “Write your initials.”
Stone pulls a marker from his pocket and holds it out, waiting for me to take it.
I stare at it, trying to decide what to do.
“Hold up!” Natalie yells. “Hang on a second. If you’re going to put your initials on that lock, we’re doing it right. I saw a glitter marker in that tourist shop. Be back in five!”
She races off.
A knot punches up into my throat and sticks there, heavy and certain, like it never plans to leave. I try not to process the weight of this moment—try to skate past it like a stone skipping across the surface of a pond.
But it sinks. And so do I.
I look up at Stone, studying him, checking for cracks that suggest this isn’t real, and find nothing but him watching me openly, studying me as if he’s trying to determine whether I’ll admit we’re not really engaged.
Put on the brakes, Coco!
But I’ve come too far. I’m in too deep. I’m drowning in Stone Maddox.
He’s the only one who can rescue me, and by rescuing me, he pulls me deeper—not to save me but to join me. No lifeline. No escape hatch. Just this quiet, terrifying truth that maybe drowning in him is the only way I finally learn to breathe.
I want to stay under, remain submerged and never come up for air, because this is the most real thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.
And I can’t bear for it to end.
“Stone,” I whisper, his name barely grazing over my teeth.
His eyes narrow. “What’s wrong?”
Words clog my throat, and I want to tell him—I really do—but what comes out is, “Nothing. This moment is perfect.”
He leans down to kiss me. I lift up on my toes, eager to accept his offer.
“Quit it, lovebirds!” Natalie jumps between us. “I didn’t come here to vomit because you two are making out. You can do plenty of that after you’re married. But for now”—she shoves a glitter marker in her brother’s hand—“mark your territory and throw away the key.”
Stone hands me the marker and says suggestively, “Would you like to mark your territory?”
“I never thought you’d ask.”
I may sound brave, but inside I’m quivering. My hand shakes as I write CH. Stone’s hand does not tremble as he pens his initials. He hands the lock back to me, and I secure it to the fence.
He gives the key to Natalie. “Would you do the honors?”
“Heck yeah, I will!”
She winds up like a pro baseball pitcher and flings the key over the fence, where it sails into the river without even the tiniest of splashes.
Natalie’s shoulders slump. “Well, that was anticlimactic.”
Stone and I just look at each other, and all I can think is, She’s wrong. She’s absolutely wrong.