His spine straightened at that, and even with her brain cells scrambled, a part of her reared up, too. Braced and ready for a fight.
But instead of issuing a sharp remark, he sighed. “So I did.”
The ready agreement almost shocked the words right back out of her. But she rallied, somehow. “Great.” She opened her mouth, prepared to start rattling off their schedules, but before she could, he interrupted.
“How’s tomorrow afternoon? Three-thirty?”
“That’s...” She snapped her jaw shut. “Perfect, actually.”
“Brilliant.” He flashed her a tight smile.
And without another word, he closed the door in her face.
The next day at 3:25, Cole stood at the door to his apartment, jaw clenched, crutches propped against the wall. On so many levels, he didn’t know what the fuck he thought he was doing. But there was nothing else for it. Sucking in a breath, he shifted just ever so slightly forward.
The first tentative fraction of his weight he put on his bad leg was only a dull pang, so he gave it some more. Edged forward, more and more. Until—
“Cocksucking son of a goat fucker with leprosy.”
A sharp jolt shot all the way up his leg, and he listed sideways, barely catching himself against the wall. The coppery tang of blood seeped into his mouth. He sagged, catching his breath and closing his eyes.
Apparently, a full step without his crutches was still a little ways off.
His doctor had told him it’d be a week, at least, and he’d let that week pass, suffering it and the claustrophobia and the weight of his indolence in silence. So much silence, pressing in on his ribs and lungs, and he’d never minded it before.
He did now, though.
Opening his eyes again, he reached for his crutches and got them settled under his arms. The test hadn’t been a complete waste at least. Bracing himself, he leaned hard into his hands as he took his first supported step forward.
It still drove the breath from his body to put even that much of his weight on his knee, but it was bearable. He crossed a few more feet of floor, slow and aching. It would do.
Grabbing the bag he’d set down by the door, he rearranged his crutches to get the strap slung across his chest. With a deep breath, he threw the door open, and even the sight of the dingy hallway was its own kind of relief.
It was the first time he’d left his apartment in a week.
For a moment, he breathed in the air beyond his four little walls. A hysterical echo of a laugh bubbled up in his lungs. All those years he’d spent locked away in there of his own volition, and now that his movements were restricted, leaving it felt like escaping from a prison. Like freedom.
Like descending down into his own little bowel of hell.
He tightened his grip on the handles of his crutches.
He’d almost started to think Serena had forgotten him. The first day they’d met, she had shoved her way into his life, and he’d invited her to help herself to even more. Right until the moment it had all become too much. Overwhelmed, unable to breathe, haunted by another woman’s voice and another moment when he’d lost himself, lost the thread of his control...
His chuckle this time tore at his throat, a dark and ugly sound. He’d asked Serena to leave, never expecting her to return. But she had. She’d come to him and reminded him of what he’d promised.
He’d thought of the boy in her charge and the challenge in his eyes. Of his own reflection staring back at him in a mirror, lip bleeding, knuckles bruised, the memory of how it had all happened in a blur.
He’d remembered the warmth of Serena’s hand on his skin.
Pulse pounding, he closed the door behind himself.
The trek down the stairs pulled at his shoulders nearly as badly as it had the last time, though at least it was easier to keep his balance now. Two long flights, and when he finally alit on the landing outside Serena’s door, he drew in a long, shuddering breath. He gave himself to the count of ten to get his bearings. Then, before he could talk himself out of it, he knocked on her door.
The person who answered it wasn’t Serena.
“Hello,” Cole said, drawing back.
“Aunt Rena. Mr. Cole’s here.” Max looked back over his shoulder into the apartment.
Serena’s voice floated out to them. “Well, don’t just leave him standing there.”
Apparently, that was the signal the boy had been waiting for. He opened the door wide, abandoning it to scamper back inside. Cole peeked around the edge of the frame before hobbling in.
Nothing about the place had changed in the past week, except that a small hurricane might have torn through the middle of the living room. Standing from where she must’ve been kneeling on the floor, Serena pushed the soft, golden strands of her hair back from her face and turned to him with a sheepish smile. “Sorry for the mess. Ten-year-olds, you know?”
Cole didn’t, but he nodded all the same. “Not a problem.”
“Max, what do you say we move this operation to the kitchen?”
“Okay.” Max grabbed a book and a pencil from the pile of detritus around her coffee table, only to be yanked right back. He accepted the additional packet of papers Serena pressed into his hands before heading off toward the kitchen.
She shook her head at his retreating back, but it was all fondness. “Wouldn’t remember his head if it wasn’t attached.” She looked up, and her gaze met Cole’s.
And they were still the whole length of the room away from each other, but the distance stretched and then yawned and then snapped, and heat shivered through his bones.
One afternoon. He’d spent all of one afternoon with this woman before avoiding her for a week, and just seeing her made it feel like something in his chest clicking back into place. The intensity of it staggered him, almost too much again and not nearly enough. He could have drowned in the mere sight of her for days.
Or for a bare handful of minutes. The moment broke, shivering to the floor with the call of, “Aunt Rena?”
Serena’s gaze darted away, her chest heaving like she, too, were taking the first full breath she’d had in a while. “Yes, sweetie?”
“Does Mr. Cole want a snack?”
She laughed. “Is that your way of asking if you can have one?”
“No...”
Even Cole could see through that one.
She flashed him a grimacing grin. “I’d better feed the monkey before he stops being subtle. I bought some cupcakes—”
Cole stopped her before she could reach the kitchen, tucking his crutch beneath his arm as he reached out. He wrapped his hand around her wrist, and the warmth soaked through his skin.
As if burned, he let her go. Patting at his side, he fumbled with the strap of his bag until he could get at the flap and wrench it open. He dug around inside and came up with a Ziploc bag. “Here.” He passed it over.
She stared at the bag like it held worms. “What—”
“Brownies.” He cleared his throat, mouth suddenly dry. “Homemade.”
Foolish. Nothing she’d needed, and yet he’d been so overcome last night. So guilty and sick with his own behavior.
So lost, with nothing to do.
She jerked her head up, eyes narrowed, brows skewed. “You bake?”
He forced his shoulders down. He didn’t need to get defensive about this.
“It’s a hobby.” It was chemistry, was what it was, numbers and measurements and the proper things added at the proper times. And it had always made Helen smile.
“So it is.” The lines on Serena’s forehead didn’t smooth out at all, but she shrugged, taking his offering with her into the kitchen. “Hey, Max, look what Cole brought you.”
Max’s eyes went wide behind his glasses. “Dude.”
As she busied herself pulling plates down from the cabinet and pouring glasses of milk, Cole hovered in the doorway, surveying the scene.
It was...nice. Domestic and warm, and he felt suddenly, terribly out of pla
ce.
Until Serena turned to him, one hand extended toward the table. Toward a plate and a full glass of milk and a chair already pulled out in welcome. For him.
And an empty place inside his heart squeezed down so hard it hurt.
Her expression faltered. “Did you not want...I can make tea, or...”
“No,” he got out, almost choking on it. “No. It’s perfect.”
Serena was trying not to hover. While still, you know, hovering.
Cole and Max were sitting kitty-corner to each other at the little table tucked against the wall in her kitchen, eating their brownies and drinking their milk. She wrapped a brownie in a napkin for herself, grabbing it and another glass of milk and edging toward the doorway.
“Max, sweetie, why don’t you show Mr. Cole your study guide?”
He dug it out from the pile she’d sent him into the kitchen with, smudging the cover with chocolate, and she tried not to wince. Cole took it and started flipping through the pages, expression even. After a moment, he set it down decisively. “Let’s start from the beginning, then, shall we?”
She gave him some credit. For all that he’d protested the idea of working with a kid, he was approaching it like a natural, talking to Max as if he were a grown-up. No dumbing things down. And no swearing, either—at least so far.
Keeping her ears half open, she retreated to the living room, settling in on the end of the couch where she could still see them without being in their way. The deep timber of Cole’s voice floated on the air, the lilting quality to his accent lulling her. She wanted to wrap it around herself like a warm blanket. Could just picture a world where he sat around her apartment reading to her—or heck, explaining fifth-grade math.
Content with the fact that they seemed to have things more or less in hand, Serena pulled out her bag and the pile of essays she still had to grade and got to work.
She was on the sixth one when Max let out one of his more aggravated groans. Sitting straighter, she glanced up. Max was a good kid, smart and hardworking and destined for big things. But he could also get cranky in the afternoon, and if he was already getting frustrated...
“No, no, see,” Cole interrupted, leaning forward and plucking a pencil right out of Max’s hand. “There’s a trick to these.”
He launched into something even she wasn’t completely sure she understood, scribbling as he went and pointing at the study guide.
And for a second, all she could do was blink and stare.
Gone were the sullen expression and the perpetual scowl. The man’s whole demeanor came alive, eyes sparkling and voice rising. Because he was excited about reducing fractions.
“Oh!” Max threw his hands in the air. “Why don’t they just teach it that way in the first place?” With that, he stole his pencil right back and bent his head to the page in front of him.
Letting out a breath, Serena sagged into the couch. Without really meaning to, she’d found herself on high alert, all ready to step in and intervene. She hadn’t needed to, though. Cole had been entirely in control. He’d been amazing, was what he’d been.
As if he could feel her gaze on him, the wonder with which she beheld him, he turned his head, keen eyes focusing on hers. When he grinned, it just about took her breath away.
It could’ve been seconds or minutes or years that passed like that, their gazes locked across the entire breadth of her apartment. The moment held until Max lifted his head from his work and turned the page around. “Like that?”
Cole startled, maybe as lost as she had been. In an exaggerated movement, he widened his eyes and gave his head a little shake. He refocused on Max, studying his paper for half a second before nodding. “Yes. Brilliant.”
Serena’s pulse fluttered as she returned her own gaze to her lap and the pile of essays there. The weight of Cole’s stare was burned into her, a warmth swimming through her veins, making it hard to think about anything beyond it. But somehow she managed.
Still, when her phone chirped an hour later, the air in the place carried a near-physical charge. A humming static that had her fumbling with the buttons. She stared at the screen in confusion, surprised to see so much time had passed.
“Max.” Her voice came out rasping and rough, and she coughed into her hand as if the state of her lungs had anything to do with it. “Your grandma’s on her way. Time to get cleaned up.”
She rose from her seat as he finished one last problem and beamed with pride at Cole’s approval of his solution. Cole held out a hand for him to shake. “Well done, sir.”
Of course Max ate that up. He accepted the handshake and bowed to boot. If Cole wasn’t careful, the kid would be asking to be knighted by the time they got to the end of the prep book. Leaning against the fridge, Serena shooed him to go wash his hands.
Cole sat back, one eyebrow raised as he directed his gaze at her.
She waited until Max was out of sight. “You were really good with him. I think he learned more in the last hour than he has in the last year.”
“He’s a bright boy.”
“You’re a good teacher.”
He laughed, shaking his head, but there was something freer to him than there usually was. “Tell that to my linear algebra students.”
At the mention of his old career, the first hint of a shadow returned to his eyes.
She shrugged, shifting her weight. Treading with care. “I bet they learned a lot from you, whether or not they liked the class.”
“Doubtful. Teaching was fine. I enjoyed it. But I didn’t have the temperament for it. The patience.” He fiddled with Max’s discarded pencil, twirling it absently between his fingers. “Research was more my speed. You could publish a paper and teach the world about what you were doing without that pesky interacting-with-people thing.”
Serena frowned. She appreciated his recognition that teaching required a certain amount of skill, but he’d shown plenty of patience this afternoon. “Well. Your temperament just now seemed fine.”
“Lucky you caught me on a good day, then,” he said.
Before she could push him any further, Max returned, and the next few minutes were a flurry of chaos as he struggled to cram the contents of his schoolbag that had apparently exploded all over her apartment back in. Her mom wasn’t stopping in that day, so Serena watched for her car out the window. When she pulled up, Serena paced him through their usual goodbye, made him thank Cole again, and sent him on his way.
As the door closed behind him, she sank down into the couch. She loved that she got to see her nephew most days, and with Cole doing the heavy lifting, this afternoon had been easier than most. But she’d been on her feet and dealing with preteens of one sort or another since seven that morning, and the last of her reserves was just about done.
Letting her head loll against the cushions, she spied the brownie she’d grabbed for herself but never gotten around to eating. Cole hadn’t budged from his seat at her table yet, though he’d scooted his chair around and grabbed his crutches, looking more or less ready to stage his escape. She held up the brownie before bringing it to her mouth. “So you make these from scratch, you said?”
It failed to quite match the image of him she had in her mind, but he nodded in confirmation. Max certainly hadn’t complained about the quality of his baking—and the kid wasn’t shy about that kind of thing when Serena got the crummy grocery store ones instead of the good ones from the bakery down the street. With a shrug, she took a bite.
Her brows just about hit her hairline. “Holy crap.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“That’s an amazing thing.” It was dense and fudgy and loaded with chocolate chips, and if she hadn’t been attracted to Cole from the get-go, she might’ve been willing to overlook a whole multitude of sins with this on the offer. “Wow.”
He gave her a smirking sort of a smile. “Glad you approve.”
“No, seriously, where did you learn to bake like this?”
And she was starting to r
ecognize it now—the way darkness could creep over his features. The downward tilt to his mouth that appeared when they were close to crossing one of his lines. “Recipe books.”
With that, he stood, balance all skewed to one side as he got his crutches tucked under his arms.
Was she really supposed to let it go at that, though? She’d followed enough recipes in her day, and none of her results had ever been as good as this. “No no no. There has to be a secret.”
“There’s not—”
“Can you teach me?”
She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. She’d already asked so much of him with the tutoring for Max. He had to be exhausted with the lot of them.
But he turned to face her. “Can you take me to my doctor’s appointment next week?”
“Of course.” She’d promised him that from the very outset. “As long as it’s after I get out of school. Whenever you need.”
“Then we’re agreed. Baking lessons and help with fractions.”
“You don’t have to.”
He even seemed surprised when he opened his mouth. “I don’t mind.”
Oh. Well, all right, then.
She grinned as she said, “Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.”
CHAPTER SIX
So.” There was a creeping feeling just under Cole’s skin, making his hands too warm, his palms damp. “What has you so keen to learn to bake?”
A few days had passed since Serena had brought it up, and he hadn’t expected her to forget it, precisely, but neither had he been prepared for her to come knocking on his door again so soon. In retrospect, he really shouldn’t have been surprised. The woman wasn’t afraid to ask for what she wanted.
Maybe he should’ve turned her away; normally, he would have. But there’d been something hopeful to her face. Something he hadn’t wanted to disappoint.
He’d asked her in.
Now here she stood, surrounded by the ingredients for his mother’s chocolate biscuits. He sat on a stool beside her, supervising, instructing, and it was so like that first evening they’d spent together. When he’d invited her in and made her a cup of tea. When in a flurry of foot-in-mouth disease he’d offered her a slice of Helen’s birthday cake and subsequently lost his bloody mind.
Confessions in the Dark Page 6
