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The unrelenting sounds of clothes rustling pulled me from sleep the next morning. I forced my eyelids halfway open to find Cole standing beside the bed, buttoning his fly. He was fully dressed. He was also looking right at me.
Due to the blackout blind, I couldn’t tell if he was sneaking out in the middle of the night or if it was already morning.Please don’t let it be morning.I didn’t want to get up yet.
I narrowed my eyes at the LED alarm clock until my sleep-fuzzy vision cleared. 4am. An ungodly hour in my book.
He crouched beside the bed and brushed my curls away from my face. “Morning, baby,” he said, his voice low and soft. “Didn’t mean to wake you. How are you feeling?”
“Still knackered, but my muscles don’t ache anymore,” I replied tiredly.
“Good.” He pressed a lingering kiss to my forehead. “I gotta go. Need to head home and change so I can go for my usual morning jog.”
I let my eyes close. “You do that. I’ll egg you on from here.”
A quiet chuckle coasted over my forehead. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”
He would?
He kissed my hair. “You go back to sleep.”
“’Kay,” I breathed, my mouth curving at the knowledge that I wouldn’t be waiting another week until I next saw him.
“See you soon.”
The sound of footfalls gradually faded, and then I heard the front door click shut.
I managed to get another four hours of sleep before my body clock nudged me awake. After I ate a quick bowl of cereal, I showered and dressed. Leaving my curls to air dry, I returned to the kitchen and began to make myself a cup of tea. It was while the drink was brewing that my phone rang.
Seeing Briar’s name on the screen, I answered, “Morning.”
“I think we can safely say that Delaney’s in the same emotional space as you,” she proclaimed.
I let out a soft snort. “Well hello to you, too.”
“He gave up his Friday evening for you. He turned up with carb treats—always worth mentioning. And, unless he was bullshitting me about his intentions, he spent the evening babying you.”
“He wasn’t bullshitting.”
“None of that says ‘I’m content with a casual arrangement.’ Grover sure never babied me when I was sick or anything.”
“As we’ve already established, Grover’s incredibly self-involved.” I pulled my teabag out of my cup and dumped it on the holder.
“Did he stay over? Please tell me he stayed over.”
I sighed. “He stayed over, but—”
“We’re not doing ‘buts’ when it comes to this situation, remember? I take it he’s either still asleep or he left, since you’re speaking so freely.”
I retrieved the tub of milk from the fridge. “He left early to go jogging.”
“Did you guys make plans for tonight?”
“No. He mentioned last weekend that he has something going on this evening.” Balancing my phone between my cheek and shoulder, I unscrewed the cap off the tub and then poured a blob of milk into my cup. “It’s possible that I might see a little of him this morning, though. Before he left earlier, he said he’d be back in a few hours. Probably just to check that I’m definitely fine before he goes off to do his own thing.”
“He’sdefinitelygetting closer to taking the jump from casual to serious—anyone can see it.”
Exhaling heavily, I screwed the cap back on the tub. “I don’t know, Briar. It’s true that, at this point, lines haven’t merely been blurred, they’ve been trampled on by Cole.” I returned the milk to the fridge. “But when I mentioned to him last night that I was thinking of staying in Redwater for good, he didn’t seem to care either way.”
“Really?”
