So how ruined does that make me?
“Go back to your friends and have a nice life,” I retort, losing my cool. As if I had it in the first place.
Something raw flashes in his eyes, hot and sharp.“You go back to Caspian,” he scowls, saying the name like it’s poison.
A realization hits. Xaden thinks I’m with Caspian now.
I could correct him. I don’t.
Instead, I walk away before I do something reckless, like proving him wrong by kissing him in the middle of the damn parking lot.
So that went well.
XADEN
Please, Cole.I force the words down my throat and turn my head. I don’t want to witness him walking to the waiting arms of Caspian Stone.
What I want is to grab him, shake him, kiss him until he remembers what we were. Until he admits what I still saw in his eyes.
But more than anything I want to shield him against the danger I’ve dragged back into Baywood. And that includes me.So, despite my body aching toprotect and ruin him in the same breath, I let him walk away from me like I was never anything at all.
It feels like my insides are being scraped out with a dull spoon, but I knew it would. Seeing Cole again was always going to break me. I never once thought it wouldn’t make me want to beg for him. But I’m stronger than that. I’ve lived with pain before; I’ll live with this. One day at a time. Giving up now is not an option.
At least Cole looked okay. He looked happy, even carefree, before his eyes landed on me. That’s good. That’s what matters. He hasn’t changed much; still gets those freckles in the summer, still has those impossibly green eyes, still makes my chest feel like it’s caving in. Still makes me think thoughts I have no right to think anymore.
To this day, Cole Hudson is the only person who’s ever made me feel anything real. Being his best friend was easy until suddenly watching him walk into a room felt like taking a punch and a prayer in the same breath. I tried to bury it, hide it. But eventually, it happened. We happened. And it was slow, careful, perfect.
He was my forever.
I should’ve known better. A guy like me doesn’t get that kind of forever.
“Yo.” JJ elbows me. “You know Cole Hudson?”
“Everyone in Baywood knows Cole Hudson,” I say, shrugging.
“It sounded more than that,” Ronnie says, eyes narrowing like he’s trying to read my face.
I fake a yawn, lean back. “Nah. School. You wanna look somewhere else or are we done?”
Ronnie’s gaze lingers, just a beat too long, but he doesn’t push it. Not now, anyway. “Marina tomorrow. We’ll find the fucker.”
We start moving. My pulse hasn’t slowed.
Cole is my everything. Which means, to them, he has to be nothing.
If JJ, Ronnie or Sam even suspect he matters to me, they’ll use him. Cole could become a pawn in their petty power games, or worse, just a toy to break when they get bored.
I’ve heard the stories.
So I do the only thing I can.I bite down on the ache. I play their game.
And I pray they didn’t already see through me.
COLE
Caspian drives quietly beside me, one hand on the wheel, his expression unreadable in the soft dashboard glow.
In the backseat, Noah’s asleep, head tilted, mouth slightly open, fingers curled protectively around his T-Rex.
