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“Are you warm enough?” I asked.
“Make fun of me now,” she said, “but there’s a cold front coming, and they’re even predicting snow.”
“I’m pretty positive they said we’dpossiblysee flurries.” It was still too early for snow. Then again, the summer had felt brief, and so far, the fall was colder than usual.
“Well, I had the boys salt the steps just in case. These meteorologists are all quacks.” All zipped and buttoned up, she eyed me with concern. “Love you.” She pinched, then patted my cheeks before dashing for the deli door, waving bye to Cole as she went.
“How much trouble are you in with her?” he asked, retaking his seat.
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“On our next move,” I said gravely. Sofia didn’t ride-or-die blindly for anyone. She was a “right is right and wrong is wrong but I love you anyway” kind of friend. She wouldn’t lie or cover for me in any way, shape, or form, but it was her respect I feared losing the most.
Daniel ended up leaving on another impromptu business trip. I’d won my case, which freed me up, and Cole shifted things around on his schedule so we could enjoy quality time together. We were inseparable. And not in the clichéd sense, meaning we did everything together during those four days, but more in the Siamese twins way. We hugged even when the moment didn’t call for it, like when I left his dinner table for the bathroom and ended up swallowed up in his arms instead.
“Sorry. I just miss you already,”he’d said.
Or during our ridiculous snowball fight on his oversized balcony—because Sofia had been right, temperatures dropped drastically, and we did get a few inches of snow. We wouldn’t release each other’s hands so we could run for cover, so we just ended up pounding one-handed misshapen snowballs into each other’s faces from an arm’s length away.
“Let go of me, idiot,”I’d laughed, blowing snowball tendrils out of my nostrils.
“You let go first,”he’d demanded, coughing as I caught him right in the mouth.
We behaved like three-year-olds, but we didn’t crosstheline. And that’s what mattered, right? I asked myself before falling asleep across his chest every night. We were brothers, and brothers could act this way. It could mean nothing if we didn’t want it to.
We never spoke again about our kiss, or a possible affair, or me leaving Daniel. We just lived each moment a second at a time, regaining something pivotal, something I never wanted to lose again, something I was also terrified of re-obtaining.
I moaned in the dark. “What keeps ringing?” I asked, my words muffled by Cole’s neck.
“Ignore it,” he whispered. It was hot. I was sweaty, my throat dry, and I couldn’t remember where we’d fallen asleep—or whereI’dfallen asleep because Cole sounded wide awake. The ringing started up again, and this time I registered it as my phone.
“What time is it?” I asked, twisting my head away and blinking my eyes, trying to adjust to the darkness in the room. We were on the couch, Cole on his back, one leg thrown over the back of the sofa, and I sprawled over his chest. I vaguely remembered Chinese and gin shots again.
“It’s four in the morning.” He stroked my hair. Who would be calling me at that hour?Daniel.“Ignore it,” he said again when I tried to push off of him.
“It might be important, Cole.” True worry took over.
“What if I told you it’s not?” he said, and between the phone ringing, the brain fog from the alcohol, the disorientation from the darkness, and his ominous tone, I began to get agitated.
“What aren’t you telling me, Cole?”
He sighed, his own phone clutched in his other hand. “Daniel and the team made the deal. The contracts are signed. I’m sure he didn’t stop to consider the time difference before calling you. He’ll be home tomorrow. He knows you’re safe and with me, so just ignore it.”
“I… Okay.” I didn’t know what difference this made for us in the grand scheme of things, but Cole’s behavior made it seem as if this would be our last night together. He stripped me out of my damp shirt, then pressed my face to the lump at his throat again.
“Sleep,” he said, rolling us to our sides and locking his legs around me.
Cole’s mood wasn’t any better by sun-up, and his stress-beard was in need of a serious shave. I finished packing the few items I had littered about, and buttoned into one of Cole’s shirts since mine were all dirty. “Leave it all here,” Cole said, stepping into the closet. “I’ll have it dry-cleaned.”
“It’s okay—”
“Leave it,” he said sharply, snatching the overnight bag off the island and placing it in a corner. We watched each other from opposite ends of the closet until neither of us could take it anymore and had made the silent decision to get closer. “I’m sorry,” he said, hugging me. “I just need to know you’ll be back.”
“Are you ready to tell me why Daniel making this deal happen is a bad thing for you? I thought it was what you wanted.”
“It is,” he said, leading me by the hand to the kitchen where coffee waited. I settled onto a counter stool, and he took the one next to me, swiveling so we faced each other, our legs touching. I blew an impatient breath over the top of my coffee before taking a sip.
