CHAPTER
NINE
COLE
Natalie D’Amore is sittingon my counter like a fever dream. Or maybe a hallucination conjured by that blow to the head on the ice. Of course I’d dream of her. When don’t I?
Truthfully, I probably did take a nastier blow to the head than I want to admit if I’m talking like this. Still, I can’t believe she’s here, finally, without Caden. And she’s warm. Giggly. Wearing my long-sleeve shirt and looking at me for maybe the first time like I’m not the worst thing that’s ever happened to her.
After her shower, she twisted her hair into a braid, and it’s draped over her shoulder now. She’s sitting on the countertop with crisscrossed legs and everything about this feels exactly as it should be, like for the first time this apartment feels like a home. Does she feel that? How cozy we could be together? A wisp of steam from her hot cocoa curls between us, rising like a spell about to bind us.
It’s too late. I’ve been pathetically hers for three years.
“So anyway,” she finishes a long-winded diatribe about the Salem Witch Trials, “that’s why Giles Corey deserves more accolades and less weight.”
“Fascinating,” I say, checking the cookies I put in the oven twelve minutes ago, at the start of her Salem Witch Trial drunk history lesson. “Two more minutes.”
“They smell delicious,” she hums, taking a long savoring sip of her Bailey’s with a splash of hot cocoa. “So was the grilled cheese, by the way.” She drops her cup to reveal a whipped cream mustache coating the top of her upper lip.
Suddenly, I’m a moth to flame and I can’t help myself, even if I know the touch will likely burn me. “You’ve got some…” I lean in and swipe my thumb over her lip.
She freezes. A slow pink creeps over her freckled cheeks that drive me absolutely wild.
“Thank you,” she whispers, breathless and dazed.
With a darkened stare, I wrap my mouth around my thumb, and slowly drag it out. Shameless. That’s what she’s made me.
Her pupils darken, and I savor the look of want on her face as much as the whipped cream melting on my tongue. Natalie’s attracted to me, that’s not a problem between us. The problem is ninety-nine percent of the time, I don’t know what I’m doing around her.
Sugar and cream dissolve on my tongue. It’s sweet, but fuck, she tasted so much sweeter.
I’ve dreamt of kissing her since freshman year when we first met. The day that rewrote my entire biology. Of course, she thinks she met Caden first and me two days later. She doesn’t know I was the one who held her, who gave her my clothes. And she definitely doesn’t know I felt something ignite so fast and so deep inside me it simultaneously terrified me and brought me to life. A fire that’s been haunting me ever since.
Tonight, when she asked if Caden had lied about anything else, I thought about telling her. Thought maybe, finally, it was time. But then I saw how much the small white lies shook her and lost my nerve. If that messed with her so badly, the big lie—that three years ago Caden decided to pull the ultimate prank on me, and it backfired—might destroy her.
She’s happy thinking Caden was who she met in the bathroom. Would she be happy knowing it was me? The anti-social grumpy one? The one who stays at home, studies game tape and textbooks instead of going to parties. The one who could never match her whirlwind of energy. It’s one of the reasons I’ve never told her, because the truth is, Caden is better suited for her. He’s the sunshine. He’s the fun one, and usually, I don’t give a fuck, but when it comes to Natalie it fucking ruins me to think about.
The timer for the oven goes off and I grab a mitt and pull the cookies from the oven. The scent of melting chocolate and warm brown sugar fills the kitchen. “Why do you know so much about the Salem Witch Trials?” I ask.
When she doesn’t think I’m looking, I catch her trailing her finger over her lips in wonder, like they’re still humming from my touch and she can’t explain it.
I hide my smile. For the past three years, all this woman has had to do is be in the same room as me and my body hums alive. It’s about damn time she feels some part of the connection that’s tortured me for so long.
“My family was a key player in the trials, actually,” Natalie says. “Cassandra Leighwell. She was having an affair with Phillip Proctor. He outed her to save himself, said she bewitched him. Before she was executed, she tried to cast a spell—something to bind her soul to his and make it so he was pathetically and torturously in love with her long after her death. But she did ittoo fast, and instead, she bound her bloodline’s souls to their one true love.”
She looks away. “It’s a ridiculous story, I know. But when I was little, my dad used to play along. Said he didn’t come alive until he met my mother and then he was tortured by love until she told him she loved him and she was his. I thought it was romantic.”
My body stills. It’s not ridiculous. Not to me. To me, it’s an answer I’ve sought for years that explains this cruel, unrelenting tether I have binding me to Natalie.
The first time I saw her, it felt like the deepest, most hidden parts of myself recognized her. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t think about anything else for days. I’ve grown used to carrying the ache, but it’s still there.
“You don’t believe in the story anymore?” I ask.
She shrugs again, smaller. “I thought Caden might be the one. I have a sort of big crush on him if you hadn’t noticed.”
“You don’t say,” I say, clenching my jaw. “Could have fooled me.”
She snorts. “Yeah, right. I don’t know, now though. I swear there was a connection when we first met that I hadn’t felt before. But after everything…I think it’s more dangerous to believe in something like that than not.”
