Cole: The Wounded Sons by Leah Sharelle (recommended ebook reader .TXT) 📕

“I will be right back,” she told us, smiling at the three of us, not giving Cole any special attention.

What the hell is wrong with her? Is she a nun? An alien? Taking a vow of celibacy?

I was in the middle of trying to figure it out when a thought occurred to me. A horrible, gut-wrenching thought.

Surely he didn’t sleep with her and forget about it too? About to get up and leave, Thayer decided to speak, this time without a mouthful of beer.

“So, you’re Cole,” Thayer accused, not asked, her eyes narrowed at him.

“I am, yes. And judging by the daggers you are shooting me, am I right to presume that Oaklee has filled you in on what happened five days ago?” Cole’s deep voice didn’t hold any anger or annoyance that Thayer knew about our encounter or that she was glaring at him.

Interesting.

“Yep,” Thayer grunted, her hands fisting on the table. A knowing grin split my mouth, and suddenly some of the unease and tension unravelled just a bit. Sitting back in my seat, I let Thayer have the spotlight.

“Tell me if I have this wrong, Cole,” Thayer drawled, leaning forward, “basically what happened is you had crazy, wild, mattress-pounding sex with my bestie. The next morning, you acted like Oaklee had the plague and then took off for five days, forgetting that you rocked my best friend’s world.”

My smirk fell, and a high-pitched shriek left my lips.

“Thayer! What the hell! Don’t tell him that!” My protest was just as loud as the music playing around us.

“What … it’s true.” Thayer shrugged. “Oaklee, you said the earth shifted, and angels sang, that’s what you told me.”

“You, Thayer! I told you that, not him,” I argued, wishing that a crack would suddenly open at my feet and swallow me whole.

“Well, to be fair to Thayer here, you did say I was better than any of your dreams you’d had about me,” Cole added and not helpfully. He turned to look at me, his blinding smile holding me captive. His comment might have been meant to be a joke or to diffuse the tension at the table, but there was nothing jovial about the flare of heat in his inky eyes that were staring right at me, seeing far more than I wanted him to.

He was better than my dreams, he did rock my world, and heavens above, he surely did pound me into the mattress.

Damn him.

“This isn’t funny, Cole,” I seethed at him, “I would rather that you don’t sit with us, please.” The pained expression that crossed his face for a brief second nearly had me changing my mind, but it left quickly only to be replaced with a stubborn lift of his chin.

“No,” Cole clipped, at the same time as Thayer. Her for different reasons than Cole, I smartly concluded, going by her smile.

“Oaklee,” my friend sighed, finally taking her eyes off Cole and looking at me with a look that told me I had a lecture coming my way.

Marvellous.

“For five days, you have been stressing over that night and what went wrong. You even blamed yourself for him forgetting a few times—”

Cole hissed in a breath, his leg against mine went taut.

“What! Fuck no, you didn’t,” he yelled, looking from Thayer then to me. His face was thunderous and damn if that didn’t turn me on.

“Oaklee, no,” Cole repeated, grabbing my arm, his long fingers digging into my bare skin, the pressure didn’t hurt, but it was enough to make me begin to tremble. My arms were still quite skinny, not skeletal like they used to be, but thin enough that his fingers reached around the entire arm to touch. Now I knew that was a stupid thought considering I was naked on top and under him at one point, but the room had been dark and his focus was dumbed by the alcohol. Tonight he appeared very sober and aware.

If Cole noticed how thin my arm was, he didn’t give any indication; he just looked at me, guilt etched all over his face.

“Baby, we really need to talk somewhere other than here,” he muttered quietly, still not letting go of his hold on me.

I had come to terms with my new weight, slowly putting on enough that I didn’t stand out in a crowd. Not classed as the anorexic girl any longer, but that didn’t stop the tiny familiar trickle of dread shoot down my spine. The counsellors helped me with coping skills whenever I felt overwhelmed or uncomfortable in a social setting like I was now. Unable to move the arm Cole had hold of, I used my other one to grab a napkin off the table and began to roll it up in my hand, squeezing my fingers around it as if my life depended on it.

Again, if Cole noticed, he wasn’t letting on, but Thayer did, and my bestie knew my signs and triggers and how to deal with this. Flipping out her hand, Thayer knocked her newly delivered glass of beer over, sending the liquid pooling over Cole’s side of the table. Letting me go, he stood up and calmly, without commotion, reached for a handful of napkins from the holder and started sopping up the mess, giving me time to get my breathing and mind under control. Concentrating on the napkin in my fist, I closed my eyes and brought up the vision of me standing in front of the mirror this morning and the chant I repeated every time I stood there in my underwear.

No bones are sticking out; your face is not gaunt, your skin is not sagging. You ate breakfast and didn’t throw it up.

Repeating my routine mantra silently in my head, I felt Thayer watching me, waiting for the sign that I made it through the panic attack.

Unclenching my fingers, the balled-up piece of paper fell from my hand and down to the table, the tightening in my chest released, my breaths returning