“Is there something you want to tell me?” He shook his head. “You know you can tell me anything, right? I won’t be offended. I mean, we’re dating. I know it’s unconventional, but if we’re not honest at this stage of our… this, then that’s not a great sign for what comes… next.”
And here I was trying to make it better, and I was pretty sure I’d stepped right into something worse.
Despite that, Cole nodded, and after a few more moments, he spoke.
“You’re right. I know you are. I never understood this whole idea of suppressing your feelings and thoughts when you’re dating someone, as if that would somehow make the relationship work better. Isn’t… isn’t the whole point to get to know the actual person and not the sanitized version?”
“Exactly,” I said, and I put a hand to his knee as reassurance, but Cole stiffened a little, and next thing I knew, he was pulling over.
I opened my mouth to apologize, but he turned to me and placed his hand on top of mine on my own lap.
“I… I’ve been doing that,” he said. “Suppressing, I mean. I… You’re the first person I dated since… since Sandra passed away and…”
“It’s hard. I understand.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I mean, yes. I thought it would be hard. I thought it’d be flipping impossible. But you’ve made it… easy. So easy that when I’m with you I forget. I forget I was ever in grief. You make me feel hope again, and that’s scary.”
My heart pounded in my chest the more he spoke until I was sure it was going to burst out of chest. But his gaze never wavered and neither did his touch that caused a wave of goosebumps to course through my body.
I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. I didn’t blink for fear of breaking this almost holy moment between us. But I had to. At some point, I had to know more.
“What’s scary about that?”
Cole bit his lip and gulped before he spoke.
“Everything. How easy you make it. How easy I’m finding it. I thought I’d never be happy again, let alone move on from Sandra’s death, and you not only make it as easy as breathing but you make me hope again. You make me think that maybe… maybe we could be more than this. That’s terrifying, and even so, I’m far too intrigued, far too invested to put an end to this.”
I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t find the words. How could when he encapsulated how I felt so much that it was as if I were hearing my thoughts aloud?
Yeah, maybe I’d never lived in grief before, maybe I’d never loved someone like he had Sandra, but I knew what it was like thinking your whole life was pre-written, predetermined by the events that shaped your life.
“I’m scared too,” I said. “I’ve never even dated, never even… been with a man, and I was so petrified of it for the longest time, but you…”
“I… what?” he whispered.
“You… you make it feel easy too. You make me feel like I’ve known you for a lifetime. I mean, granted, I don’t know how old you were when you had your first kiss, or your middle name, or your favorite color?—”
“First kiss at twelve with Enzo because we were both desperate to find out what it was like, my middle name is Jackson, and my favorite color is turquoise,” he said in what felt like one breath.
He’d gotten so close to my face, I could breathe in the air he exhaled. He was so close, I could see the marbled effect of his beautiful gray eyes caused by all the neurons and veins and… whatever the hell eyes were made of. He was so close, I could almost taste his lips.
And that was exactly what I did. I closed the gap between, brought our mouths together, and got completely and utterly intoxicated in his flavor.
This… this was what I wanted out of life. This was how I wanted to spend the rest of my days. Family outings, random kissesof passion just because we couldn’t contain our love anymore, simple cozy moments that looked like they weren’t much more than everyday life but were moments that we treasured because we cherished each other and what we had.
Someone behind us honked.
I was still buzzed, edging on tipsy, when Cole pulled away and turned to look at the car behind us.
He drove off moments later, but every opportunity he got, he snuck glances at me, smiling. His eyes were telling everything his lips weren’t.
“Should I pick up lunch on the way home?” he asked as we approached Carson’s Grill when his phone went off.
He grimaced.
“It’s work,” he said and tapped a button on his steering wheel.
“Williams, this is Kayla from Dispatch. We have a major incident and require immediate back-up. Please confirm.”
