9. Stairway to Spite #2
He’s…everywhere. Setting up folding tables with a speed that suggests he does this a lot and doesn’t like it any more than the first time he did it.
Then he adjusted the orientation of Stanley’s entire booth, which Stanley promptly moved back, only for Cole to readjust it a second time and then lock it in place with foot-long metal stakes.
I’m about to intercept him when he hauls a cooler full of drinks onto his shoulder while directing a group of teenagers with the warmth of a man being forced to adopt seventeen puppies at gunpoint.
Then my thumb hooks on the ring I can’t get off no matter how many times I twist it.
“Thanks, Mr. Cole.” one of the teenagers waves with his whole body and a smile that says Cole might be his hero.
Cole grumbles, then drops the cooler onto an open table just as another teen approaches him with cups. I can’t hear what Cole says, but I can tell by his expression he’d rather shart himself than continue the mindless small talk.
Yet everyone in his sphere keeps gravitating toward him. They always do. He’ll grumble about their issue, fix it, then act personally offended when they come back to thank him.
He put up those lights last night. I’d bet my entire bank account on it.
Freaking asshole.
When I look up again, he’s closer, with his sleeves shoved up to his elbows, and he’s talking to a little boy holding Frank’s hand.
“That’s not a dog,” the kid protests, pointing at a balloon blob in Cole’s hands.
When the hell did he learn to make balloon…animals?
“It is a dog,” Cole snaps.
“It doesn’t have legs.”
“It doesn’t need legs to be a dog.”
The kid frowns, then glances up at a smiling Frank before facing off with Cole again. “Yeah, it does.”
Cole holds up the balloon and draws a smiley face on it. “It’s a dog. Take it or leave it.”
The little boy only deliberates for half a second before he’s clutching a bright red hotdog-shaped balloon to his chest and shaking it at Frank.
Cole watches it all with an expression that’s 90 percent irritation and 10 percent something he’d rather die than admit.
This is who he became after he left me behind. A man who guards everything good about himself like a secret that will destroy the world if it ever came to light.
And I hate—genuinely, actively hate—how attractive he is.
It’s not just the Henley that appears to be painted on or the forearms that truly make me question my sanity.
It’s the competence. It’s watching someone be exactly who they’re supposed to be and do it so well that everyone around them is a little better for it.
Everyone except me.
I never fit into his equation.
And now I’m stuck wearing a diamond ring with a sexy vixen named Lola shooting laser beams at my backside.
Cole lifts his head and catches me staring.
I stick my tongue out at him because I am a mature, professional woman with an advanced degree who doesn’t know how to handle the emotional minefield exploding in my chest.
The corner of his mouth lifts. Just the right side. Just a fraction. It’s the same look he’d give me when he’d catch me recording him for my vlog when I was a teenager. Quiet. Just for me.
And another crack crumbles in my wall, but he’s already striding toward me. His long legs eat up the distance before I can choose where to run.
“He got that smile from his grandfather, you know,” Nana Mae says, scaring the shit out of me. “Arthur only ever used it on me.”
“Nana. Junie.” Cole’s greeting is choppy at best.
My mouth opens and closes, but no sound comes out. My entire body is on fire, and my head is muddled with too many questions, emotions, and irrational thoughts that I do the only thing I can think of.
I lift my left hand, palm facing me, and thrust the ring into his line of vision.
His crooked smile freezes into place, his gaze darting from the ring to my face and back again.
“What. The. Fuck. Is. That?” I’ve never heard Cole sound angrier.
“Now, Cole. It just happened.” Nana Mae attempts to step between us, but Cole grips my hand like a vise and drags me behind a tree—as if that will keep the prying eyes of The Haven off us.
“Explain. Now.”
A choked, wet sound gurgles in my throat.
“You see.” Nana Mae stands to the side, worrying her hands in front of herself. “Paula, she just… And then Lola, well, she’s one pregnancy scare away from trapping you. And. Well.”
Cole’s dark gaze never leaves mine. “Well, what?”
“I—It’s stuck. I can’t get it off.” Panic is settling between my shoulder blades, and it hurts to breathe. This ring is cutting off circulation not only to my finger but also my brain.
Cole turns my hand over in his while his thumb and forefinger work the band stuck to my finger.
“It’s just water weight,” Nana Mae says. “From the heat and all that ramen she’s hoarding in her apartment. A few homemade meals and it’ll slip right off.”
Is that supposed to make me feel better?
“There you are.” Fuck off, Paula! “I hear congratulations are in order.”
Cole’s finger holds the ring intimately, his gaze correctly reading the fear in mine.
And then he smiles. A full one. Broad. Knowing. And devious to a fault.
His arm slowly wraps around my waist, and then he’s spinning us both.
I stare up at Cole, waiting for him to explain, but he simply keeps that smile in place and lifts a brow at Pushy Paula and Daisy Duke.
Sweat collects in my bra as I pinch his side because at some point, I hooked my arm around his waist too. This is my teenage dream and worst nightmare combined into one seriously fucked-up equation.
“Paula.” Cole and Nana Mae could run for dual mayors of Frost Town. I’ve never heard either of them be so cold. “Lola.” Jesus. His voice just dropped another fifty degrees. “I hear you’ve met my fiancée.”
“But.” Lola pouts. “When?”
“I’ve known Junie her whole life.” He leans down, his lips lingering on my forehead with so much meaning my knees nearly buckle. “Our timing’s finally right.”
“She’s… That’s what you’ve been waiting for this whole time?” Lola might be as confused as I am.
Cole’s hold on me turns brutal. I don’t know if it’s because Lola just insulted me, or because she let slip something he doesn’t want known.
Has he been waiting for someone?
Oh, God. I’m such an idiot. Of course he is.
Natalie still sends him letters.
He’s still holding out for the one who got away. My childhood bully is the love of his life.
I try to peel away, but he clamps down harder on my waist.
“I needed you tonight, Cole.” Natalie’s voice cuts through the pain in my arm.
The memory crashes into my lungs.
“She broke her arm, Natalie. What did you want me to do? Drop her off at the ER and leave her there alone? She’s fifteen.” Cole’s voice is low—he’s trying to protect me from her anger the same way he does with my mom.
My cast is pink. I focus on that so I don’t have to see the rage in Natalie’s eyes.
“She’s not your priority,” Natalie screams in his face. “I’m your girlfriend, Cole. Me. I had an emergency. I needed you, yet you chose to comfort her?”
Natalie’s cold glare sends shivers down my spine. It jostles my arm, and I flinch when she steps closer.
“That’s enough, Natalie. A Red Sox game is not an emergency. Go home. I’ll call you later.” Cole holds open the front door, and I swear Natalie contemplates kicking me.
“Why can’t you see what she’s doing? Why is she so important to you?”
Cole gently takes her by the elbow and ushers her out the door. “She’s my family, Natalie. Go home. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Natalie’s attacks on me got vicious after that. Secretly. Quietly. In shadows. No one ever saw it but me… She was the master manipulator of my torment, and she loved every minute of it.
I can’t do this with him. I can’t pretend he isn’t slicing me open in more ways than one. Not when it comes to Natalie freaking Moore.
“But, Cole—” Lola whines like a fucking toddler about to have a tantrum.
“If you’ll excuse us,” he interrupts. “Junie and Nana Mae have to get back to the lemonade stand, and I’m needed…anywhere else.”
He uses his arm around my waist to guide me away while also taking Nana Mae in his free hand. “What did you do?” he hisses at his grandmother.
“Solved two problems with one ring.” She leans over Cole to speak to me. “Don’t worry if you can’t get it off. It was always meant for you anyway.” Then she weasels her way out of Cole’s hold, manages to hook arms with me, and drags me away from him before anyone can say anything else.
“Heard about the engagement,” Katie says while taking her third cup of lemonade and immediately spiking it with a half nip of vodka.
She’s on a mission to pilfer secrets I can’t afford to share, but I’m starting to become concerned about her drinking habits. I can’t tell if she uses it as a social crutch or if it’s a problem. The thing is, I never actually see her drink, she’s always just…holding it.
I try to remove the diamond ring while she stares at me. It doesn’t budge. Again. I’ve tried everything from ice to dish soap to no avail.
“Katie,” I growl.
“As your best friend, I should’ve been your first call.”
My best… She’s high. She must be.
“But I’ll excuse it because of the festival and all, as long as I get to be your maid of honor. Plus, it did put that shyster Lola in her place. She’s been trying to get in Cole’s pants since the minute he showed up here.”
I snap my rebuttal back but keep tugging on the ring.
“Katie, stop badgering her.” My body locks up at the sound of Cole’s deep voice coming from behind the tent.
How long has he been listening?
“Congrats to you too, I suppose?” Katie grumbles. “If you’d given us a heads-up, we could’ve at least made it special for her.”
“Jesus Christ. How did this spiral so fast?” he snaps.
I shrug as if he’s speaking to me, but he’s the one who went along with it. I’m still over here nearly breaking fingers to get this damn ring off.
“Go ahead, take a break,” Nana Mae says.
She explained why she did what she did but has no explanation for Cole going along with it other than Lola is relentless and he saw an opportunity to get her to back off.