“Didn’t realize you were looking,” I mutter to myself.
The moment the words leave my mouth, I realize Kole’s vampire ears heard every one of them. Regret instantly hollows my stomach when I see the confused look on his face. I scramble into the car, hoping he’ll just act like he didn’t hearme, but when he gets into the car and turns to me, that hope quickly dies.
“Sienna is a beautiful girl, but no part of me wants to rip her clothes off.”
“I-I know,” I stutter, completely mortified by this entire interaction. “Well, I mean, I didn’t know… but I do now… I guess.”
Kole puts the car in drive, and I swear every molecule of oxygen evaporates from my lungs when he hits the gas.
“Good.” He takes his eyes off the road to look at me. “I wouldn’t want you to think she’s the one who holds my affection.”
My mouth instantly becomes desert dry, and when I swallow, it feels like a hundred rusty nails are scraping against my throat. I turn my attention out the window, repeating his last words in my head.
Was that his way of telling me that he feels something for me too? It’s not like the thought hasn’t occurred to me, but acknowledging it makes it more real, and I don’t know if I’m ready for that.
The rest of the car ride goes by achingly slow as I’m buried beneath a mountain of embarrassment. How pathetically jealous I must’ve sounded to him. Why couldn’t he just act like he didn’t hear me? And why did he have to make that last comment? I’ve replayed it a hundred times over, and it’s eating me alive. He was implying that I’m the one who holds his affection, right? But if so, what does that even mean, and do I even want to know? It’s already driving me crazy having to ignore my own feelings without knowing how he feels.
I’m so far down my mental spiral that when we make it to the penthouse, I hardly have any recollection of how we got here. Kole unlocks the door but doesn’t follow me inside.Instead, he remains in the hallway, looking at me with an expression I can’t quite read.
While we stand there, facing one another, the doorway separating the two of us feels like a juncture, presenting me with two impossible paths. There’s one path where I say goodnight and close the door, forgetting about everything that happened tonight. But then there’s the other path, where I ask him to stay and see this night through. Both somehow feel like the right choice and the wrong choice all at the same time.
“Goodnight, Grey,” Kole finally says, taking a step back as I reach for the door.
“Wait.” I pause, gripping the door like it’s a lifeline. “You could stay… I just mean, Sienna isn’t here, and it’s an awfully big apartment for just me.”
Fuck, Fallon. What are we doing?
“Are you sure?” he asks, taking a step inside. “Seattle is supposed to be your escape.”
“Well, maybe I don’t want to escape anymore.” I chew on my lip, waiting for him to say something, but he doesn’t say anything at all. He just stares me down while he closes the door behind him and locks it.
Every passing second feels like a tipping point. Like anything we say or do will somehow change everything.
“So…” I clear my throat as the tension between us threatens to suffocate me. “Do you want something to drink?”
“Sure,” he says, following me to the kitchen.
I uncork a bottle of red wine and stand up on my toes to reach the wine glasses. I’m just about to pinch one of the stems between my fingers when Kole grabs the glass, looking down at me with a smirk.
“Thanks,” I say, pouring the wine while he holds the glasses.
I take one of them and down half the glass before immediately refilling it. I can feel Kole watching me, so I turn on my heel and head toward the grand piano.
“Do you play?” Kole asks, taking a seat on the bench next to me.
I turn to him with my head tilted. “Do I seem like the kind of girl who grew up taking piano lessons?”
He huffs out a laugh, shaking his head. “No, I suppose not.”
“There is one thing I can play, though.” I roll my head back and shimmy my shoulders before hitting the keys. When I’m done, I turn to Kole with a pretentious smirk.
He cocks a brow at me, trying and failing to hide his smile.
“Hot cross buns. Very impressive.”
I shrug, picking up my glass and swirling the wine around. “Juilliard offered me a full ride, but I wasn’t really an east coast kind of girl.”
“Then what kind of girl were you?”
