He starts to answer me at the same time. “I’m supposed to be meeting—”
We finish together in identically flat tones: “Monroe.”
Cole starts to shake his head while I let out a sigh. Our mutual exasperation seems to break the tension a bit.
Just a bit. It’s stillextraordinairementtense in here.
“Why do we have such meddlesome friends?” I ask.
“They should all get together and drive around in a Mystery Machine.”
“Did you just...make a Scooby-Doo reference?”
He shrugs, face still completely stoic except for the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth that anyone else would miss. A burst of laughter escapes me, but when I fall silent, the weight of the moment seems to drop back down on us twice as hard.
“So you’re back,” he finally says, his voice stiff. “Monroe told me when you moved.”
Which means he didn’t try to come find me.
That’s a good thing, I tell myself.It means he’s moving on. That’s good. That’s what I wanted.
“Toronto wasn’t my thing.”
“I could have told you that.”
I swallow down a lump. We’re still standing all the way across the room from each other, arms tight at our sides like we’re braced for some kind of fight, but I try to make a stab at pretending this is a normal conversation. I don’t know what else to do.
“How’s the...the band?” I falter.
He ignores my attempt at small talk. He’s never been a small talk kind of guy. For a moment, he just stares at me. When he takes a step closer, I almost whimper.
He still pulls me in like a magnet. I don’t think that part will ever change. My breaths turn to shallow pants. His eyes are the only thing in the world right now.
“Eight years,” he nearly growls, refusing to let me look away. “Eight years since I met you, and every time I’m away from you, I always think, ‘She’s not as beautiful as you remember. She can’t be. You’re making it up.’ Then I see you again, and...Fuck, Roxanne, you make me want to get on my fucking knees.”
This time I actually do whimper. Some mix of pain and desire flashes across his face. He takes another step closer, and I feel the hairs rise on my arms.
“You were right.” He sounds hoarse. “We were crumbling. I was taking you down with me. I never wanted to do that to you. I only ever wanted to build you up. Since that day at the bus station...You saw it clearer than I did, though. We weren’t fixing each other’s problems; we were just making them worse. I wasn’t ready for what we had.”
I want to touch him. Everything in me is begging for just a hint of him, just a taste.
“And...now?” I dare to ask.
“I...I stopped needing you, Roxanne Nadeau.”
I watch the muscles in his arms tense as he drops his gaze to the floor. The ground seems to fall out from under me as the hope that was keeping me standing shatters. I sag against the bar stool behind me.
This is over. We’re really over.
It’s almost instantaneous: one second he’s standing across the room, and then he’s right there in front of me, cupping my face with both his hands. He fills my lungs, floods my presence with his own as he leans forward and delivers his next words with the force of a curse and the strength of a prayer.
“I stopped needing you. Ineverstopped wanting you.”
My heart pounds. I search his eyes and find the truth.
There’s so much I need to say right now, but all I can manage is his name.
“Cole.”
