Chapter 25 #2
“Hey,” he said, nudging my knee lightly with his own. “What’s that?”
I followed his gaze, squinting past the branches.
The tree loomed at the back edge of the yard, its limbs bare this time of year, stretching up into the dark.
Tucked between two thick branches was the outline of it—wooden planks, a slanted roof, the rope ladder hanging down like it was waiting for someone who never came anymore.
“Just our old treehouse.” I’d gotten so used to seeing the treehouse there that I never really noticed it anymore. It had become a fixture of the backyard, the same as the garden and the oak tree and the swing set we’d never used much.
His eyebrows lifted. “You’ve been holding out on me.”
“It’s not really mine.”
He turned his head to look at me, actually look this time. “What do you mean?”
I tucked my hands into my coat sleeves, rubbing the fabric between my fingers. “We didn’t build it. The people who lived here before us did. Ainsley and I used to go up sometimes, but we outgrew it pretty quickly.” Before I could overthink it, the words were out. “Do you… want to go up there?”
The second the question left my mouth, I felt ridiculous. Too childish. I kept my eyes on the grass, suddenly very interested in a frozen patch near my boot.
When I finally dared to look at him, his grin was slower this time, softer around the edges. “Are you asking me on a secret birthday adventure?”
I groaned. “Don’t make it weird.”
“I’m absolutely going to make it weird,” he said, but he stood up anyway, brushing grass off his jeans. He held a hand out to me. “Come on. When’s the next time I’ll get this chance.”
I took his hand. His fingers closed around mine, warm and steady, and he squeezed once like he was saying “I’ve got you” without actually saying it. We crossed the yard again, stopping at the base of the tree. Up close, the wood looked older than I remembered, the rope rough and frayed in places.
“I should warn you,” I said, “if this collapses and we die, Ainsley will never let me live it down.”
He snorted. “If we die, I think you’re off the hook.”
I shot him a look, then grabbed the rope ladder, testing it carefully before putting my weight on it. It held. I climbed slowly, heart thudding. Not from fear, exactly, but from the strange feeling of stepping back into a version of myself I hadn’t thought about in years.
The space was smaller than I remembered, but not in a bad way. Wooden walls, scratched initials carved into one beam, an old blanket folded in the corner that I hadn’t noticed from below that must be frozen by now.
The floorboards creaked under my boots as I stepped farther inside, my fingers brushing along the walls. The wood was rougher than I remembered, worn smooth in places by years of hands and knees and bored afternoons. Dust clung to everything, and the air smelled faintly like cold wood and leaves.
“Wow,” I murmured. “I can’t believe this has held up all these years.”
Cole stayed near the entrance, watching me with that quiet focus he got when he was letting me have a moment. I crouched near one of the beams, squinting at a mess of carved lines and initials layered over each other like a timeline.
“Oh my gosh,” I said, laughing softly. “There.”
“What?” he asked.
I pointed. “That’s mine. And Ainsley’s.” I traced the letters with my glove—uneven and shaky, like I’d been afraid to mess it up. “I was ten. I thought if I carved it deep enough, it would stay forever.”
He crouched beside me, close enough that our shoulders brushed. “Looks like it worked.”
I swallowed, the knot in my throat catching me off guard. “Yeah. I guess it did.”
I stood and wandered farther in, nudging the old blanket with my boot. It crunched stiffly, half-frozen, and I laughed under my breath. “We used to drag every blanket in the house up here. My mum hated it.”
“Rebel,” Cole teased.
I snorted. “Yeah, you caught me.”
Near the back wall, I found the little shelf—crooked and barely attached—where we used to stash dumb stuff we thought was important. A chipped plastic bracelet. A smooth rock with a faded Sharpie face on it. I picked it up, turning it over in my hand.
“I forgot about this,” I said quietly.
Cole leaned in. “What is it?”
“My old pet rock,” I mumbled. Cole snorted and I glared at him. “Hey! When we moved to Canada, I had no friends other than my siblings. I had to do something to feel less lonely.”
“And you thought a pet rock was the solution?”
I glared at him. “Don’t talk about my best friend that way.”
I moved over to the window. The shutters were closed, the wood dark and weathered, the latch stiff when I tried it. I pushed a little harder, and it gave with a soft groan. Cold air rushed in as I swung them open, and I sucked in a breath.
“Oh,” I breathed.
The view was completely different from up here.
The fence disappeared beneath us, the tops of trees stretching out instead of their trunks.
Beyond the yard, rooftops and streets unfolded, the town laid out like something small and manageable.
And above it all, the sky felt closer somehow—wider, deeper, endless.
Cole stepped up beside me, so close our arms pressed together. I rested my hands on the sill, leaning forward just a little. “I used to think this was the highest place in the world.”
He glanced at me, then back out at the view. “Kind of feels like it still is.” He shifted back. “I brought something.”
That made me pause. “A present?”
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small paper bag, crumpled from being stuffed into a pocket. He held it up like an offering. “It’s not big. I couldn’t exactly climb with a cake.”
I took it from him carefully and peeked inside. Two cupcakes stared back at me, frosting slightly smudged but intact, each with a single candle pressed into the center.
“We don’t have a gingerbread cupcake,” he said, “but I got my aunt to help me make them chocolate spiced cupcakes. She said it should be close enough that you’d like it.”
My throat tightened, tears springing to my eyes as I looked at the cupcakes in front of me.
“You made them yourself?” I asked. Even though he obviously made me coffee when I went into The Corner Cup, it never occurred to me that Cole could bake.
“Of course. I mean, they probably suck because it was my first time making cake, but…” He shrugged. “It wouldn’t have been special if I just brought it from the shop, right?”
I set the bag on the floor and rested back on my heels, suddenly unsure what to do with my hands. Cole pulled out a blue cigarette lighter from his bag.
“If you get wax all over my treehouse…” I threatened.
“I promise I will leave the treehouse in the same pristine condition it was in when I arrived.”
I laughed and watched as he used the lighter on the candles. The soft flicker of the candles cast shadows across the treehouse. Cole held the cupcake out to me. “Make a wish,” he whispered.
“I don’t believe in birthday wishes,” I said. I had believed in them once. For most of my life, in fact. But with the way my life had imploded in the last year, I’d given up on believing in any sort of magical wishes—if they were real, my family never would have fallen apart the way it had.
Cole just shrugged, unphased by my answer. “Humor me.”
I hesitated, then closed my eyes anyway and blew out the flames.
Cole clapped, exaggerated and dumb, and I laughed despite myself.
I handed him one of the cupcakes and grabbed the other, peeling the paper away.
We ate in companionable silence, sitting on the creaking, cold floorboards of the treehouse, crumbs the space around us.
He licked frosting off his thumb and caught me looking.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said, and meant everything.
After a moment, he checked his watch again. “Ten seconds.”
My heart was beating so loudly I was sure he could hear it.
“Five.” He lifted his eyes to mine. “Three.” I forgot how to breathe. “Two.” His hand brushed mine—light, almost questioning. “One.”
Midnight.
“Happy birthday, Imogen ” he said softly.
And something in his voice undid me. I didn’t remember deciding to move—I just know that one second there was space between us, and the next there wasn’t. My hand tightened in the fabric of his shirt, and his other hand came up to my waist like it had always known where to go.
His lips were soft against mine, and for a split second I thought about how this was my first kiss and how it was happening at midnight and how none of this was part of the plan for tonight.
And then I stopped thinking.
The world narrowed to the feeling of him—his hand steady at my side, the faint hitch in his breath, the way he tilted his head just slightly like he was afraid I might disappear if he wasn’t careful.
And despite the drama of the week, despite it being my first birthday with a broken family and still getting the silent treatment from Lavender, I realized this might still be the best birthday I’ve ever had.