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A surprised laugh bubbled out of him.
“I don’t know why it is, or what it says about me, but they make me all tingly.”
He hummed, nuzzling my hair. “I like it when you’re all tingly.”
“Hey, me too.” If I wasn’t so sapped of energy, I’d have been hoping we could both get tingly tonight. But I literally had nothing in me.
“Have you decided when you’re going back to London?”
Well that question came out of left field. Hearing thefartoo casual note in his voice gave me hope that just maybe he wouldn’t feel entirely indifferent toward my answer. “I was actually thinking of not going. As in ever.”
Cole briefly paused in massaging my hair. “Ever?” he echoed.
“Yes. I’ve reached a point in my life where I want to settle somewhere. I have a house in London, but it doesn’t feel like home. Not the way Redwater does. I’d like to base myself here.”
I wished I could see his face, curious as to if my news had at all affected him. But maybe it was best that I couldn’t see his expression. If it turned out that he was utterly unmoved by it, that would be a swift kick to the gut.
“You’ll be far from your family,” he pointed out, his tone too even for my liking. “You might not find that easy.”
“Maybe not. But if I later discover that living here doesn’t suit me, I can always relocate. They travel a lot anyway, so it doesn’t seem worth remaining in London to be near them when they’re often gone.”
“Good point. There’s no harm in giving it a go, then.”
“Exactly.” It would have been nice if he’dencouragedme to stay, but whatever.
“Personally, I don’t think you’d stay in London even if you did return.”
“Why?”
“You seem happy here. You don’t act like a visitor. You have your own tribe of people. You’re already settled in Redwater, really. By moving here, you’d just be making it official. And as I’ve said before, this place has a way of pulling people back. So, yeah, I believe you’ll end up permanently setting up shop here. And then you’ll be thinking, ‘Huh, Cole was right.’”
I chuckled, but it was forced. Because I didn’t get the sense that he cared much one way or the other if I did stay. As if it would have no bearing on his situation or future. Which meant that Briar and I could well be wrong. He didn’t want more. Or if he did, he didn’twantto feel that way and so intended to shove it aside.
My gut twisted. One thing was for certain. There was a negative to relocating to Redwater—if we parted ways, I’d have no way to avoid him. It was inevitable that we’d see each other at the Vault. More, we’d see each other withotherpeople. That thought was enough to make my belly do a slow roll.
I wasn’t going to think like that, though. No. I was going to continue with my plan to give him a little time rather than write the situation off as hopeless. If that made me a dreamer, so be it.
After a few hours of talking and watching TV, we ordered pizza for tea—well, he called it ‘dinner,’ being American—which again fed my craving for carbs.
It was as we were sitting beside each other on the sofa later on, when 10pm came crawling by, that he said, “I want to stay.”
Feeling my brows inch up, I angled my head to meet his gaze. “You mean here overnight?”
“Yes. I don’t want to leave you alone while you’re feeling so drained. I’d like to stay. Is that going to be a problem?”
Kind of, since the memory of him lying in my bed would haunt me a little if we did later part ways. But … I didn’t want him to go. “Only if you snore. I’m a light sleeper.”
“I don’t snore, as far as I know.”
“Then you may stay.”
Going through the regular nighttime routine with him felt … nice. Too nice, really. What felt even better was his big, warm, solid body curled around mine in bed.
Yeah, the memory would torment me for certain if things didn’t work out the way I hoped. And yet, I still didn’t want him to leave. I still wanted to go to sleep right here in his arms.
You’re an idiot, Izzy. An absolute bloody idiot.
Chapter Ten
