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“So do you, Tal. Always.”
The promise lingered in his voice, and my breath caught as I tilted my face up toward his, like a flower trying to catch the sun’s rays.
“Your turn, Talia! I got a hole in four!”
Penny came bounding back to us, breathless with excitement, and I jumped back from Cole as if she’d caught us kissing. We hadn’t been. There’d been close to a foot of space between our bodies. But somehow what we’d been doing felt even more intimate.
“Thanks, Penny. What should I do for this one, do you think?”
I listened to her instructions as she guided me through the finer points of the course and its obstacles, and with her help, I managed to avoid the water trap and tie her score.
We played through the last several holes, and although my leg started to burn from being on my feet for so long, I tried not to let my limp become more noticeable. Cole’s observant eyes tracked my every movement though, and I knew he could tell I was flagging.
Without saying anything, he offered his arm up for me to hold onto, and I took it gratefully, trying not to notice how good the warm bands of his forearms felt under my fingertips or the way his ginger and pine scent clung to his skin.
Even as my energy waned, Penny seemed to get more and more excited, and by the time we returned our clubs and headed back toward the car, she was practically bouncing on her feet. The small tics I’d noticed earlier had become more pronounced too, and when we climbed back into the car, Cole glanced over at her, concern darkening his bright blue eyes.
“Pen, you okay?”
She nodded, although she looked a little uncomfortable. The jerking motion of her head was getting worse.
“Shit. Let’s get you home, alright?” He put the car in reverse and glanced over his shoulder as he backed out of the parking spot, catching my gaze as he did. “I’ve gotta drop her back home. I’ll take you back to Oak Park after, is that okay?”
“Yeah, sure,” I agreed quickly, although nerves knotted my stomach.
I was almost positive Cole hadn’t told his parents I was coming with him and Penny, and the original plan had been for him to drop me back at school before he and his sister went home.
If Penny needed to get back home, there was no way I was going to stop that from happening, but the thought of showing up at the Mercer household scared the shit out of me.
The fear wasn’t for myself though.
It was for Cole.
Chapter 18
Penny didn’t talk nonstop on the way back to their house like she had on the drive to the mini-golf place. Her tic seemed to distract and distress her too much for her to keep up her happy chatter.
Cole caught my gaze in the rearview mirror once and shook his head slightly. I wasn’t quite sure what the gesture meant, but I took it as his way of telling me this wasn’t out of the ordinary—that although it seemed unpleasant, it wasn’t something so unusual it was worrying.
Then again, I could’ve been totally wrong about that. It was a lot to read into a single head shake.
His expression as he drove was grim but not panicked though, and I knew if Penny was in real trouble, he definitely wouldn’t be acting so calm. It helped assuage my own fear for her… which only allowed my fear for him to rise closer to the surface.
I honestly considered asking him to leave me on a corner a few blocks away from his house and come get me after he’d dropped Penny off, but I was afraid the weirdness of that would only stress her out more. And besides, considering the Princes’ insistence on having someone with me at all times, I knew he wouldn’t go for leaving me out on the street like that.
Still, as we drove through the winding roads of an incredibly wealthy-looking neighborhood, my heart started to thud harder and faster in my chest.
After Cole pulled up the drive to a massive white-walled mansion, he put the car in park and turned back to face me. “Let me do the talking, okay?”
I nodded. My body felt like we were going into a war zone, even though I knew it couldn’t be that bad inside.
He pressed his lips together, worry creeping in at the edges of his eyes. Then he shook his head and moved quickly to get out, crossing in front of the car to open Penny’s door and help her out too. I followed, staying a few feet behind them as he led her up the walk to the large front door. When we stepped inside, he started leading her toward the stairs that curved along the large entry foyer, but before we could reach them, footsteps sounded on the marble floor.
“Good, you’re—”
Mr. Mercer stopped short as he stepped through an arched doorway on the other side of the large space. His face, so similar to Cole’s, took on a hard expression as his gaze flicked between the three of us. It landed on me last, and he narrowed his eyes, leaning forward almost unconsciously as if he was trying to figure out where he knew me from.
Of course. He must recognize me. I knew I bore more than a passing resemblance to my mom. It was probably like looking at an echo of the past.
