“I’d love to, but that’s not in anyone’s glass-ball for me.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because most days, I just feel like I’m going along with what everyone else but me wants for my life. And on the rare day I try and fight back, the battle is over before it even begins.”
Why was I being so honest with Cole? For all intents and purposes, he was a total stranger who jumped out of perfectly good airplanes for a living. I shouldn’t lay it all out and take his words of advice as the gold standard. I knew Cole wasn’t the person I should confide in or take advice from, but it felt so darn right. My brain and heart had officially declared war on one another. I couldn’t tell you which one I hoped would win.
“Each day kind of feels like a betrayal to myself, you know?” I added with a whisper.
Cole’s hand dropped to my knee. The warmth from his skin bled through my jeans until it combined with the heat of my leg. “Then why don’t you tell everyone to f**k off and start living your life day to day like me?”
I slid my hands into my coat pockets when I realized one of them had been moving towards his. “One, because I don’t say the ‘f’ word, and two, because I don’t have the luxury of day to day like some people.”
“Everybody has that luxury,” he said as his fingers curled into my leg. “Most people just choose to ignore it.”
I knew if any one of the people absorbed in their own conversations glanced over and saw Cole’s hand curled in my knee, all it would take was one quick photo or one call to Logan, and I could wave goodbye to the whole future I’d known to be mine for a while now. That was a paralyzing thought, but not as paralyzing as the thought of Cole’s hand leaving me.
“So what are you saying?” I asked.
“Stop ignoring it. Live your life, Elle Montgomery,” he said, his eyes glowing from his words. “I can tell from a couple of conversations with you that you’re one hell of a woman. Imagine the woman you could be if you lived for no one else but yourself.”
I considered that for a few moments. I loved the idea of it and hated the reality of it.
“That’s exactly what I’ll have to do,” I said with a sigh. “Imagine.”
“You sure about that?”
Simple question—I should have had a simple answer, but the responses firing off in my mind were complex. Was I sure about that? Did I have to accept what I’d assumed my future would be? Or was now the time, if ever there was, to shake everything up? Would I stay in Winthrop, take over the diner, and marry my high school sweetheart, or would I do the other things I wanted so badly to do?
So many questions and absolutely no solutions.
I guess Cole took my silence as my answer.
“Give me a call if that ever changes,” he said, standing up.
His body no longer being beside mine shouldn’t have affected me. Giving me a small smile, one that I mirrored, he headed back to his group of smokejumpers. I was mid heavy sigh when he spun around and jogged back.
His smile wasn’t small anymore. “Never mind. I can’t wait,” he said, his eyes sparkling. “Let’s say I just give you a call tomorrow night? Maybe we could go for another swim next week? Swimsuits not required.”
He was asking me on a date. I hadn’t misread his signals and I hadn’t exactly discouraged him. This was my opportunity to tell him about Logan. The moment I should slide my glove off and flash my promise ring in front of his face. This was my time to prove that the life I was living was what I wanted to continue on with.
“Cole,” I said, chewing the debate out on my lip.
“Elle,” he said, and just the way he said the name and his face looked when he said it did things to me that I couldn’t ignore.
The debate was over. “You don’t have my number,” I said, realizing I’d just tugged on the dangling string.
I wasn’t sure if everything would unravel or I’d be able to stop it, but that was a distant thought when Cole dropped his mouth outside of my ear. His hand slid my hair behind my ear and I was fairly certain if he touched me again, I would burst into flames. The blue, hottest burning kind.
I felt his breath against my jaw and I knew if I tilted my chin up a few inches, we would kiss. At least the ironclad willpower I’d honed through my teen years was paying off now. “Elle. I had your number before I came over to talk to you.”
Chapter Three
Cole really did have my number. In fact, he called it the next morning. And again the morning after that. He called every morning that week and left some sort of creative voicemail.
I never answered.
Dani had sworn an oath of secrecy to not mention a word about Cole and no one else had leaked the news to Logan that some smokejumper and I huddled rather close in conversation at a kegger.
Other than work and hanging out at Dani’s house one night, I stayed home. I cowered at home. No more skinny dipping even though it had been sunny and ninety all darn week, I took the long way to work to avoid the few hangouts the smokejumpers liked to frequent, and I definitely stayed away from the parties that seemed to crop up every night.
Cole was everything I needed to forget, and every thought I couldn’t seem to.
It was another Friday night close at the diner, but I didn’t have my persistent little helper. After Dani figured out there was either no dirt or none I would give her, she hadn’t brought up the Cole topic again. She was headed to some other party tonight, this one high class since it was actually inside a building. A barn.