SWNOVELS A Photo Finish: Chapter 19
MY HEAD HURTS, and I feel like death warmed over. I can barely move. I’m not sure if it’s the copious number of drinks I downed in front of Billie at Neighbor’s Pub last night or that I’ve made myself feel sick over a goddamn internet pen pal.
My stomach roils, and again, I can’t differentiate the cause.
I’m so mad. At me. Not even at him. Because he’s right. He was nothing but upfront with me about his limitations. About his rules. Yet, I barged ahead thinking I’d be the one he’d change for. I shake my head and press the heels of my palms into my eye sockets, trying to dull the throb in my head. I can hear my oldest brother, Cade, giving me dating advice—and there was a lot of it—but this bit stands out as exceptionally pertinent right now.
Don’t pick a man who needs fixing—or changing—to meet your needs. He either wants to, or he doesn’t. And if you need to convince him, he doesn’t love you the way you deserve.
I hated the way my brothers meddled in my love life. The three of them practically put me up in an ivory tower, but I guess they knew Mom better than I ever did. They lost our mom and didn’t want to lose me too. So instead, they smothered me and drove me away. Because I couldn’t stay there. But right now, I ache to go back. A hug from my dad, a noogie from Rhett, an easy smile from Beau, and some deep, poetic advice from Cade. Good men, all four of them.
And I’m not sure I truly realized it until now.
I know what they’d tell me this morning, and I know what Billie told me last night.
It’s time to move on. I deserve more. I deserve better.
I delete the app from my phone and go lie in the bottom of my shower where my quiet tears blend and wash away with the spray of lukewarm water above me.
THE SOUNDS of the track filter in around me as I tack Brite Lite up. It’s my second year riding her, and she’s a solid racehorse with a good head on her shoulders and a fair number of wins under her belt. But today, the pretty gray mare is antsy. Just like me. Raring to go, right back where I was a month ago. I shove my earbuds in and get to work on zoning out, humming to try and soothe her nerves as well as mine. Except where I usually play the race through in my mind, I’m instead replaying the last twenty-four hours.
The walk down the mountain and subsequent drive home was quiet. Awkward. I didn’t know what to say to Cole, and my mind was so busy piecing it all together that I couldn’t have come up with small talk to fill the space anyway.
When I went into his room to get his leg, I tried not to take my time looking around, but I did a little bit. I’m only human, okay? And it doesn’t matter. The place is military clean. Everything laid out just so, everything spick-and-span clean. I wondered if he polished the floors with a toothbrush like you see in the movies, but I couldn’t even bring myself to ask him that.
Because when I’d shoved the sticky drawer closed on the dresser that was home to his spare prosthetic, it moved the mouse next to the laptop plugged in on top. The one that was still open. The one that was open to our chat. Our messages from over a year ago were sitting right there, looking me in the eye.
And I was very, very human at that moment. Because I couldn’t look away, and definitely couldn’t stop myself from scrolling through. I wondered why the hell he would have our chat still open on his laptop when I hadn’t responded to
him in a year. Until I came face-to-face with my answer.
. . . How are you?
. . . Is everything okay?
. . . Listen, I think you’re probably angry with me. I’m sorry if I hurt you. That was never my intention. I just . . . I’m complicated. It’s a long story. One I’d like to tell you if you come back.
. . . I think I’m just going to keep writing to you, even if you never come back. I need this.
. . . Talking to you has been the most healing thing to happen to me in years. Please respond. I’ll reciprocate. Sharing much about myself terrifies me. But I’ll try.
. . . I don’t think you’re coming back. But if you do, my offer stands. I want us, or whatever this is, back.
. . . Sometimes I daydream about meeting you in real life. The things I’d do to you.
. . . I miss you.
He’d been messaging me ever since I ghosted him. Even since I moved in with him. Like a diary dedicated to me. My breath left my body with a hollow whoosh. My heart pounded in my ears.
.. . Tonight, I carried your limp body into my house. I know you’re just knocked out from the painkillers, but I felt sick all the same. I’ve carried limp bodies before and the thought of one being yours is almost more than I can take. I fell asleep in the hallway listening to you breathe.
. . . Today you talked me into going out for a drink at some shitty little pub. I had the most fun I’ve had in years.
. . . Today you moved out. I didn’t expect it to hurt this badly.
Tears spring up in my eyes just reading them all. Each one like a pin in my heart. The most aloof, closed-off man in the world turned my heart into a fucking pin cushion with his words, and I don’t even know how to tell him.
I am well and truly speechless. I’ve spent a month in close quarters with this man. A man who I thought didn’t even like me, when the entire time he’s been writing me notes. I’ve been beating myself up over wanting Cole Harding, over going against every fiber of logic in my body that tells me he’s just going to let me down again. Embarrass me again. And all this damn time, he’s been writing me love notes he knows I’ll never see while I try to be his friend.
Some girls might swoon. The notes are sweet. So sweet that my teeth ache. But I feel agitated. He could have just told me. It’s not like we haven’t talked about our pasts. Now I feel like a juvenile fool for crushing on him secretly this whole time, tiptoeing around his moods.
If I’d known he missed me, wanted me, I’d have crawled in his lap and kissed him earlier.
I unbuckle Brite Lite’s halter, and she instantly drops her head into the bridle as I easily slide the bit into her mouth. She’s usually so polite, but today it’s like she chomps down on the bit. Goes after it. Takes it, just like we’re going to take this race.
It’s time to put the big brooding soldier out of my mind and focus on kicking Patrick Cassel’s ass in round two. Brite Lite is ready too. I swear she knows this is a revenge round. A rematch. Us girls have a keen sense for that—especially with tools like Patrick.
We walk out into the bright sunshine, very unlike that soggy day just over a month ago. The conditions are perfect.
Billie slinks out from who knows where with Mira in tow.
“All good? How’s Brighty?” she asks, shrewd golden eyes assessing me like she just knows something is up. No one reads a person better than Billie.
No one.
“Yup. Let’s do this.” I nod, yanking up that competitive spirit that comes with the territory of being the only girl and youngest sibling of four kids.
Billie gives me a well practiced leg up into the tack before pinching the side of my butt playfully. “Break a leg out there.”
“Billie.” Mira stares at her, unimpressed. Which, to be fair, is her go-to expression. “Really?”
Billie cackles and walks ahead but freezes in her tracks when we hear a smooth, slightly accented voice say, “Good luck out there today, Miss Eaton.”
Stefan Dalca. The other big player in the horse racing scene out near Ruby Creek. Everyone thinks he’s sketchy, and Billie hates his guts after he tried to bribe Vaughn into selling DD. Which would have been a huge mistake. Not only because the ranch would be without our championship stallion, but Vaughn would be without Billie.
“Dalca, you piece of . . .”
I sit up poker straight, a little worried that Billie might go off. She’s a bit of a live wire that way, but Mira steps in front of us and turns her unimpressed expression on the suit-clad man in question.
“Stefan, walk with me.” She crooks a finger and heads in the opposite direction without even looking back. Like she just knows he’ll follow. To his credit, the usually perfectly curated man looks a little shaken. He tugs at the lapels of his suit jacket and clears his throat before spinning on his heel and striding away.
Billie makes a gagging noise, and I giggle. I know how much she detests the man. But I’m thinking he should be a little more scared of Mira at this current juncture. Billie might be the unpredictable firecracker of the three of us, but Mira is smart, cunning, and wily. Billie you’ll see coming because she’ll burn it all down around herself to take you out. But Mira? I think you’d be down for the count before you even knew she was there.
Tonight, I am going to channel my inner Mira. Sweet and quiet Violet isn’t here right now. Patrick Cassel is going down in the only way I can take him down.
On the track.
I PULL into the driveway and park right in front of Pipsqueak’s paddock. I couldn’t sleep because I was too excited about my win. Too high on adrenaline. So, I snuck out of the barn apartment, slid my feet into a pair of sandals, and threw a long cardigan over my floral sleep shorts and matching tank to keep the chill out. It’s dark out now, past my regular bedtime, and I hoped to keep my arrival on the down low, but she’s pretty much a guard horse at this point, sounding the alarm as soon as I pull up.
Little traitor.
“Hey, sweet girl.” I jump out of my car with a pocket full of peppermints and head her way. “We won tonight. Left everyone else in the dust. It felt so damn good.” She nickers and rubs her lips against my pocket, honing in on the minty smell. I pull one out and let her chomp away at it. White foam forms on her lips from the chalky candy. “I was going to go to bed. But I couldn’t sleep. Figured I’d come celebrate with you.”
I peek up at the darkened farmhouse before I shake my head at myself. Cute, Violet. Pretending you’re not here to spy on Cole. Pretending thinking about him and wondering where he is isn’t what was keeping you up.
I still don’t know what to make of what I read on his laptop. I have even less of an idea of what to say to him. I’m half in love with the man—and the other half wants to shake some sense into him. He’s so damn broken, so full of fake bravado.
Everyone sees cool, calm, and collected. Emotionless. I think I might have at one point too. But now all I see is sad. Closed off. Lonely. I’m scared he’ll break me, but suddenly I’m more scared I’ll break him. Loving him feels like a big responsibility.
“Violet?”
The sound of his voice sends a thrill down my spine. Deep and gravelly, a tad sleepy sounding.
I turn slowly to take in his dark form on the front porch of the little blue house. “Hi.” I let my gaze trail over that perfect triangular upper body, strong thighs. “Did you see my race?”
“No, sorry. I didn’t make it down.”
Disappointment lurches in my chest. I wanted him to be there. “Did I wake you?”
“Yeah, but it was time.”
Huh? I walk closer to the porch and realize he’s only wearing form fitting boxers and a T-shirt. “Did you sleep all day?”
He runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah. I was pretty tired.”
I come closer, gripping the porch railing. “I thought you were joking about my snoring keeping you awake.”
He laughs. Deep and smooth. Like honey. And I want him to drizzle it all over me and then lick it off.
“It wouldn’t have been safe for both of us to sleep. I kept watch.”
“We could have taken turns!” I hate feeling helpless, hate that he didn’t even bother to include me in that decision. “I don’t need you to coddle me. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”
He pins me now, his gray eyes sparking with fight. “That’s what you keep telling me. But Violet, letting me help doesn’t make you weak. It just means I care. I know you don’t need me. But I want to be there for you. Let me care for you in the only ways that I can.”
“Is this where you tell me that’s what friends do?”
He swallows. I watch his throat bob as his intelligent eyes regard me carefully. “No.”
That one word. He doesn’t say more, but he doesn’t need to. It’s his confession.
My tongue darts out to wet my bottom lip as I gaze up at him, his body towering above me, just a few steps away. I swear the air between us heats by the second—like I can feel his energy from several feet away.
“I saw the messages,” I blurt out. “On your laptop.”
He blinks a few times, but his face stays predictably blank. He shows so little emotion sometimes. It’s almost impossible to get a read on him. But when he turns away from me and limps back into the house, I feel enough emotion for the both of us. Walking away, again.
I boil over. Fiery hot. Jilted, frustrated, tired. I storm up into the house I called home for a month, hot on his heels as he makes his way through the living room.
“Would you just talk to me already!” I shout. It comes out louder and more forceful than I think I’ve ever talked to anyone in my life. My cheeks heat, and I initially feel a little bad. It’s out of character, but I am so done with not saying anything to each other. I like quiet, but this is beyond. Cole is downright uncommunicative.
He turns, jaw popping and veins in his arms pulsing with tension, all highlighted by shadow with only a floor lamp shedding dim light in the corner. His hands fist and then let go as he raises his voice right back, shouting, “What do you want me to tell you? I never open up to anyone. You think everything between us just started and finished with a photo for me? Like it was easy for me to lose you? To not know if you were okay? To miss you so much it physically hurt? You broke me!”
His words wind me. My chest empties, hollow and throbbing with the weight of his confession. Both my hands creep up over my chest, my fingers wrapping around the base of my throat to stem the growing flow of nausea. He missed me. I broke him.
“You broke me first,” I whisper. But the admission feels loud in the quiet room. Like I shouted it at him.
His smile is pained as he looks up at the ceiling. “You’re not broken. You’re perfect. And I’m a shitty fucking patchwork quilt. I’ve spent years picking up the tattered pieces of myself, every life event, every heartbreak, and slowly stitched it all back together. But I’m not good at sewing, Violet.” His eyes find mine across the room. Raw and anguished. All I want to do is wrap my arms around him, but I’m stunned into stillness with his next words. “And now the edges are starting to fray. I’m coming apart at the goddamn seams, and you’re the one holding the thread that could undo it all.”
Cole groans and runs a hand through his already disheveled hair, agitation and heartbreak lining every limb. “Don’t you get it?” His eyes are wide and pleading now as he shakes his head. “You have the power to completely unravel me, and I hate feeling like that.”
I can feel my pulse jumping in my throat as I stare back at him, swallowing audibly under the weight of the responsibility I’m feeling. “I promise not to unravel you, Cole. It wasn’t easy for me either. You hurt me. Being that vulnerable . . . I need to know what this is between us, once and for all.”
His chest rumbles, but the tone is different. And when his eyes pin me in place, he says, “I’m not good at talking. I think I should just show you.”
And with that, he grips the back of his shirt and pulls it off over his head, his smoky gray eyes not leaving mine for a single beat. His thumbs hook into the waistband of his boxers, his eyes still homed in on mine.
“What are you doing?” I pant out, suddenly feeling breathless and completely immobile. Entirely unable to look away from his body in the warm glow of the darkened room.
“Evening the playing field. You need to know what this is between us? It’s fucking everything.”
My breath catches in my chest as he pulls his boxers down. My lips part on a sigh, and I stare at him like a total voyeur. Dumbstruck. Is this really happening? Watching him undress before me. My mind is blank. I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience.
He kicks the boxers off, and I watch his cock swell under my gaze. Thick, and long, and veined, and growing harder every second I spend staring at it.
“Staring is rude, Violet.”
My head snaps up to his face, and I bite down on my bottom lip, feeling my body pulse and my pussy go slick. “Sorry.”
A predatory smirk flits across his mouth. “No, you’re not.”
He’s right, of course. I’ve never been less sorry in my life.
“Tell me what to do next.”
“What?” My heart beats in every limb, right into the tips of my fingers. They itch to touch him.
“You read the messages.” His voice is like gravel. “I told you I’d reciprocate. Tell me.”
I feel like my throat could close on me. Like I could choke on all the things I want to say to him. How the hell am I supposed to do this? This man—this Adonis—naked before me. His length is rock hard and jutting out in my direction now.
Knowing what I know, watching him undress in front of me, it’s the ultimate in vulnerability. The ultimate in trust.
I take a step closer, tongue darting out to wet my lips. “Fist it.”
His hand wraps around the thick base of his shaft as he says, “Fist what?”
I have a hard time dragging my eyes up to his face. “Your cock.” Excitement coils at the base of my spine at my boldness. I’ve thought a lot of dirty things about Cole over the last couple years but saying them out loud feels foreign.
I take another step, wanting to get a closer look. He’s so well-endowed. It matches everything else about his body. Strong and thick and tempting. My voice comes out as a hoarse whisper, “Now stroke it. I want to watch you stroke your cock.”
His hand slides slowly over the silky skin of his cock, and he looks down briefly, causing one lock of dark hair to flop down over his forehead. He looks disheveled and completely at my mercy. Utterly delicious. My heart aches in perfect unison with that spot between my legs.
When he looks back up, eyes meeting mine, I know I’m a goner. His cheeks are pink, his eyes are wild, his body is tense, and all I want to do is touch him. To make him feel good.
“Cole,” his name spills from my lips like a prayer.
And then I shrug my cardigan off and let it pool on the floor around my feet along with the rest of my inhibitions.