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He chuckles. “Bull rider. You?”
“Oh, no doubt a marine biologist.” Beneath the bubbles, the water, I find his hand at my thigh, and I put my hand on his, marveling at the size difference.
His lips rise at my answer.
“I’ve been thinking about what I want to do when this is all over…and…I’m not sure.” I bring his scarred palm to my mouth and kiss it lightly. It feels like we’re edging toward a conversation both of us keep tiptoeing around. “I want to dance but…just not in a club. Not anymore.”
Not for Cole, but because of Cole. He’s never asked me to stop, but I knew from the first moment I danced for him, I never wanted to dance for another man ever again.
For a long second, we’re both quiet. “I won’t lie, Delilah. I don’t hate that idea.” His thumb strokes over my cheek as if the gesture soothes us both.
“But what if I never find what I love? What if I never find what I’m good at?”
“You’re young. You have all the time in the world.” He frames my jaw with a steady, determined hand.
Just like that, I come down from my nerves. That’s what Cole does to me. He listens, he hears. Takes away all of my worries with that deep rumble of his.
Twisting into him, I kiss his temple. “Thank you. You make me feel like I matter.”
“You do.” He tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. “You’ll find your way.”
I stare up at Cole, realization a heavy, staggering thing.
I love him. More than he can possibly know.
“What if I’ve already found it?” I palm his cheek, run my fingers over his thick, dark scruff.
He doesn’t say anything. He only leans in to kiss me, but I saw it in those deep, darkening blue eyes of his.
He’s already found it too.
37 Cole
I find Hassie bright and early this morning, perched on a stool at the Rusty Spur. Her copper hair’s wound in a messy bun, and she’s typing away on her phone. The bar’s quiet and dim, not open until ten. Music plays low on the jukebox, the boisterous boom of Hank Williams Jr.
“Where’s War?”
“Dancing with the devil in the blue moonlight. Guess what? I have a group party tonight.” She wiggles her eyebrows, sets her phone face down. “Californians. Gonna take them for all they’re worth.”
I chuckle. Then lean in, steeling myself. “You got a second? I need to talk to you.”
“You sound stressed, Cole.” She twirls a shot glass between her fingers.
A chuckle leaves my lips. I am goddamn stressed. Front and center in my mind, every last day this week, Delilah. After last week’s conversation in the bathtub, it was clear. I need to tell her how I feel. But it’s one damn thing to climb on top of a fifteen-hundred-pound beast; it’s another to tell this girl I want to keep her.
“I want to do something nice for Delilah.”
“Like what? Take her on a date?”
“Yeah. Something like that.” I pause, hesitating over how much to give Hassie. Like Wells, I still always see her as a kid in my mind. Asking her for advice on women feels wrong. “I want to give her something…happy.”
Hassie stares. “Fuck me.”
“You gonna help me or run your mouth?” I grumble.
“Okay, okay.” Trying like hell to smother her smile, Hassie thinks on it, chewing her lower lip. “You could pack a picnic. Do strawberries, champagne, candles. The whole romantic shebang.”
“No. That’s not Cole.” We both look up at the clomp of boots. Warren strides forward, bottles of whiskey in his hands, the grin on his face telling me he’s overheard everything.
