“You know — spicy. Passion. Heat.” She fans herself. “Three chilis. At least.”
I blink. “Okay. Sure.” Back in school, she was always asking, “Team Stefan or Team Damon?” I never knew what she was on about. Still don’t.
“It’s a compliment,” she insists. Then, almost serious, “I hope. Otherwise, I’m just being inappropriate, and I’ve had… feedback.” I bet she has. Ann-Sabrina trying to stay appropriate is like… well, it’s not going to happen. But her self-awareness softens me.
Unfortunately, my brain picks this moment to wonder if Cole reads books with chili ratings. I can picture him getting adorably flustered over even a one-chili scene. His ears would burn and he’d probably insist he was reading it for the “plot”. Cole never gave himself permission to want out loud, even when I knew there was a storm inside him. Maybe that’s why the thought of him reading anything ‘spicy’ like Ann-Sabrina put it guts me so much — it’s the version of Cole that drives me the wildest.
The one who wants me but doesn’t dare say it.
I almost groan out loud when I think about our road trip to Pisgah and what happened in the tent.
***
The night smelled like pine and woodsmoke, and the tent was too small for our long legs, so we lay tangled, shoulder to shoulder, our sleepingbags unzipped and useless. I was so lost in the way he was kissing me that night, how he grew hungrier and more determined by the minute, until suddenly it was like his control literally cracked.
“Xaden,” he breathed against my mouth, voice breaking.
“Yeah?” My pulse thundered in my ears.
He swallowed hard. “I… I want — could you—”
He pulled my hand on him, and I swear I would’ve fallen to my knees right then if he’d asked. And when his hand slid under the waistband of my boxers — tentative, trembling — then wrapped around me, what undid me wasn’t the way it felt (though God, it was heaven). It was that it was him. Cole. Wanting me so much he found the courage to ask.
I kissed him through it, whispering his name into his mouth because I didn’t know what else to do with the rush of it, with the beauty of him.
I’ll never forget the sound of him coming apart with my name on his lips.
***
Oh God. Could I just get one hour without Cole in my head?
COLE
“Cole!” someone calls from behind me in the smoothie line. I turn to see Brett Morales, lead singer of Savage Amen, flashing his megawatt smile. He’s in a see-through T-shirt so tight it looks vacuum-sealed, and when I glance at him, wondering why he’s talking to me, he flexes his biceps. Um. Okay.
“Sup,” he says, tossing his black ponytail. “Saw you at the festival. Nice going. Mind if I touch your hair?”
“Please don’t,” I say.Also: what?
“I’m a musician too,” Brett continues. “You probably recognized me right away. Screamo-metal with a splash of funk? I’m the screamo, my ex is the funk.” He says it like a joke he’s rehearsed.
“Yes, I heard your set,” I say truthfully. Still have the tinnitus to prove it. “It was… something else.”
“Thanks, man. You dig poetry?”
“Uh, depends.” I glance at my watch. I was supposed to be enjoying a rare quiet moment while Noah’s with Sammy and Jørgen at the park. This is not that moment.
“I’m a poet myself,” Brett says. “Dark stuff. With a hint of erotica.” He actually winks.
Somehow, I stay polite. “Interesting.”
“We should totally hang. I could read you from my unpublished collection.My Sex-Starved Soul. It’s autobiographical.”
I shudder. “No, thank you,” I say, snatching my smoothie and fleeing outside — straight into James Lexington III. What is my life today?
XADEN
After escaping Ann-Sabrina and the intense chili thoughts she put in my head about Cole, I take a moment to cool off in the shade of Mayor Billing’s statue.
