Love them. That’s all you can do.
Virginia’s words nestle into the squishy parts of my heart as I gather towels and first-aid supplies from the bathroom. When I reach the kitchen, Cole and Trace are sitting where I instructed—on the floor, side by side, backs to the cabinets, and hands to themselves.
“Look at that. You’re sharing air without snarling and foaming like rabid dogs.” I step over Cole’s bent leg and stand between their slumped postures. “I’m tempted to pat your heads.”
That earns me double frowns, and a grunt for good measure from Cole.
“I learned something interesting while you were molesting each other outside.” I lower to my knees, facing them, and set the supplies between their hips. “You’re sneaking into my room at night when I’m sleeping? Both of you?”
Trace meets my gaze without flinching. Cole wipes the blood from his nose and glares at the floor.
“Watching me sleep… Wow.” I rub my forehead. “That isn’t creepy or anything.”
“I’ve been watching you sleep for two months.” Trace leans in and drops his voice. “I miss you, Danni. So fucking much.”
Cole flares his nostrils. “You son of a—”
“That’s enough,” I snap at him. “This is already hard, for everyone involved. But watching you do this to yourselves, seeing you carry around all this animosity and resentment, I can’t do it.”
“What are you saying?” Cole searches my face with panic in his eyes.
“Chill the fuck out. That’s what I’m saying.”
He releases a heavy breath and rests his head back against the cabinet.
“I know this situation is a shit load of fucked, but this…” I gesture at the blood smudged across their chests. “This is an unwanted, avoidable travesty. Like a wet fart in a tight leotard.” I purse my lips. “You should be ashamed of yourselves.”
“A wet fart…” Cole’s mouth bounces before settling into a small lopsided grin.
The appearance of his dimples unfurls a ribbon of warmth inside me. Trace regards me with amusement gleaming in his eyes, and I thaw further, melting at the beautiful sight.
A smile possesses my lips. My cheeks lift, and for the first time in five days, I feel relieved. It’s a slapdash feeling, there and gone as quick as Cole’s dimples. But I cherish the tender moment, appreciate the clarity it offers. We can still make each other happy.
I lift a towel and reach my other hand toward Trace’s face. As my fingers slide against his sculpted jaw, my pulse spikes and my breaths quicken. For once, my reaction isn’t nerves or anger. It’s excitement. Affection. Cautious desire.
He always affects me, though. Even now, with his chest and arms all scratched up and caked with dirt. I could stare at him for hours—his unsmiling lips, rumpled blond hair, and eyes so blue they conjure greatness, like the vast sky on a summer day with the top down on my car. Like the first day we spent together, running errands, trading flirty arguments, and kissing outside of the pharmacy.
Was our time together just a fool’s paradise? Can we get back to that place again?
With my hand on his jaw, I angle his head side to side, checking for injuries. Blood smears across the smooth angles of his face, but there are no lacerations. No swelling.
I turn my attention to Cole, his grumpy features lined with abrasions and gashes around his eyes, down the bridge of his nose, and cut through the corner of his mouth.
“If you’re the one with specialized training…” I squint at Cole. “Why are you more banged up than Trace?” I look back at Trace and wipe the wet towel across his cheeks, revealing pristine skin beneath the grime. “Did you even get hit?”
“He got my mouth once, and my ribs are bruised.” Trace gingerly touches his side.
“He’s full of shit.” Cole drapes an arm over his bent knee and flexes his fingers, his gaze never leaving mine. “He just wants your hands on him.”
Trace regards me in that way he does, with his head down and eyes up. It’s distractingly sexy.
I clear my throat. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Trace was trained in hand-to-hand combat,” Cole growls. “Ranked top of our class.”
“What class? Was it military training?”
Cole’s expression empties, giving me nothing.
Christ almighty. “What about your skill set?” I ask him.
“I’m more proficient in…other areas.”
The boding descent in Cole’s tone warns me not to inquire further. Doesn’t stop my mind from jumping to images of him snapping a sniper rifle together and crawling through a jungle wearing a ghillie suit. But what the fuck do I know?
Absolutely nothing.
“Why do you fight him,” I ask Cole, hooking a thumbing at Trace, “if you know you’re going to lose?”
Trace huffs an annoyed breath. “He’s bullheaded enough to get his ass handed to him, which is pretty fucking pathetic.”
“I have the courage to get my ass handed to me.” Cole licks the cut on his lip. “Which is pretty fucking poetic.”
Cole’s temper is definitely poetic, like a murky river—calm, easygoing, and seemingly innocuous, until something disturbs what lies beneath, and all hell breaks loose in a terrorizing rage of teeth and blood.
I return my attention to Trace, giving him another clinical perusal. Scratches and red spots mar his torso from rolling on the ground. The skin is torn on a few of his knuckles. But nothing requires bandages.
“I can’t do anything about your ribs.” I climb to my feet and rinse off the towel in the sink. “Do you need a doctor?”
Cole snorts, and Trace shakes his head.
“While I clean up Cole’s face,” I say to Trace, wringing out the towel, “why don’t you go take a shower?”
Trace’s scowl tightens, his reluctance so potent it pulses through the air.
“Cole will shower after you.” I brace my hands on my hips. “Then we’re all going to sit down and have a chat.”
Bending forward, Trace prepares to stand. And pauses. Clearly, he doesn’t want to leave me alone with Cole, and if I were in his position, I wouldn’t, either.
He’s clinging to a delicate web. One more mistake—a hurtful word, a cruel action—could shove me into Cole’s arms. Right or wrong, I’m looking for anything to sway me into a decision. Which isn’t fair to either of them. Especially since I know exactly what it feels like to see someone I love with another woman.
Trace knows how I feel about Cole, and in order to be with me, he has to suffer through seeing me with Cole. Yet he stays and endures and doesn’t give up.
When I caught him with Marlo, I didn’t fight for him. I walked away. No, scratch that. I ran. Straight to another man, a stranger, just out of spite.
So watching Trace struggle with leaving me alone with Cole stirs me with deep sympathy, tempting me to back down. But I tend to sympathize too much. It makes me weak. Vulnerable. Easily trampled.
I silence the temptation and push back my shoulders.
Trace reads my eyes and shoves off the floor. I don’t breathe until he vanishes around the corner and shuts the bathroom door. A moment later, the pipes groan through the old house.
“I got a job.” Cole touches my hand.
“You did?” I kneel beside him and dab the wet towel on the cut across his cheekbone. “That was fast. What’s the job?”
“Security at the stadium.” He studies my expression, as if seeking my approval. “It doesn’t pay much but—”
“A rent-a-cop?” A sinking feeling invades my stomach. “I know nothing about your prior job, but aren’t you overqualified to stand around at concerts and baseball games? Are the security guards even armed?”
“Yes, they’re armed.” He scratches his jaw and drops his hand. “I have a skill set that over-qualifies me for any job in the private sector. The scope of my training applies to this much of the world.” He holds his finger and thumb a hairbreadth apart. “There aren’t a lot of options for guys like me.”
“But you could—”
“I had a career. That’s not what I want now.” He shoots me a meaningful look. “I just need steady pay, something that doesn’t require travel, with hours that match yours.”
“Please don’t do that for me. I’m not putting any demands on what you choose to do with your life.”
He stiffens. “Four years ago, you didn’t hesitate to tell me, no less than a hundred times, to quit my job.”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t listen.”
“I was a dumbfuck, and my stupidity cost me everything.” His expression shatters, his voice a grief-stricken whisper. “I’m listening now. What do you want?”
“I want you to be happy,” I say on a tattered breath. “Both of you.”
His eyes close, and the sunlight from the window glances off the sharp lines of his cheekbones, highlighting the sunken hollows beneath. He lost too much weight, but he’s still criminally handsome. The stubborn lock of his jaw, the sexy shadow of whiskers, the swell of pouty lips—it’s a visage of danger and fortitude.
I always knew there was something roguish about him. Not just his temper, but something more, like a mysterious edge I couldn’t put my finger on. But as he lifts his dark lashes, I see it now—the troubling secrets in his eyes. He’s experienced things he won’t ever be able to share with me, and I hate that. It’s a wall between us, a part of his life I don’t have access to.
I reach for his chin, cupping the chiseled shape as I clean away the rest of the blood. “If you can’t tell anyone your work history, what did you put on the job application?”
“I didn’t fill one out.” A bitter smirk pulls at his lips. “Trace has connections at the stadium. He got me the job, no questions asked.”
“He did?” I widen my eyes.
“He didn’t do it out of the kindness of his heart. He’s motivated, Danni. He wants me working and moved out and far away from you.”
My chest constricts. “Don’t tell me you don’t want the same things from him.”
“You know what I want?” Eyes bright and searching, he slowly lifts a hand toward my face. “I want to be your lover, your husband, your home. I want to be your everything.”
I hold still, lost in the familiarity of his molten dark gaze. He gently touches my lips, and a teetering sensation trembles behind my breastbone, like my heart is slipping, readjusting, and settling with a contented sigh.
“I miss your smile. And the scent of your skin.” His fingers shake, gliding downward to caress my neck. “When I was away, I burned Nag Champa incense, trying to recreate your fragrance, but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t you.”
“They say smell is strongly linked to emotion and memory.” I busy my hands with the first-aid supplies. “I used to sleep with your clothes, desperate to hang onto every memory I could.” Sadness creaks into my voice. “It was hard, Cole. Every fucking day was an endless crawl through hell.”
“I know, baby.” His face collapses, and he pulls me toward him. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“I was angry.” I push against his shoulder and lock my arm, keeping space between us. “I cursed you. Blamed you. And some days, I hated you.” My words tremble from the ache in my chest. “I hated you for leaving me.”
“I deserve that.”
“No, you don’t. You had an obligation to your job, and our relationship was brand new. You did what you had to do, and I just…I didn’t know how to cope. When you died…” I lower my head to my hands. “It took me so long to let go of the past, and now here it is. You’re back, bringing all those painful feelings to the surface, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Do me a favor.” He bends his neck, tugging my arms down to see my eyes. “Imagine yourself in a place you want to be. Don’t think about it. Just let your heart take you there. Where are you?”
“Dancing on a stage with Beyoncé.”
“Right.” He shakes his head with a soft chuckle. “I knew that.” Swiping a hand over his mouth, he sobers. “Who’s in the audience? Who’s watching you dance?”
Since this is a fantasy, there’s no deliberation. I open my mouth to tell him he’s there, sitting in the front row and wearing his dimpled smile. Except he’s not alone. Trace reclines beside him, and they lean their heads together, sharing a private conversation before erupting in laughter. I close my eyes and try to erase one of them from the vision. But the attempt makes my chest collapse, and a sharp burn fires through my sinuses.
When I open my eyes, Cole studies me expectantly. I press my lips together and look away, blinking back tears.
“Is it him?” he asks. “Is he where you want to be?”
“You’re both there.”
He sucks in a breath. “That can’t—”
“I know it can’t happen. That’s not what I want!” My outburst reverberates through the kitchen, and I lower my voice. “I don’t know how to do this.”
He reaches a hand toward mine, his fingers twitching, stretching, before making contact. “The half-naked girl I met on the street that morning, the one who straddled me on my bike and stole my heart… She didn’t know what she was doing, either. But she was beautifully bold and shameless. She did whatever the fuck she wanted, with mischief in her eyes and laughter on her lips.”
The sob in my throat hiccups into a coughing, helpless grin. “I wasn’t half-naked.”
“Your perfect round ass hung out of a pitiful scrap of cotton.”
“They were cheeky boyshorts.”
“They were torture. I had to go to work hard as a rock.” He twines his fingers around mine. “I would’ve married you that day. I should’ve married you. I’m a fucking idiot.”
My pulse kicks up, filling my chest with fuzzy warmth.
“Go back to that morning with me.” He puts his face in mine, his gaze fierce. “We’ll start over. Let me prove how much I love you. I can convince you—”
“You didn’t have to convince me of anything the day we met, and you shouldn’t have to do it now. That’s not how love works, and that’s never been how you and I work.”
He gives me the look. The one I know so well. It says he’ll do anything to win me back. Lying, stealing, maiming, killing—there’s no limit to the depths he’ll go. Knowing what I know now about his occupation, the thought makes my stomach cramp.
“If you hurt Trace, it’s the same as hurting me.” I untangle my hand from his and rub antibiotic ointment on the gash across his nose. “You understand that, right?”
“Yes.” He regards me so intently it takes all my energy to keep from squirming. “It’s the damnedest thing…” His head cocks. “When I look at you, I see what other men see. A stunning knockout with lips that summon filthy thoughts and eyes that turn the biggest badass into a bumbling fool. But there’s so much more. Your compassion and vulnerability, your ability to love so deeply, with your entire existence. You’re the whole package, and anyone who meets you knows this.”
A flush rises through my cheeks. “Cole—”
“It’s a miracle I’m not fighting off dozens of men. At the moment, I only have one contender.” He rubs his sternum, his timbre losing strength. “The problem is, you love him, and that’s pretty damn hard to compete with. But lucky for me, I still have part of your heart.” His eyebrows gather. “Right?”
“You already know the answer to that.”
“Good.” He blows out a breath. “That’s good, because I’m yours. All of me. Forever. I’m not going away, Danni. Not when things are hard. Not when this”—he gestures between us—“seems impossible. Through the good and the bad and all the madness in between, I’ll be wherever you are, fighting and laughing and appreciating every goddamn second you give me.”
A twinge of yearning quivers in the heart of my chest. His voice…that gravelly, passionate sound of his timbre is one of the things I missed the most. More than that, I missed his words, the rawness in every sentence he strings together.
He makes me a believer.