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She looks at me perplexed, eyebrows drawn tight in confusion, but my beauty team crowds around me and blocks her line of sight before she can question my apparent carelessness.
“So, who's the hottie on the bed?” Shan asks above the chaos, loud enough for Cole to hear.
He watches my face through the mirror in front of me, waiting to see how I'll introduce him.
Panic seizes me. We've said we're together, but does that mean we're in a relationship? We haven't talked about labels, haven't put a name to this thing between us. Maybe because what we are feels bigger than any word we could use to describe it, or maybe it's because our future is so unclear that it would be foolish to fully commit.
“That's Cole,” I say. “He's my...friend.”
I know instantly that I've said the wrong thing. I see it in the downward tilt of shoulders and the disappointed dip of his head.
“Boyfriend,” I correct quickly. And then slower and with more confidence, I repeat, “He's my boyfriend.”
Cole looks up, catching my eye again in the mirror.
He smiles and I know I got it right.
“I knew those Aiden rumors were bullshit as soon as I remembered what you told me when you slept with him that time, remember? You said he looks pretty, but his dick game's weak.”
The smirk that consumes Cole's entire face is one of utter victory. It pulls his lips upward, cheeks dimpling. He doesn't even try to hide it.
It's some three hours later by the time my team filters out.
Standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Manhattan's Upper East Side, I stare out at the flickering lights of city life. It's not my first time here, but it's my first with Cole. And truthfully, I'm nervous as hell.
He's been in the bathroom getting ready for the last hour, so he hasn't seen me in my dress yet. It's an emerald-green slip thing in satin with a cowl neck and train. My hair is clipped away from my face with pearl-encrusted sliders and it tumbles over my shoulders in thick crimson waves. Gold glitters on my eyelids and red stains my lips. Standing here with the lights of New York City behind me, I'm not the Thea he's known all his life.
I'm Althea Sparkes.
I hear him before I see him. The click-clack of his new Italian shoes on the tiled bathroom floor followed by light footsteps cushioned by the carpet. He rounds the corner and my breath catches.
His tux, black as the night with satin peak lapels to match the material of my dress, sculpts to his body like it was made just for him. His hair is still wild as always, but intentionally so and gelled into place, and the stubble on his jaw has been given the perfect designer fade. He looks like he's just walked straight off the set of a James Bond movie or the pages ofGQmagazine. Thick brows fold over dark eyes as he fumbles with the tie hanging around his neck, grumbling to himself in frustration.
“Need help with that?” I ask and his eyes shoot up.
He freezes. His hands fall away from his tie to hang limply at his sides and his lips part as if gasping. “Holy shit,” he breathes. I'm not sure he intended for me to hear it, or if he even meant to say it at all. “Thea, you look…“ He trails off and bites his fist.
“You like it?”
He shakes his head, eyes closed and a small smile playing on his lips. “Haven’t ever seen anything like you before.”
I don't completely fathom his meaning, but my cheeks flush anyway because something inside of me understands. But then, I guess that's the thing about mirror souls, they understand each other even when you don't. Even in silence, they hear and even in darkness, they see.
It's always been that way with us.
We've been twin flames from the very beginning. And though I know that with my entire being, I'm still terrified that the side of my life I'm about to expose him to will do what even six years of separation couldn't—burn us out.
“You okay?” he asks with an air of concern, crossing the room to stand in front of me with his hands on my waist.
“Nervous,” I admit, chewing on the corner of my freshly painted fingernail.
Cole gently tugs my hand away from my mouth. “Why?”
“I'm scared this side of my life will scare you away.”
He sighs and redirects his stare to the city outside the window. Dragging a defeated hand down his face, he rolls his shoulders forward. “Haven't we done this already?”
“Yeah, but—“
