“Good morning,” I greeted as Cole stepped out of his room, causing him to startle a bit. In fairness, he probably hadn’t been expecting me to be right there, looking like I had been listening through the door. Which I hadn’t been, for the record. I’d only been contemplating listening through the door. I wasn’t so unhinged as to go through with it, obviously.
“Oh. Hey. Good morning.” He smiled at me as he closed the door behind him. “You look pretty.”
“Thank you.” I kicked my heel up behind me and balanced on one foot while lowering my new purse toward the raised shoe. “I have you to thank for that, I believe.”
He wagged his head from side to side. “Nah. That’s all you.”
“Ready?” Brynn asked, peeking her head around the corner.
Cole and I nodded once at each other and both said, “Ready,” then followed her and Seb to the door.
We stood behind them in the elevator and I was so tempted to grab Cole’s hand or place my head on his shoulder. Just for a second. Just long enough to see how he reacted. But I spent too long building up the courage, and before I could do anything we were on the ground level. Still following. Still not saying anything. Not anything significant, anyway.
Brynn was doing most of the talking as we stepped onto North Moore Street, and I had naturally begun walking alongside her with Sebastian falling back to walk alongside Cole. But as we neared the corner, I felt Cole’s hand on my elbow and I instinctively responded to his touch by stopping and turning to face him.
Sebastian passed me just as Cole said, “You guys mind going ahead? I need to talk to Laila for just a sec.”
Brynn took a couple steps back toward us. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Fine. I just need a minute with her to . . . talk about something. We’ll be right there, okay?”
“Sure. Table’s under my name, but the place isn’t too big. You’ll see us.” Seb wrapped his arm around Brynn’s waist and led her away from us, and we were alone. On a crowded street, but I’d take it.
“Hey. You alright?”
“Yeah. Of course.” He took a deep breath. “I just . . .” We were standing right in the middle of pedestrian traffic, and he waited for an opening in the crowd and then motioned toward the tan brick wall of the building, and we stepped to the side together. “I hate what’s happening right now.”
“What’s happening?”
“I have no idea.” He shrugged and ran his hands through his hair. “That’s the problem. I don’t know if we’re supposed to talk about things or ignore them. I don’t know if we’re okay. I don’t know how I’m supposed to act. And I feel like this is sort of where we were at the beginning of the week, and I hated that. I hated that feeling of not knowing how to be around you. You know? But this is worse. And also . . . better? I don’t know if I’m making any sense.”
“No, I get it. It’s weird, huh?”
“Super weird. And I know this probably isn’t the time to talk about any of it. Since you have a date and all . . .”
I laughed. “Weird is not even the right word for any of this.”
“No.” He shook his head. “It’s not quite strong enough, is it?” He took another deep breath and let it out slowly, and then his eyes locked with mine. “I need to know we’re okay. Even if yesterday was a huge mistake—”
“You think it was a huge mistake?”
“I didn’t say that.” He studied me. “Do you?”
I crossed my arms over my stomach and involuntarily took a step back from him. Why had I done that? “I don’t know. I mean, I do if you do, I guess.”
His eyebrow rose. “Well, that’s definitely the conviction needed to, you know . . . dive into a relationship. Let’s be sure to throw away a thirty-whatever-year friendship on the foundation of ‘I don’t know. I do if you do, I guess.’”
“Hang on.” I lifted my hands between us and took another step back. That step hadn’t been quite so involuntary. I felt heat climbing up my neck. I didn’t even know what to react to first. “Who said anything about throwing away our friendship? Or diving into a relationship, for that matter?”
Cole cleared his throat and looked down at his boots. “Okay, see, that helps. If that’s not what we’re talking about here, it’s good to know. That’s all I needed for now. Awesome.” He looked up at me again and then motioned forward with his chin. “I guess we should get in there.”
He began walking past me, and I grabbed his arm. “Cole, stop. What are you doing? All I meant was that if you think yesterday was a mistake, then of course I do too. Not because I don’t have my own thoughts and feelings about it, but because we need to be on the same page about . . . about whatever. It takes two to tango, and all that. That’s all I meant.”
“Okay, then. What are your thoughts and feelings?”
Huh. That was a fair question, and yet it felt like an attack. Or a trap, maybe. It felt sort of déjà vu-ish in a way I didn’t understand. At least not at first. And then he kept talking.
“It just makes sense, at least to me, that if we’re going to be on the same page, we have to start somewhere. So which is it? Just friends or something more?”
There it was.
“I told you I don’t like that phrase. ‘Just friends.’ I also told you that the next time you wanted to say something, you needed to go first and just say it. Remember? So just say what you want to say.” I didn’t know what to do with my hands, so they went into my pockets, back to my stomach, back to my pockets as I waited.
We’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.
I repeated it over and over in my mind while I waited for him to say whatever was coming next.
“Yeah, I remember you saying that. Just like I remember saying this was the exact thing I was afraid was going to happen.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Everything . . . yesterday . . . it threw us off. It’s been less than twenty-four hours and we’re already falling apart. We don’t even know how to talk to each other anymore—”
“You need to slow down, buddy.” We’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. “We just need to talk. That’s all there is to it. But you’re talking like decisions have already been made and everything’s been sorted out, and like we’re a mess and you know everything and I’m the problem, and . . . I don’t know . . . I guess I just missed some things somewhere. We just need to talk.”
He growled in frustration and threw his hands up in the air. “I know. That’s what I’m trying to say. But it’s difficult to talk about something like this while your date is waiting for you inside.”
Okay . . . you’ve got to be kidding me. I didn’t know whether to kiss him or slap him.
“Is that what this is about?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you jealous?”
He scoffed. “No.”
“Really?”
“Really.” He squinted and a smile threatened to appear at the corner of his mouth. “Should I be?”
“No. Of course not.” Even I wasn’t buying that. “Okay, yes, actually! Why are you okay with me going out with some other guy after—”
“I guess maybe I didn’t realize I had any reason to be jealous. This is some big-time movie star who’s only here filming a movie or something, and you’re going back to Colorado in three days. Are you expecting to discover Jess Gilmore is the love of your life?”
“First of all, his character’s last name was not Gilmore and I think you know that. Please stop calling him Jess Gilmore. Second, no, I’m not expecting it. But it could happen, couldn’t it? Or is the thought that a big-time movie star could fall for me so ludicrous—”
“Don’t put words in my mouth, Lai. Don’t do that. You know that’s not what I’m saying.”
“I don’t know that. Frankly, I don’t understand anything that’s happening right now, except I think you’re spinning out. I think you’re scared, and—”
“I’m not scared.” He scrunched up his face like he couldn’t even make sense of the words. “Why? Are you?”
There was only one time in my life when I could remember Cole being mean to me. Not accidentally inconsiderate or a little too careless with my feelings or misguided in his earnest attempts, but straight-out mean. We were eleven years old and had been watching The Exorcist in the attic of my grandparents’ house. Addie would put up with anything to hang out with Wes, even then, and Brynn just laughed at all the scariest parts, but I was terrified. Absolutely terrified. I tried covertly turning away and closing my eyes, and Wes and Addie and Brynn all said I should stop watching if I wanted to, but every time they gave me a way out, I insisted I was fine. And the only reason I kept insisting I was fine was because Cole had said earlier in the day, when he and Wes were hatching the Exorcist plan, that he loved scary movies and anyone who didn’t was a coward, and he could never be friends with a coward.
That wasn’t the mean part. That was just him being an eleven-year-old boy. But that night, as we watched, he kept teasing me and finding ways to spook me and make me jump. The girls were on his case from the beginning, of course, and even Wes, who typically acted as if Cole could do no wrong, told him to lay off. But he wouldn’t. Not until I completely lost my composure and broke down crying like I had never cried in front of anyone before. Then, in addition to being terrified, I was humiliated.
They all left soon after that, and I didn’t know if any of them would ever want to see me again. I was pretty sure, at the very least, Cole and I couldn’t be friends anymore, since I had proven to be a coward.
That night he snuck through my bedroom window for the first of about a thousand times while I lived under my parents’ roof. And while, in some ways, that was a textbook example of him being accidentally inconsiderate, a little too careless with my feelings, and misguided in his earnest attempts, considering I was already having to sleep with the lights on, clenching a rosary I had hastily made out of pony beads, a shoelace, and the water-spraying crown from my Fountain Mermaid Barbie (not Catholic . . . didn’t matter), it was also one of the watershed moments of our friendship. He made me promise to tell him when he was being a jerk. And he told me that I could always tell him when I was scared because he knew I wasn’t a coward, and anyway, he and I would always be friends, no matter what. So I’d told him I was scared, and he’d stayed there and read Where the Sidewalk Ends to me until I fell asleep.
“Of course I’m scared, Cole.” I swatted at a tear tickling my cheek. “How could I not be? You literally just said that if we were to dive into a relationship we would be throwing away our friendship—”
“That’s not what I said.”
I scoffed. “That’s pretty darn close to what you said. And you’re talking about how we’re falling apart and saying we don’t know how to talk to each other anymore, and—”
“I just meant—”
“Shut up.” I cupped my hand over his mouth. “I’m not done.” But suddenly, as I felt his lips curl beneath my hand, I thought maybe I could be.
Nope, nope, nope. Things to say. Lots and lots of things to say. Did he just kiss my palm? Doesn’t matter.
“And you’re being a jerk.” His eyebrows quirked downward like a sad puppy dog, and I wanted to take it back, but I couldn’t. I’d made a vow twenty-eight years ago, and he’d given me very few opportunities through the years to carry out my commitment. The few isolated incidents in recent days had been easy enough to write off as him misdirecting his pain and grief, but this was different. This wasn’t insignificant collateral damage. He was intentionally lashing out at me, and neither snow nor rain nor heat nor an overwhelming desire to feel his breath against my lips rather than my hand would keep me from the swift completion of my appointed rounds. “You made me promise to always tell you, so I’m telling you.”
“Ahem.”
With my hand still on his mouth and his fingers now on the high waistband of my slacks, I think preparing to pull me to him, we both turned our heads slowly to look at Sebastian. I didn’t have any clue how long he’d been there, and I could only imagine what he thought might be happening.
“Sorry to bother.” He looked at Cole and seemed rather nonplussed by it all, actually. “Doc just called me. I guess he’s been trying to get through to you. Something about some papers they found when they cleared out your grandfather’s room. And . . .” His eyes quickly darted to me and then back to Cole as he softly added, “I guess there’s been an offer. On your house.”
“What do you mean, ‘an offer’?” I asked at the same time I felt Cole’s heavy gust of breath on my palm.
I dropped my hand from Cole’s mouth, which, admittedly, I probably should have done a few seconds earlier.
“That’s all I know. He just . . . said he needs you to call him.” Seb’s eyes again passed from Cole to me and back again, and then he stuck two thumbs in the air and said, “Cool,” before turning and heading back to the restaurant.
“An offer on your house?”
Cole sighed. “Lai, listen—”
“How can that be, Cole? How can— How can—” I stepped away from him and faced the wall for a moment, hoping just a second to breathe would help me calm down, but it had the opposite effect. “How can there be an offer on your house, Cole? Your house isn’t for sale, is it?”
“All I did was ask Doc to maybe start putting some feelers out with people he knew. And he said he knew a Realtor in Alamosa—”
“I can’t believe this.” I began running my hand through my hair and then shouted, “Crap!” when my fingers got caught in the braid I’d forgotten about. I knew I was going to have to make a decision to either pull my hand out and allow the damage to be done, thereby accepting that my hair would spend the day emulating Jareth the Goblin King from Labyrinth, or just walk around like I was Mary Tyler Moore, preparing to throw my hat, but waiting for perfect thermal air pressure conditions.
“Here, let me help you.”
Cole reached for my braid, and I slapped him away with my free hand and then welcomed the disarray and falling strands with indifference so that I could use both hands to shove him away from me.
Jareth the Goblin King it was.
“No. Stop!” I pointed my finger at him. “Don’t touch me.”
He released a frustrated growl as I continued backing away from him. “Laila, would you listen to me? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but come on! It’s only been a week since I even mentioned it to Doc. And that’s really all it was. A mention. I thought it was going to be a long-drawn-out thing, if I was even able to find a buyer at all. How could I have known that—”
“Are you kidding me? With the way Adelaide Springs is growing? Someone bought Cassidy’s out from under you, Cole. How much have we talked about how quickly the place is growing, and—”
“You’re right.” He nodded. “I’m sorry. Of course. I should have—”
“Did you really think that a great house on amazing land wouldn’t be snatched up the instant you—”
“I said you’re right!” he shouted, causing a couple and their children to hurry past us. “I said I’m sorry,” he added more quietly. “I just didn’t think about that. But it’s not like I wasn’t going to tell you. You know that. I wasn’t keeping it from you. And I know that we canceled the deal. I know we were talking about things. But . . . I guess, maybe, that was a little too real. Too fast, you know?”
“Ya think?”
He groaned in reaction to the jab. “How many times do I have to tell you? I’m not having a midlife crisis here. I had no idea this could happen so quickly. Was that stupid of me? Obviously. You’ve made that very clear. But I genuinely didn’t believe there was any urgency in talking to you about—”
“But Sebastian knew. Clearly. And I’m sure that means Brynn knows. You talked to Doc about it. I just can’t understand why you talked to everyone except—”
“Because none of them have the power to make me change my mind!”
I scoffed. “Clearly I don’t either.”
“Are you kidding me?” He grabbed my elbows and turned me toward him. “Laila, you have the power to make me do anything you want me to do. You always have. And that terrifies me because I can’t stay there. I can’t stay in that house. I can’t stay in that town and know that my grandfather cared more about freaking Township Days than he did me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No. It’s not.” It would be so easy to open my mouth and say all the words he needed to hear. Maybe he’d listen, maybe he wouldn’t, but I wanted nothing more than to say them. “You just . . .” It wasn’t fair that I couldn’t throw everything else that also mattered out the window and unilaterally decide that nothing mattered as much as helping his heart to heal. “I promise you, it’s not true.”
“Whether it’s true or not, every single block of that town holds a memory that I have to get away from now, because I can’t look at the park where he taught me to ride my bike and wonder if that was the moment. If he stopped believing in me then, because it took me longer to learn than he thought it should have and he salved his conscience by reminding himself I wasn’t a real Kimball, or even a real Dolan.”
He swiped at his eyes and took a step back. “Maybe it wasn’t until later when we were at the church for my grandmother’s funeral and he didn’t talk to me that whole day. Remember? You and my mom said he just didn’t want to appear weak or too emotional with me, but who knows? Maybe that was the day he realized that with her dead, he didn’t owe me anything.”
“Cole, don’t do this to yourself. I know he wasn’t the most affectionate of men, but I promise you—”
“Or, I know—maybe it happened when I moved him to Spruce House. I was the only one left, and I couldn’t take care of him the way he needed to be taken care of. I know that. But that doesn’t change the fact that every time I drive by that place, I’m going to wonder if he felt like I had abandoned him—”
“He didn’t.”
“—and maybe that was why he didn’t think he owed me so much as a heads-up that he had abandoned me too.”
“Stop it,” I whispered into his ear as I threw my arms around his neck and pulled him to me. “Stop it right now. He loved you. I’ll never be able to explain why he did what he did, but he loved you.”
“I’m still trying to convince myself I have the strength to leave you, Lai.” He held me tightly. “Every other single thing in my life is coming together to lead me away from Adelaide Springs, but—”
“But nothing.” I squeezed him against me and then lifted my head from his shoulder and held his face in my hands. “But nothing. Call Doc.”
He leaned into my hand. “But we need to—”
“And we will,” I assured him. Whatever he and I needed to do, we’d do it. Eventually. Somehow. “Right now, you just need to call Doc.”
He nodded and rubbed his eyes again, then pulled his phone out of his pocket, began scrolling, and sighed. “I never turned off Do Not Disturb last night. Doc has called . . .” He kept scrolling. “Well, a lot.” His finger stopped suddenly and his eyes began skimming the screen frantically.
“What is it?”
He kept reading for another couple seconds and then looked up at me. “A text from Sylvia. Her sous chef broke his hand, and the restaurant’s soft opening is next weekend. She’s . . .” His eyes went back to the phone. “She’s asking me to start on Tuesday. As second sous chef.” His eyes met mine again, and it was anybody’s guess what he saw when he looked at me.
“Wow. That’s . . .” That’s too soon. That’s a horrible idea. That’s the end of my life as I know it. “That’s amazing, Cole. What an opportunity. I’m so . . .” Sad. Devastated. Heartbroken. “Proud of you.” I wrapped my arms around his torso and hugged him. Like I would have two days ago. Like I knew he needed me to. Like his best friend. It was time to focus on being his best friend, and that meant putting all of my own selfish desires aside. “I’m just so proud of you.” I squeezed him one more time and then gestured over my shoulder. “You have a lot of calls to make. I’ll let you—”
“No. Don’t go. I’m sorry I’m handling all of this so badly. I’m not trying to be a jerk. It’s just coming very naturally to me this week.” His eyes were red and strained, and I wanted nothing more than to make it all better for him, no matter how miserable that made me. “Stay. Please?”
“Of course.”
We’ll be fine.