I look at them, heart pounding: Caspian folding the blanket. Cole lifting the kid. Their bodies slotting into a half-hug, easy, practiced, like it’s happened a hundred times before. Cole leans into it, casual, comfortable, smiling.
It’s not a kiss. But it might as well be. My fists clench. I want… No. It doesn’t matter. Not anymore.Still, the image sears into me. Caspian touching Cole’s back with one hand like it’s his right. Cole looking up at him with that small, private smile that used to be mine.
Torn but reluctant to look away I just stand there, imagining how fast Caspian must have run to Cole after I left. All in the name of “comforting a friend.” And look at them now.
I bet the Hudsons got over their discomfort with Cole’s queerness when a trust-fund kid with a good family name picked him up for a date. When I stayed for dinner, the meal came with a side of subtle insults about knowing your place. Dessert was a rundown of Caspian’s endless achievements. Probably still is.Yes, I’m bitter. Sue me.
“Let’s go,” I say to JJ. “Mike’s not here. The place is closing up.”
Ronnie belches and wanders behind the bushes, tossing a crushed beer can, while JJ lights up another cigarette.
My chest feels tight. Walls closing in.
Please don’t come this way. Please don’t come this way. Please—
They come this way.
COLE
I spot Xaden too late. My brain short-circuits, and my heart tries to escape through my mouth.
Ever since Caspian texted that he saw Xaden, I’ve been mentally preparing for the collision.
What a fool I was. As if anything could prepare me for this.
He still looks like the world’s sweetest danger but there’s more of him now. More height. More stubble. More shoulders. Eyes: unreadable. Hair: messier. The magnetic pull telling me to stop fighting and just go to him? Still there. It takes everything in me not to close the distance, not to give in like gravity demands.
Xaden looks straight at me, and I look right back, though it’s killing me.
Seeing him is killing me. I hate him.Scratch that. I don’t. But God knows I’ve tried.
Caspian glances between us. “I’ll get the car,” he murmurs, scooping up both the blanket and Noah, and vanishing like the saint he is.
Then it’s just me and Xaden. Or it feels like it. The festival is still moving around us — food stalls, drunk dads, kids with balloons — but the noise has gone muffled. My pulse sounds unnaturally loud in my ears. Our eyes stay locked, the air between us buzzing with static.
In my peripheral vision, I see the guy next to Xaden; glaring, mean. Another emerges from the bushes, zipping up his pants. Charming. Must be the Beavis and Butt-Head Caspian saw earlier. They look at me like I’m dinner, their stares crawling over me. My skin goes cold even as my chest burns.
Xaden stands there between us, steady, and I can’t tell if he’s shielding me or letting them enjoy the view. I want to believe it’s the former.
“You happened to be in the neighborhood?” My voice is brittle.
“Working,” he says. Just that. No apology, no explanation. His voice sounds deeper. Rougher. It scrapes at the bottom of my stomach, reminding me of its power to calm me down or set me on fire with one word.
“On your disappearing act, perhaps?” I ask. Childish, I know, but I’m looking at someone who told me he’d love me forever and then left.
His jaw ticks, eyes darken. I know that look; annoyance and frustration. I used to read him like he was my favorite book. Now, he’s nothing but a ghost story.
His friends are blatantly staring at me, nasty and obscene.
My stomach twists.
Suddenly I’m livid at him.“Look at all these cars just waiting to be stolen. Or do you prefer robbing old ladies?” I almost spit the words out, crossing my arms like that could help me fight the pull. It doesn’t. It only makes me more aware of the way my chestfeels tight, like I’m holding myself together with duct tape.
I despise myself for being this weak. For remembering exactly how he used to taste when I kissed him. For wanting to kiss him again. For wanting him to hold me.
He keeps looking at me. Steadily, like he’s not even ashamed of his new life. His silence is unnerving. Infuriating. Is it an intimidation technique he learned from a cellmate? Or is it just him, daring me to break first? Either way, it’s working. Because the truth is I don’t just want him to answer. I want him to snap, to yell at me, to kiss me.
More than anything I want to wipe that calm off his face. With my mouth.
