by Brooks, Abby
Cole strummed a few meandering chords, that look of sheer happiness stretching across his face again. Just as Lilah decided to make an excuse to head on home, Cole looked up. “You wanna go sit outside with me?” He gestured towards the patio with a jerk of his chin.
“As long as you promise to bring your guitar,” Lilah said and tried not to let the shock she felt register on her face. Who knew if the shock came from the fact that he asked her to stay or because she agreed without even thinking? It sure wasn’t Lilah.
Without a word, Cole stood up and crossed the small apartment to the patio door, slid it open, and waited for Lilah to step outside. For all the sparse decorations inside, the patio actually looked like he put some time into it. He had some nice outdoor furniture set up, two chairs and a small table with a few candles in the middle. A huge tropical plant, and some tiki torches poked into the ground at the end of the concrete slab. As Lilah took a seat, Cole lit the torches and then perched on the edge of the chair next to her, cradling his guitar in his lap.
“You don’t look like the kind of guy who lives with his mom,” she said after a few moments of listening to him play.
Cole’s fingers never stopped their movement across the strings. “It’s a short term solution to a long term problem,” he finally said. Somehow, a bunch of images lined up in Lilah’s head, all straight and perfect and suddenly, everything made sense. The hunted look in both mother and son’s eyes. The fading bruise on Maggie’s face. The way she just showed up out of the blue, living with a son who most definitely wasn’t used to having his mother around.
Cole came from an abusive family.
Lilah’s heart surged with sadness for the boy who grew up living in fear in the one place he was supposed to feel safe. “It’s gorgeous out here,” she said, leaning back in her chair and looking up at the night sky. “The tiki torches are a nice touch.”
“I get cooped up inside.” Cole shrugged and tilted his head, losing himself to his song.
“Is that why you’re a shrimper?”
Cole shrugged, not even pretending to look up from his guitar. “Nah.”
Lilah studied him for a second and wished that she had brought a drink out with her. Be nice to have something to do with her hands. “You do that, you know,” she finally said. “Put on your big strong man face and do the whole brooding shrug and dismissive answer thing. I hate to break it to you, but it’s not working for you.”
Cole silenced the guitar by flattening his palm against the strings. “Excuse me?” He asked, all the joy the music had brought him draining from his face.
“You heard me.” Lilah sat back in her chair and let her gaze wander the night sky, very purposefully not making eye contact. “You build this wall around yourself, refuse to let people in. I even bet you think that you’re happy. Say you’re better off alone and all that. But I don’t think you are.”
“And who are you to decide whether or not I’m happy?”
Lilah shrugged. “Nobody, I guess.”
Cole went back to playing his music, his jaw tense and his eyes tight. Had it been rude of her to say that? Should she have just let Cole do Cole and enjoy the music and the company, grumpy and inarticulate as it may be? Lilah turned her head just enough to catch a glimpse of his profile. Damn was he ever good-looking, pulsing jaw muscle and all.
And he had to be twice as talented as he was easy on the eyes. Lilah would put his music up against any of the artists on the radio. And his voice! Holy shit, it was like chocolate and butter and smoke all wrapped up in the sparkling sea and rough wind. It was fairy tales and hard lessons and hope and despair and it made Lilah shudder with pleasure when he sang.
And if he was twice as talented as he was good-looking, he had to be three times as protective. This is the guy that stopped to jump her car when her battery died. The guy that stood up for her at the cafe when that customer put his hands on her. The guy who rescued his mom from a bad situation. Hell, the guy who probably gave up his only bedroom so she didn’t have to sleep on the couch.
“It was my grandpa’s business.” Cole didn’t look up from his guitar. Just kind of shrugged and kept his gaze focused down at his feet.
“Shrimping?” Lilah didn’t move, barely breathed. Didn’t want to do anything that might shock him out of sharing.
Cole nodded. “He built it from nothing. Worked his hands to the bone. Poured his blood, sweat, and tears into it. All that stuff. My dad?” Cole cleared his throat and his hands stalled over the strings. “Not so much. It’s up to me to make my grandpa’s hard work mean something. Carry on his legacy.”
Lilah didn’t respond. The last thing she needed was to move too quickly and make him realize that he was actually having a real conversation about himself. He would clam up for sure and Lilah wanted to know more about this man. This warrior-poet, the man with the good looks and sweet voice, the man with the desire to protect the people around him, the man who wasn’t strong enough to let anyone in.
“What about you?” Cole asked, pulling his hands away from the guitar. “What kind of girl grows up in a cookie-less existence, yet manages to make something that delicious on her so called first attempt.” He made a face that meant he wasn’t so sure he believed those were actually her first cookies.
“So called!” Lilah widened her eyes and dropped her jaw. “That was my first attempt, buddy.”
“Sure. And tonight was the first time I’ve ever picked up a guitar.” Cole twisted his smile into a sexy little smirk, lifting his eyebrows and challenging her to prove otherwise.
“Who’s to say I’m not a cookie prodigy? Maybe it’s my calling.”
“Maybe it is, princess. I mean, it sure as hell isn’t waitressing.”
Lilah reached across the open space and slapped his arm. “Hey! I’m still new. Cut me some slack.”
“I‘m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that you’re not gonna get much better with practice. You don’t seem like the kind of girl who makes a habit of serving others.”
Lilah had to admit, he had a point. She liked it way better when she was being waited on then when she was at someone else’s beck and call. But there was no way she was going to admit that to Cole. “You never know. I might surprise you.”
Cole stared at her for a few seconds and Lilah’s heartbeat did a funny little skipping thing. “You got me there, princess. You definitely surprise me.”
What the hell did that mean? And why in the world did it make her want to smile like an idiot? Lilah decided to answer his question about her childhood while she puzzled out how she should respond to his statement about surprising him.
“Well, if you’re looking for more surprises, you won’t find them in my childhood. I grew up in a happy family. Not a lot of drama. Family dinners and game nights. All that stuff.” She immediately felt bad sharing that with Cole, especially considering what she thought she figured out about his childhood. She trailed off, not at all comfortable talking about how wealthy her family was and how she had never had to work a day in her life until now.
Here was a man who may have just rescued his mother from an abusive father. A man who worked damn hard to keep his grandfather’s business alive, and judging from the age of his truck and the state of the furnishings in his apartment, made enough money to survive and not much else. It almost felt like talking about how easy her life had been would be rubbing her privilege in his face. Showing off. Something like that.
“I can see that.” Cole smiled and for the first time ever, it reached his eyes without his guitar in his hands. “You don’t seem like the kind of girl who’s had to deal with a lot of shit in her life.”
“Is that why you call me princess?”
“That’s exactly why I call you princess.” Cole winked. “It’s actually really cute. I’ll admit that I’m digging the whole helpless and clueless thing.”
“I am not clueless!”
“You didn’t know how to make cookies!”
Lilah laughed.
“Okay. Maybe that made me a little clueless. But helpless? No way. I showed up with cookies tonight, didn’t I?”
“You showed up with damn good cookies.”
“See? Not helpless.”
“Alright.” Cole sat back in his chair, his eyes gleaming with a wicked humor. “Show me just how not helpless you are. Let’s just pretend that I never showed up the day you couldn’t get your car to start. What would you have done?”
Lilah rolled her eyes. How helpless did he think she was? “I’d have called a cab to get to the interview and then a tow truck to take the car to the shop.”
“A cab and a tow truck? You must get bonus tips at the diner for being hot.”
Lilah didn’t know what to say. It had never occurred to her to even think about the expense of a cab and tow truck. A little surge of fear sent her heart stuttering in a whole new direction. Rent and all her bills were coming due. She hadn’t looked at her accounts in a couple days at least. She was pretty sure she had money in there to cover everything. She hadn’t spent that much lately. Just the new outfit for herself. And the ingredients for the cookies. And a few meals at the diner. And the gift for her nephew. And the end table. Plus the stuff for work...
“Maybe I just know when to admit that I’m out of my depth.” Lilah tried to keep her face confident, but inside, her mind was reeling with the realization that it was almost the end of the first month and she had no idea how much money was in her account. There was also just a touch of humiliation dancing around in there over the realization that if Cole hadn’t shown up to jump her battery that day, she would have made a ridiculous mistake and spent way more money than she needed to trying to solve the problem.
Was she really that unprepared for real life? Was it possible that growing up in a wealthy family had actually put her at a disadvantage? Lilah almost laughed out loud at the thought. What a silly thing to think!
Cole sighed and leaned his head against the back of his chair. His eyes slid closed and he stifled a yawn.
“Were you on the water today?”
“I got in around noon. It was a long couple days, but I came in with the hold full, so it was worth it.”
“Does that mean you’ll get a couple days off?”
Cole laughed. “No, princess. Nothing is more dangerous than yesterday’s success. Gramps pretty much beat that into me from the time I could even think about walking. Tomorrow is another day. Gotta treat it like that no matter how good or bad the day before it went.” There was a weariness weighing heavy on Cole’s words. He ran a hand along the back of his neck and looked more exhausted than anyone Lilah had ever seen in all her life.
“What time do you have to get up?”
“Too early.”
“Which means…?”
“My first alarm goes off at four thirty.”
“Four thirty? Well hell Cole. Why are you still even awake?”
“Because I’ve got company.”
Lilah sprang out of her chair. She didn’t know what time it was, but she did know that the moon was high enough to mean that Cole would only be getting a few hours of sleep before he went out on the water tomorrow. “I should let you get some rest, then.”
Cole stood and stretched. “I’d like to argue with you about that, but I’m not gonna.” He swooped up his guitar and put a hand on Lilah’s lower back. She had never, in all her life, been more acutely aware of one area of her body like she was right now. “Here, let me walk you home,” said Cole.
“I live right next door, silly. I think I can make it.”
Cole used that hand on her lower back to guide her towards the patio door. “That’s just what you do after you have a woman over for dinner. Walk her home. I’m trying to be decent here.”
“What a nice change of pace for you.”
“You should be honored.”
Lilah was honored, and that was silly. She was also nervous, which was even sillier. Cole Bennett was a player and either he was too tired to realize he was turning on the charm or it was just some kind of subconscious reaction to being around a woman. Either way, she was a fool to fall for it.
Cole propped his guitar against a wall and led Lilah through his apartment, out the front door, and across the little bit of grass separating their sidewalk. Lilah was acutely aware of the warmth of his hand on her back. The strength and certainty with which he moved. The way his scent mingled with the night air.
“Here we are,” she said as they came to a stop in front of her door. “Thank you for escorting me home. I don’t think I would have made it here without you.”
“Thank you for keeping me company tonight.” Cole leaned against her doorframe, standing just a little too close. “I actually had a nice time.” He smiled, his eyes sweeping her face and lingering on her lips. What the hell was going on here?
Lilah took just the tiniest step back. “I actually had a nice time, too.”
Cole leaned in, his lips parting, that hand on her lower back pulling her close and for just the tiniest fraction of a second, Lilah felt her heartbeat speed up and her stomach started doing a little excited dance. Ignoring her physical reaction, Lilah put a hand on his chest and pushed ever so gently.
“Cole,” she said, ever so aware of the little sliver of space between her lips and his. “What are you doing?”
“Kissing a beautiful woman goodnight.” His voice was husky and shiver-inducing and he leaned in again.
Lilah pushed back a little harder. “Cole.” She kept her voice hard even though her body was igniting with a need to kiss him. “Remember how you said you don’t do girlfriends?” She waited for him to meet her eyes. “I don’t do casual.”
“Maybe you’re the girl to change my mind.”
Lilah laughed lightly. “And maybe one of these days I’ll wake up to find the rust bucket is totally reliable and starts every time I need it to.”
Cole grinned. “It’s a shame, princess. I bet we’d have fun together.”
I guaran-damn-tee we’d have fun together, she thought. Cole kissed her hand and waved goodbye, waited at his doorstep to make sure Lilah made it inside alright. She closed the door behind her and leaned back against it, her chest heaving. A second later, she heard Cole’s door close through the thin walls separating them.
12
Panic strummed through Lilah’s body. There had to be some mistake. She refreshed the screen on her phone and when it came back up showing the exact same thing it said just a few seconds ago, she made this tight little whining sound that she didn’t ever remember making in her whole damn life.
She didn’t have enough money. Somehow, all those tiny little purchases had added up to one great big mistake and now all her bills were due and she couldn’t pay them all. She tried to add up how much she might make at the diner in the next week and even after adding that in, she wasn’t going to be able to pay everything.
She had utterly failed at her first month on her own. And now, on top of failing, on top of proving her brothers right, she had no idea how she was going to pay her bills. Didn’t even know what would happen. How long until they started turning stuff off? How long until they showed up at her doorstep and kicked her out? She didn’t have the faintest clue and she was scared and she was embarrassed, and worse, she was a big, stupid failure.
Her brothers would never let her live this down. She would be the spoiled little sister who couldn’t take care of herself for the rest of her damn life. How had she let this happen?
And to make things worse, she was actually starting to feel like she was getting the hang of things. She still hated doing the dishes, but she did them. She didn’t let them pile up on the sink anymore. And when she walked into a clean kitchen knowing she was the reason it was clean, that felt damn good. Her tips had been improving at the diner and she couldn’t remember the last time someone had told her off for messing up their order or dropping fries in their lap or just forgetting them completely and leaving them for an hour waiting on their check.
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br /> She looked down at the shirt she was wearing, one she had bought herself last week. One that had cost just a little more than she thought she should spend. She had been so sure she was okay!
So sure she had it all under control.
Now, she felt almost dirty wearing the new shirt, like someone had spray-painted the word failure all over it. She wanted to rip if off, throw it in the trash, and put on something else. But of course, she had let laundry pile up and this was the only thing she had clean. Besides, throwing the shirt away would be stupid and wasteful. Which was clearly just the kind of girl she was.
She scrolled through the recent activity on her account and saw a million tiny little purchases, each of them equally as stupid and wasteful as the last, and all of them adding up to mean that she was an abysmal failure at life. She sighed and dropped her phone to her lap and looked at the bills spread out on the floor around her. She didn’t have the foggiest idea what to do and suddenly the apartment felt small and hot and she couldn’t catch her breath. She needed out of here and she needed out now.
What she needed was a good, stiff drink. She grabbed her purse and headed for the door when she remembered that the rust bucket was low on gas and that drinks cost money.
Fuck it, she thought. It’s not like I’m magically going to have enough money to pay everything by making a good decision now.
She paused with her hand on the doorknob, caught in the war between two equal desires. One part of her wanted to go out, get a little tipsy, and have a good time, finances be damned. It’s not like this was her real life anyway. This apartment, those bills, even this stupid guilt-ridden shirt, were just part of some stupid bet she made with her brothers. She could call it off at any time—go back to the guest house and her straightener and all her gorgeous clothes hanging neat and guilt-free in a closet as big as this apartment.
