Page 35 of Don’t Leave (Stay #2)

COLE

“ S omeone’s at the door, can you please answer it?” Mom yells from the kitchen where she’s baking Christmas cookies.

Already.

That’s not a complaint.

It means I’ll have more food to take back to school when I leave tomorrow afternoon. I pause, unable to rip my attention away from the big screen TV as the final seconds of the first quarter play out. The bell rings for a second time as the ball is being passed and?—

“Cole?” she shouts again.

Except this time there’s exasperation lacing her voice.

And that’s never good.

“I’m on it!”

But not really.

Fumble.

Damn.

With a shake of my head, I jog to the door and throw it wide open. Almost immediately, I wish I’d ignored it.

“Hi, Cole.” The edges of her lips lift tentatively.

When I remain silent, she shifts from one foot to the other before stuffing her hands into the pockets of her jacket.

“Hey,” I force myself to say. If she thinks enough time has passed for me to forget about what happened between us, she’s in for a rude awakening.

She clears her throat. “If you’re not busy, I was hoping we could talk.”

“Ummm…” I rub the back of my neck and try to come up with a plausible excuse as to why that’s not a good idea. Unfortunately, I’ve got nothing. “I’m kind of in the middle of something.”

Like an entire day of football. Make that an entire weekend of football.

Just because I play hockey doesn’t mean that I don’t love college ball.

That being said, it wouldn’t matter if I was bored off my ass, I still wouldn’t want to hash out all this shit with Jackie.

Because let’s face it, that’s exactly what she wants to do.

And I’m over it.

I’ve moved on.

One brow rises. “I’d lay odds that you’re in the middle of watching the Ohio State-Michigan game.”

That’s exactly what I’m in the middle of and the fact she so easily guessed it leaves me feeling irritated.

I don’t like that after a year spent apart, she can still predict my behavior.

I cross my arms across my chest and casually lean against the door frame.

I’ll be damned if I invite this girl inside my home.

“So what if I am?”

Her shoulders slump as her teeth sink into her bottom lip. It makes me feel like a prick. Treating girls like crap goes against everything my parents instilled in me.

I grit my teeth and grudgingly swing one arm toward the living room where I’m camped out for the day with Gatorade and enough snacks to last me for a week.

“You can come in,” I grumble before tacking on, “if you want.” That’s about as gracious as it’s going to get.

Hope lights up her eyes as she nods and steps over the threshold and into the entryway.

“Who’s winning?”

I glance toward the living room as she removes her jacket before tossing it over one end of the couch. “Michigan.”

Her lips quirk as she murmurs, “Go Wolverines.”

A little bit of my annoyance dissolves as one side of my mouth hitches. Michigan is one of my favorite teams and Jackie knows it. While some things change, others stay the same.

She settles on a chair as I gravitate to the couch where I’ve been camped out. An awkward silence descends and our gazes drift toward the seventy-inch screen as the second quarter gets under way.

A few minutes slowly tick by. The tension filling the atmosphere is enough to make me regret inviting her in. There’s uncomfortable…and then there’s sucking ass.

Make no mistake—this sucks major ass.

It’s almost difficult to believe that we were ever best friends and spent so much time together. That thought is quickly followed by sadness and then anger.

“Who was at the door?”

I stifle a groan when Mom walks into the living room as she dries her hands with a dish towel. Her feet grind to a halt as her gaze lands on Jackie. The way her eyes widen would be comical if this situation wasn’t so painful.

“Jackie!” She claps her hands together as happiness lights up her face. “It’s so good to see you again!”

My ex’s entire demeanor changes as she jumps from the chair and hurls herself into my mother’s outstretched arms. When they finally pull apart, my mother’s deep brown gaze fastens onto mine in question.

She’s encouraged me over the past year to sit down and talk with Jackie dozens of times and I’ve always shut down the conversations, refusing to do it.

I shrug. “She stopped over.”

I’m sure my mother can read between the lines enough to realize this wasn’t my idea.

“It’s good to see you two talking again.” Mom gives her one last squeeze before releasing her. “It’s just like old times, isn’t it?”

While Jackie grins in response, I remain silent. There’s no way I’m going to touch that loaded question.

I mean…what the hell am I supposed to say?

We all know that this is nothing like old times.

“All right.” She clears her throat. “I need to run to the store to pick up more flour. I should be back in about thirty minutes.”

Her gaze bounces between us before she exits the room.

Longing fills Jackie’s eyes as she stares after my mother. “I’ve really missed her,” she murmurs.

“You could always see if she’d be willing to go out with you.” The comment shoots out of my mouth before I can rein it back in again.

She huffs out a breath before dropping down onto the chair. “Where’s Thomas? Is he around?”

My gaze stays glued to the action unfolding on the screen. “He’s at the hospital.”

Another stretch of uncomfortable silence falls over us. As much as I want to enjoy this game, that’s not going to happen.

Five more tortuous minutes pass by before I mutter, “What did you want to talk about?”

The last time I saw Jackie was at the hockey game where I lost my shit. It’s also the night Cassidy and I broke up. I grumbled out a quick hello to my ex after I came out of the locker room but was in no mood to converse after having coach ram his size twelve boot up my ass.

She nibbles at her lower lip as if silently debating how to proceed.

We might have been incommunicado for a year, but I still know every expression that flits across her face and every nervous gesture. I guess that’s what you get with a solid decade of friendship under your belt.

“I was hoping we could talk about what happened.” She gulps before pushing out the rest. “Maybe start over again.” Her voice drops. “We were always such good friends. I miss that.” There’s a pause. “I miss you.”

I straighten on the couch before swiveling toward her.

“You have some nerve showing up at my door after you screwed me over. And now you want to sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened so we can magically go back to being friends again?” I shake my head.

“You’re the one who shit all over our friendship.

Not me.” Anger bubbles up inside me. “You weren’t just my girlfriend , you were my best friend .

What you did cut deep and there’s no coming back from that. ”

When she remains silent, I snap, “Did you really think it would be that simple? That all you’d have to do is waltz in here and decide we should be friends again and poof—we would be? That it could all go back to the way it was before you cheated on me?”

If I’m not careful, I’ll start frothing at the mouth. That’s how pissed off I am. It’s the reason I didn’t want to sit down with her in the first place. It’s the reason I’ve been avoiding her.

A dull heat crawls up her cheeks as moisture gathers her eyes. There was a time in the not so distant past when the sight of her tears would have me backing down and apologizing, but that’s no longer the case.

This girl ripped my heart out last year.

And then she stomped all over it.

“I’m so sorry, Cole,” she whispers in a thick voice overflowing with unspent emotion. “I never meant for any of this to happen.”

My shoulders slump as some of the anger drains away. “What do you want from me?”

She gulps before whispering, “I want your forgiveness.”

I shake my head as laughter gurgles up in my throat. Either she’s lost it, or I have. I can barely look at her, much less absolve her. “I don’t think I can do that.”

“It’s been over a year. Can’t we at least try to move on?”

“I know exactly how long it’s been.” Even though I’d thought I was completely over her and what happened, I realize that it’s still festering inside me like poison.

“I screwed up.” Her eyes turn pleading. “And I hurt my best friend in the process.”

What sucks most is that Jackie had been my closest friend.

I’d been ten years old when my dad died and she’s the one who sat up in tree house with me for hours while I sobbed like a little girl.

I still remember what it felt like to have her scrawny arms wrapped tightly around me, holding onto me for dear life as if I might float away if she didn’t anchor me to the earth.

I can picture her sitting on one of our lawn chairs while I slapped thousands of hockey pucks at the net in our driveway, attempting to channel all of my anger and rage toward something other than the drunk asshole who stole my father from me.

Later on in middle school, I made sure no one messed with her.

Even though I wasn’t a fighter, I kicked anyone’s ass who gave her shit.

Somewhere toward the end of my sophomore year in high school, I realized that Jackie was the girl I wanted to be with and that what I felt for her went beyond friendship.

It’s the reason her betrayal cut to the bone and hurt like hell.

Maybe it still does.

I suck in a deep breath as another tear rolls down her cheek. There’s nothing that makes me feel more helpless than female tears. Even though I know the magic words that what would make them stop, I can’t force myself to say them.

“I can’t do this right now. I’m sorry.”

The only positive in this situation is that my mom isn’t here. She’d probably want to have an impromptu therapy session so we could discuss our feelings in a healthy manner and come to a resolution.

No, thanks.

Her tongue darts out to moisten her lips. “Cole?—”