“Definitely. Where’s Cole?”
“He’s outside. He needed some air,” Mum said.
My heart stuttered.He needed air?That meant he was freaking out. I should have told him everything before. It must’ve been a lot.
“We’ll go see him now.” Mum put her arm around my back as we walked to the exit.
Linda went out the front so the press would think I would be following, and hopefully, that would give us enough time to get out.
Ali pushed the door open. It was only when my attention was on her that I saw how red her eyes were. Everyone instinctively moved closer to me in case there was any press lurking at the exit. That was when I saw him.
Cole was leaning against the brick wall, face pale, eyes like he’d been through years of torment.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I pushed past everyone that was in between us. He looked up and shoved himself awayfrom the wall, taking long strides towards me. Within seconds of us catching sight of each other, I was in his arms, breathing him in.
“Cole,” I whispered.
I finally cracked, my breath hitching, and a few tears escaped.
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” he mumbled into my hair and sniffed.
God, please don’t cry.
“For what?” I whispered, trying to hold back. I didn’t want to break down outside court.
“For letting that happen to you. I should have known. I should have stopped it.”
I pulled back from him a few inches, enough to look directly into his eyes. He wiped my tears, and I wiped one of his.
“Don’t. None of it was your fault. Cole, you were just a child yourself.”
“He took pictures of you.”
I thought he knew that. “Yes, but it’s going to be okay now.”
“Okay?” he repeated.
“It has to be. I survived it. I’m the one who has a future.”
He shook his head, staring at me with such intensity that it made me self-conscious. Like he saw too much. “You’re amazing. I don’t know how you can be so calm. I want to kill them both.”
“Can we go now?” I asked.
“Of course, we can.” He kissed my lips. “I have questions I don’t know if you’ll want to answer. I don’t even know if I want the answers to them.”
“I’ll answer whatever you want to know, but right now, I just want to get back to Ali’s. Please, don’t let them get inside your head. Fuck ’em.”
The ghost of a smile touched his lips. “‘Fuck ’em?’ Wow, that was so un-Oakley.”
I laughed. “But it made you smile.”
“Oakley, Oakley!” My name was being screamed by a number of different people I didn’t know. The press, men and women dressed in suits, holding microphones, and being followed by camera men, ran towards us like a stampede.
“Fuck, no!” Cole snapped.
Before I could blink, I was being ushered away, my family and Cole getting me into a car and away from them. David opened the door to let us in before running to his car. Cole slammed the door behind us.
“Go,” Mum barked at Jasper.
