I hadn’t heard him ask that in four years.
“Please,” I breathed.
Cole ordered, and we sat where our old booth used to be. The seat was comfortable but not like a cloud the way it once was.
He placed his hands on the table. “I wanted to say I’m sorryfor yesterday. I didn’t mean to upset you, but I needed to get that stuff off my chest.”
I shook my head. “Please don’t apologise. I guess you’ve waited a while for the opportunity to say it. I’m the one who’s sorry. I should have given you the choice. I was too wrapped up in what was going on, I didn’t want your life to be messed up, too.”
He raised a brow, and I knew exactly what he was thinking. His lifewasmessed up because of it. “I would have come with you.”
“I know,” I whispered, looking down at the table. “Can we get past this? I don’t want things to be weird between us.”
But that probably wasn’t possible.
The waitress arrived, cutting into our conversation. She balanced the tray on the edge of the table and passed us our milkshakes and ice cream. My lungs started to burn, and I realised it was because my breath was stuck in them, waiting for his answer.
We both muttered a polite, “Thank you,” and I turned my attention back to Cole.
He smiled, half sad and half… alive again. “Yeah, but only if you give me some of that ice cream,” he said, reaching out and digging his spoon in before I could answer.
I slapped the back of his hand with my spoon, laughing.
“Do you have any plans to get your own place?” he asked.
“No. I don’t think I can live alone. Well, not yet.”
Cole’s smile dropped, but it soon turned into a smirk. “No one to remove the spiders? You’d have so many glasses dotted around the house with spiders trapped inside them,” he teased. “Does Jasper catch them for you?”
Frowning, I shook my head. “No. Jasper throws them at me, and the spiders in Australia are bigger than cats.”
Okay, not quite, but they were a lot bigger than the spiders in England, that was for sure.
“You want to come with me next week?” Cole asked, changing the subject before he started laughing. “I could use another opinion. Apparently, I’m too negative when it comes to house-hunting.”
“Yeah? I’d love to,” I said.
I wanted to spend as much time with him as he’d allow, so I’d take what I could get. Maybe in time it wouldn’t be so awkward.
“Good. If it all falls down, then I can blame you.”
I didn’t need to bring up the fact that when he got the keys to whichever house he chose, I would be back in Australia.
We stayed in the diner for a while after we’d finished eating and drinking, talking about random light topics. New TV shows and movies we liked, bands, food, and stupid things my brother had done. I managed to drag everything out for as long as I could, just wanting a little bit longer with him. Eventually, though, there was nothing more I could do, and Cole paid the bill.
His arm brushed against mine as we walked to his car, and my breath caught. Clearing his throat, he opened the car door for me, and I suddenly realised how close he was. Our faces were inches apart.
My lungs deflated as he stared into my eyes and then lower to my mouth.
I wanted to kiss him more than I wanted anything else in the world, but it didn’t feel like a good idea. How could we pretend that the last four years hadn’t happened?
We’d only just seen each other again, it’d been twenty-four hours since I landed and turned his world upside down, and I didn’t want to mess with his head… more than I probably had.
We were treading a tightrope here, and one wrong movewould have us falling hard. I just didn’t know if that fall would be into each other’s arms or back on separate sides of the world.
“Thanks,” I whispered, taking a reluctant step back.
The sudden distance brought his eyes back to my face, and he nodded for me to get in the car.
