Chapter Four
Autumn
“Did you pull in and then back out again, or am I just really drunk?” my mom asked me as I returned with the eggs.
“You’re drunk,” I said lightly, kissing her on the cheek. “Here are the eggs.”
“No,” my mom slurred. “You definitely pulled into the driveway and then peeled back out again like your hair was on fire.”
“Left my phone,” I lied.
My mom narrowed her eyes at me and I widened mine at her. My father wandered into the kitchen, took one look at the women in his life having an epic staring contest, and then turned around and walked back out.
“Fine,” my mother declared. “Have your secrets. Get in here and help me with this batch, we’re falling behind.”
I nodded, grateful for the distraction. Baking huge, assembly line batches of cookies should be enough to banish the glimpse of Cole’s dimple from my brain. My heart rate hadn’t yet returned to normal, and I was grateful for the steamy heat of the kitchen to disguise the blush in my cheeks.
I measured out the flour and the rest of the dry ingredients and held out the bowl for my mom to dump in the wet. “Grandpa’s going to be so happy,” she clucked.
I grinned. “Hopefully it’ll cheer him up,” I said. “Otherwise I have no idea how I’m supposed to handle this property deal for him. He seems hell bent on saying no to everything I come up with.”
“That’s because he doesn’t want to sell. Not really.”
“I get that. It’s sad,” I sighed. “But it’s for the right reasons.”
“Nursing homes are so expensive,” my mom seethed. “I hate that it’s come to this, but he just can’t stay in that house alone anymore. We need the money.”
“We know and he knows, but he doesn’t have to like it.”
“That’s why we’re making a big batch just for him,” my mother explained. “Gramps always does better with a belly full of sweets.” She grabbed a spoon and started mixing the batter. I pulled out the baking sheets, and my mind took the moment’s quiet to flit away from my upcoming role as power of attorney for my elderly grandfather and right back to my encounter in the convenience store.
Fucking Cole. What the hell was he doing here?
Eight years had done nothing to lessen the effect he had on me. If anything, he was even more gorgeous now, broader with a more manly set to his jaw. His hair no longer flopped boyishly into his face, but I knew that if I reached up and combed my fingers through those chestnut waves, they would still feel like silk. His hair was the same but his body... that had grown up in the best way possible. Even though he had been covered nearly head to toe against the weather, there had been no mistaking the way he’d filled out... quite nicely.
“Are you finished with your wrapping?” my mother asked, abruptly breaking into my thoughts. She was dropping the batter out in measured spoonfuls onto the greased baking sheets.
“Uh,” I stammered, feeling like she had caught me in the middle of masturbating. I grabbed another baking sheet and mimicked her movements just to avoid her eyes. “I just have to wrap Dad’s.”
“What’d you get me?” Dad called from the living room.
“Lump of coal!” I called back.
My dad muttered something about ingratitude, and my mom laughed and lowered her voice. “What did you get him?”
“A leather-bound first edition of the Lord of the Rings trilogy,” I whispered back.
My mom widened her eyes. “Fancy!”
“Ebay.”
“He’s going to love it.”
“I hope so. Hope he doesn’t think he has too many Tolkien books already.” My father was a huge J.R.R. Tolkien fan and had a shelf in the basement devoted to all of his works.
“Trust me, he won’t.” My mother sniffed. “I might. But he won’t.” She grabbed my finished sheet of cookies and opened the oven door, letting out a blast of heat.
I laughed. My father and Cole had bonded over the Lord of the Rings movies when they came out. We’d watched the movies as a family, Cole and I snuggled under a blanket, his hand in mine. I used to love listening to his heart start racing under my ear during the exciting parts.
I missed that.
I missed him.
Why was I missing him?
“I saw Cole Granger at the Nice 'n' Easy,” I suddenly blurted.
My mother shut the oven and froze in place.
“He looked good,” I went on.
My mother still said nothing.
Fuck this out-of-place nostalgia, where was it coming from? It must be the Christmas season. That’s all. I needed to screw my head back on straight... “He’s still an asshole, though,” I continued, as much for my benefit as hers.
My mother finally made a noise, although whether it was happy, angry or sad I had no idea.
But I was off and running with the rush of picking at an old wound. “He didn’t even call or anything, just fucking showed up out of the blue.”
My mother cleared her throat. “Maybe he’s here for Christmas.”
“I hope it’s the first fucking time and he hasn’t been coming for eight years and just not looked me up!”
“Why, Autumn? What would that have done?”
“Are you really taking his side?”
My mom wiped a damp strand of hair away from her face, leaving a streak of white flour across her cheek. “Cole was a smart boy,” she said diplomatically. “Even though he could be really stupid too.”
“Stupid, Mom? He was an asshole. And he probably still is an asshole.”
“We’ve been over this, Autumn.”
But my words were bearing down like a freight train, the same refrain I’d been spouting for eight years. The span of time had done nothing to soothe the raw wound in my heart that still ached every time I thought of Cole. “He’s an asshole. He said he loved me, promised me in fact. Yeah? Well if he loved me, he shouldn’t have left without me, goddammit.”
“Autumn!”
“Sorry for swearing, Mom.”
“I don’t give a shit about you swearing!” she wiped her hair back again, leaving a twin white streak on her other cheek like war paint. “I’m tired of listening to you delude yourself!”
I took an involuntary step back. In all the years since Cole left Reckless Falls — left me — my mother had always listened to me as I ranted and raved against my first love. This was the first time she had ever said anything about delusion.
And now I was pissed.
“I’m deluded now, huh? Thanks a lot, Mom.”
“Autumn,” my mom sighed, pressing her fingers to the bridge of her nose. Flour now caked her face in four different places, but I was feeling too spiteful to let her know. “You’ve created this sort of an alternate reality where leaving to go to college was all Cole’s idea, but honey? Didn’t you encourage him to go for it?”
I swallowed. “I did, but when it came down to choosing which college to go to...”
“You tried to trap him.”
“What?”
“You told him to apply!” she exploded. “He’s the first kid in his family to ever get to go to college and you were so proud of him! You told him to apply, he got accepted to a place that gave him a full ride, and then you hated him for taking your advice!”
I took a deep breath. “He shouldn’t have left if he loved me. Because he chose to leave instead of staying close to home, close to me... We could have had a family by now and I know how badly you want grandchildren and...” I wiped my eye and was surprised to see that my fingers came away wet. I was crying without even realizing.
“Did you love him?”
“Yes! You know that!”
“I know, honey. And if you really loved him the way you said you did, you needed to believe in that love and not try to put him to the test. Now, honey, I love you more than life itself, but you were kind of a little shit to him back then. Putting him on the spot like that and giving an ultimatum. I raised you better than that, and you’ve grown up and gotten better, but on this issue honey, I’m afraid you’re not the victim.” Her harsh words were softened by the love in her eyes as she took hold of my shoulders and looked me in the eye. “You shouldn’t have tried to make him prove his love to you by giving up his future.”
The oven timer buzzed.
Something hollow echoed in my chest. I opened my mouth and then shut it, waiting for words to rise up in my defense.
But I couldn’t find a single one.
My mother took a deep breath, let me go and grabbed her oven mitt. “It worked out the way it was supposed to. though. In the end.” She opened the oven and pulled out the rack of chocolate chip cookies. “That boy was too arrogant and good-looking for his own good. He was only going to cause you trouble.” She scraped a cookie off the baking sheet with a spatula and held it out to me. “Here honey, have a cookie. It’ll make you feel better.”
It was still scalding hot from the oven and burned the roof of my mouth, but I devoured it anyway, hoping she was right.