Chapter 3 Cole
THREE
cole
After locking up the house, I went upstairs, got ready for bed, and slid beneath the covers. I was tired, but I was restless too.
Okay, hot and bothered.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Cheyenne. The way my body kept reacting to her. The things I’d told her. The undeniable temptation I’d felt to kiss her tonight—like three separate times.
I hadn’t walked a girl home in fifteen fucking years. I’d almost forgotten how good it felt to be a little protective of someone. To stand there at her door and wish I could mess around with her, but be gentleman enough to keep my hands to myself.
It hadn’t been easy.
Cheyenne stirred something up in me, something I hadn’t felt in a long time.
Before I realized it, my hand had slid down inside my boxer briefs, my hard flesh slipping through my fist. I felt guilty about it, but I couldn’t resist. My cock was too hard and my muscles too tense, my blood too hot in my veins. I needed the release or I’d go crazy.
And hadn’t I known I would do it tonight? Hadn’t I locked my bedroom door? Hadn’t I been sitting there tonight at the pub, thinking about Cheyenne’s ass in her tight jeans, that white lace clinging to her perfect round breasts, the way she’d felt beneath me for those few, incredible seconds?
Stifling a groan, I worked myself harder and faster, imagining what it would be like to feel her lips on my mouth, on my chest, on my cock.
To hear her murmur in appreciation as her hands swept over my shoulders and arms and abs.
To see her skin shimmer in the dark as she writhed and arched beneath me.
To hear the sharp gasps as I plunged inside her again and again, until our bodies reached the breaking point, and she cried out my name.
A few seconds later, my hand and stomach were a mess.
After I’d mopped myself up with some tissues, I pulled on some sweatpants and went down the hall to the bathroom.
Already, the shame was settling in, and I avoided looking at myself in the mirror as I flushed the tissues and washed my hands, scrubbing them as if I could undo what I’d done—or better yet, unthink what I’d thought while I was doing it.
Afterward, I went back to my room and got into bed again, pulling the covers to my waist. My body was more relaxed, but I still wasn’t sleepy enough to drift off. Instead, I lay with my hands behind my head, staring into the dark, trying to rationalize what I’d done.
Maybe it wasn’t that bad. After all, I hadn’t really broken the promise.
And she wasn’t just Griffin’s little sister anymore.
She was my friend too. She was someone I’d known more than half my life, someone I trusted.
She loved my daughter, and she went out of her way to show it.
She listened to me. She understood me. She didn’t try to tell me what I should do.
So no wonder, right? No wonder I was feeling something for her, something strong enough to cause a physical response. But it was over now. Out of my system.
Next time I saw her, it would be like it had never happened at all.
The following day, I woke up early like I usually did. Griffin and I normally ran together on Sunday mornings, but I didn’t think he was going to be in any shape for it today, so I got out of bed, pulled on running clothes, laced up my shoes, and set off alone.
The air was bracing—I could see my breath—and it took my muscles longer than usual to warm up.
Generally, I was in good shape—I ran a few times a week, lifted weights, played baseball for the county men’s league in the summer and pickup hockey in the winter—but there were some mornings I felt my age creeping up on me.
I picked up the pace a little, lengthening my strides.
Maybe it was a mental thing. My mother wasn’t totally wrong about my feeling stuck—although she was wrong about how to fix it. I didn’t need a girlfriend to get out of this rut, I just needed a change of scenery.
As I finished up the second mile, I thought more about moving out of my mother’s house.
We’d needed my mom’s help after losing Trisha so tragically and suddenly, but my plan had never been to stay in my childhood home forever.
I’d just sort of grown accustomed to the way things were .
. . my mom getting Mariah ready for school because I had to be at work by seven a.m.; meals on the table when I got home twelve hours later; laundry done, folded, and left in a basket at my bedroom door; the house always clean.
Not that I didn’t do my share—I did all the outdoor work, and because my mother was so fastidious, it involved constant mowing, edging, weeding, power-washing, bug-spraying, painting, and other repairs.
I was also fairly handy inside the house and was usually able to fix anything that broke, and I took care of her car as well, bringing it to Griffin’s garage for service whenever it was necessary.
Whenever I tried to give her money for rent or groceries, she always refused, telling me to put it toward Mariah’s college education fund instead.
Once a month, Mariah and I took her out for dinner someplace nice as a gesture of thanks for taking such good care of us.
But it was time for us to move on.
I needed something to get excited about.
A project. A place we could make our own.
In the past, Mariah had sometimes struggled with change, but I’d involve her in the process every step of the way.
She could have any room in the new house she wanted for her own.
She could help me paint it. She could get the bunk beds she’d always wanted.
I’d talk to the chief about my work schedule, see if there was any room for flexibility on my shift’s start time.
We’d have fucking pancakes for dinner if we had to.
And I could jerk off under my own damn roof.
Mind made up, I cut the run short by looping back toward my mom’s after only three miles instead of the usual five, did some cursory stretches in the back yard, then headed inside to call Moretti.
He was a builder, not a real estate agent, but he owned rental properties and often bought and flipped houses on the side.
I figured he would have an inside scoop on the local market.
Maybe we could even find something in the next couple weeks, and Mariah and I could move in before the holidays.
We could start the new year in a new place. Get a new lease on life. A new beginning.
I felt better already.
Moretti was hungry, so we met at the Bellamy Creek Diner for lunch.
“How was the rest of the night?” I asked after we were seated in a booth at the back.
“It was fine. I left not long after you did,” said Moretti, shrugging out of his jacket.
“Alone?” I asked, but it was a joke. Enzo Moretti rarely left a bar alone on a Saturday night.
“Actually, yes. I’m kind of into this girl, Reina—she’s a server there, but she had to work until two and then get up early for church.”
“The dark-haired one?” I unzipped my Carhartt. “I saw you talking to her, but she didn’t look familiar. Is she new there?”
“Yeah. I’d never met her until recently either, but apparently her grandmother and my grandmother are friends. They sort of set us up.”
I laughed. “She’s Italian, I take it?” Moretti’s family was like my mother times a hundred—constantly on him to find a nice girl, settle down, and have kids.
Lately his father had been threatening to retire and leave the family construction business, Moretti & Sons, to his younger brother Pietro, who was already hitched and had two little kids.
“She’s at least Catholic, which is what they really care about. And she’s cool. But . . .” He cringed. “She’s a little young.”
“How young?”
“Just turned twenty.”
I laughed. “Legal, at least.”
“Legal, yes, but have you tried talking to a twenty-year-old recently? Sometimes I feel like I have no idea what she’s saying. I never thought I’d say this, but I might be too . . .”
“Old for her?” I supplied.
“Mature for her,” he stated, sitting up taller in the booth and running a hand over his dark, wavy hair. “Not old.”
“Right.”
“I mean, her big ambition is to be an Instagram influencer,” he said. “What the hell kind of job is that?”
“I don’t know.”
“She was fucking born in the year 2000,” he said, shaking his head. “I was thirteen that year, jerking off to pictures of Britney Spears in that little plaid skirt. I had a filthy mouth and an even filthier mind. And she was, like, a baby.”
“She’s not a baby now,” I said, trying to be helpful.
“No, but . . .” His dark brows furrowed. “It weirds me out. The priest was looking at me during Mass this morning, and I felt like he was judging me.” He paused. “Although that could have been because I haven’t gone to Mass in months.”
“What made you go today?”
“I need to get back on my parents’ good side before they ruin my life by giving the business to fucking Pietro. If that means going to Mass and dating an adolescent whatever-a-grammer, I gotta do it.”
I laughed. “Have you taken her out on a date?”
“We’ve had dinner a couple times. You know, you could join us next time. I could see if Reina could bring a friend or something. At least we’d have each other to talk to.”
“Are you kidding? She’s closer to Mariah’s age than mine. No, thanks.”
Moretti groaned. “I wish my dad wasn’t being such a dick about this whole ‘settling down by age thirty-five’ bullshit. It’s fucking medieval.”
“But not a surprise,” I pointed out. “You’ve always known what they expected of you.”
He frowned. “I know, but thirty-five used to seem a lot farther away than it does now.”
“Tell me about it,” I said as the waitress dropped off my coffee and Moretti’s beer.
He took a big gulp of it. “What did you want to ask me about?”
“I want to buy a house.”
His eyebrows rose. “You’re moving out of your mom’s?”
“Yes. It’s time.”