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“That’s the one. I couldn’t tell if she was crying because she hurt herself, or because she was so mad she couldn’t figure out how to crawl yet. Knowing Becks—and Nancy—it was the latter, because twenty minutes later, after trying so hard her face went from red to purple, she finally did this wonky army crawl all the way across the room to her little bookshelf. When she got there, she pulled herself up to standing and squealed with unbridled joy. Like that was all she’d wanted to do from the start.”
“It sounds amazing, being a grandparent.”
“It definitely is.” After a silent moment, he held his phone closer to his ear, and asked, “Mira, is there anything I can do?”
Before she answered, someone with a scratchy voice that sounded like it hadn’t been as deep as it was for very long said, “Mom?”
“Yeah, pal?” she said back, the sound muffled.
“Grandma can’t find her glasses again. And they’re not just on her head this time.”
“Okay, I’ll be right there.”
“Do you need to go?” Cole asked. He’d known the call would end eventually, but he still wasn’t prepared for how badly he didn’t want it to.
“I’d better. Mom can’t read without her glasses. And she can’t sleep without reading.”
“Me neither,” he said, eyeing his readers lying next to the stack of bookson his bedside table.
“Cole?”
“Yes, Mira?”
“You asked if there was anything you could do to help. Can we keep doing this? Talking? It helps.”
He pumped his fist into the air, then realized maybe celebrating when she was having a rough time wasn’t cool. But it was so hard to chill when it came to her, even though he knew he needed to. There were way too many unanswered questions to let his feelings run wild the way they wanted to. Were they only friends? Were they more?Couldthey be more? Did it matter?
Maybe they could never be more than this, whatever this was. But,shit, did Cole think he’d live forever? Did he think he’d have a thousand more chances to feel this thread tugging him toward another person so tightly it spanned six hundred miles without snapping?
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he promised her, deciding it didn’t matter at all.
* * *
“Hey, brother, help me out?”
Fishing the change from his morning coffee out of his pocket, Cole passed a folded wad of ones to the man sitting on the sidewalk and said, “Take it easy.”
“Are you already hanging up on me?” Mira asked into his ear.
“Not yet, sugar,” he told her with a grin.
Over the last two weeks, they’d talked at least once every day, usually twice. Once in the morning, then again before they’d fallen asleep, sometimes keeping each other up until he was more of a bleary-eyed wreck than Becks after Ruby decided two in the morning was a reasonable time to expect some breakfast.
But they’d done more than talking too. Yesterday, he’d sent her a shameless thirst trap while he’d been out sailing, shirtless and smiling in the sun, with the hashtag #ThatChristopherCrossLife. In retribution, she’d sent him a post-shower selfie, her hair wet, a white towel barely clinging to the swell of her breasts, her phone held high, angled so he could see down the line of her cleavage, the hashtag #ItsNotFarDownToParadise taunting him without mercy. When they’d finally hung up last night, he’d been so worked up from her picture, and the way she’d teased him with a detailed step-by-step breakdown of how she liked to knead dough, he’d had to take care of himself before he could even think about falling asleep.
“But I’m almost at the studio,” he said, looking up. Seattle was in its finest form, bright blue sky, big puffy clouds, the skyline sparkling in the sun, the snow capping Mount Rainier so white it was almost blinding. And then there was Nancy, vaping on the studio steps, wearing torn jeans and the remnants of a Misfits T-shirt he was pretty sure used to be his before she’d stolen it and turned it into a crop top. “So I’d probably better go.”
“Talk to you later?”
“Absolutely.”
Ending the call, schooling his features into something resembling neutrality, Cole approached his ex.
“You know that guy’s going to use your money to get drunk or high, right?”
His jaw clenched. “Good morning to you too, Nancy.”
She pulled on her vape pen, then blew out the smoke, charitably pointing it away from him. “Were you talking to that woman again? What’s her name? Kara?”
