Only One (10 page)

“What are you thinking about?” She sounded out of breath from dancing.

“Nothing.”

“Yes, you were. You get this little crease between your eyes.” Her index finger suddenly pressed softly down between my eyes. “when you’re thinking really hard. Cole?” she asked again.

“I was thinking of Hannah.”

“Oh,” she sounded slightly disappointed as she lay back.

I hovered over her a tad, needing to see her reaction. “Truth is I want to kiss you, Belly, but I can’t.”

Surprise crossed over her features, but she smiled and touched my arm. “It’s okay, Cole. I’m not really ready for anything heavy right now.”

Well that sucked.

I lay back down in the sand, placing my hands behind my head for support. Annabelle was watching me and I knew she was wondering about me and thinking hard about something. Then she did the unexpected—she pulled my one of my hands out and lay next to me with her head on my chest.

I swallowed my tongue—not really, but it felt like it. Having her that close excited the hell out of me, but also scared the shit out of me at the same time. I was so afraid to open up my arms, to lose control and fall for her all over again.

“God, Cole, it’s just like old times, huh?”

I held her closer, kissing the top of her head. “Yeah, just like old times.” And she was right. We used to come down here and lie down for hours looking at the stars and listening to the waves crash onto the beach after drinking a couple of stolen beers. Only this time it was harder holding back my intentions, my desires, like it had been when we were younger. She was always spoken for and usually so was I back in high school. Being raised as close as we were, I held her all the time like this, like it was nothing, but tonight felt different. Like finally Belly was coming back to me.

We continued to reminisce and star gaze through the night, not once breaking the grip I had on her. “Cole?”

“Hmm?” I murmured as my hand slid up and down her back, stroking her like she was mine.

“Let’s sleep out here tonight? It’s so beautiful.”

“Um,” I hesitated briefly thinking about Hannah and reversing the situation. Would it piss me off? It would, but I’m not sure how much I cared. “Yeah, sure. I guess.”

What the hell was I thinking?

Annabelle

After hours of watching Cole up on the roof wearing nothing but low slung cargo shorts, I’d had about all I could take. I went back inside to take a shower and get ready for our dinner tonight. He was taking me out to one of our families’ favorite seafood restaurants. I couldn’t lie, I was slightly nervous about having to make conversation for a few hours, but I had promised myself to try harder after seeing the progress we had made. I planned to head west after summer and I wanted him to know that I was not leaving for good. That I did plan on coming back to our hometown someday.

Everything down here was pretty casual, so I threw on a pair of my favorite shorts and a silk blouse. I dusted my nose with some powder, trying to hide the redness from the sun, and then applied a bit of mascara and lip-gloss before heading out.

I heard the shower running from inside his room and pulled his door shut so he wouldn’t be bothered by all the noise my brother and his friends were making downstairs playing video games. When I started downstairs a whistle from below caused me to stop in my tracks. AJ shot a nasty look to the side, confirming it was his friend Brian doing the gawking.

“AJ, Cole and I are stepping out for dinner for a bit. Will you boys be okay? Can I order y’all a pizza and wings?”

He nodded, but didn’t say anything. I placed the order and got the total so I could leave the money for them to pay.

I waited another forty minutes for Cole to finally emerge from his room. The boys had already started in on the food that arrived five minutes prior. “Hey, there. I thought maybe you fell asleep.” I bent down to buckle the strap to the wedges I was going to wear. “You about ready to go?”

He didn’t respond, so I pushed my hair aside to see if he was paying attention, but he just stared at me. “Cole?”

“I’ll be right back.”

I stood there watching him abruptly walk out the patio doors and down to the beach. He’d left me completely and utterly dumbfounded.

Cole

The extra long, cold shower hadn’t worked. I’d had to adjust myself when she bent over and her cleavage popped out some as she put her shoes on. And that hair. Damn, I’d never get that image of her bent over, all that long, beautiful brown hair hanging low enough to touch the curve of her waist.

Taking her to dinner to the one place we both loved was stupid, since it was all too familiar for us. Tonight was either going to ruin me or fix me. I just had one thing I needed to clear up first before I could move forward to what could be only known as my own personal hell within the hour. But I couldn’t back down now. I had nothing to lose.

With my back to the house, fully aware that Annabelle was most likely standing up there, trying to figure out why I bailed so quickly, I pulled out my phone.

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Cole! Oh, thank god. I’ve been calling you the last few days. I even called your mom. Did you get my messages?” I chose to ignore the fact that she phoned my mama trying to nail my whereabouts down, since I felt like slime at the moment.

“Yeah, I did. Listen, um…I need to talk to you and I’m just going to tell you and be honest with ya. So, here it goes—I know it’s a dick move, but I have to do it now or I’ll feel even worse later.” I paused to take a breath. “I don’t want to see you the way we’ve been. I can’t date you anymore, Hannah.”

Dead silence.

“I’m sorry. What did you say?”

I paced back and forth on the beach, glancing up to the house every few seconds. “Listen, I wasn’t honest with you when we got together or for all those months we were dating.” I paused.
Here goes nothing
. “I can love. I do have a heart. I know you always doubted it. I have to tell you, and I’m sorry, but it’s never going to be yours, so I need to end this now before I string you along any farther.”

I waited for her to scream, but for a brief few seconds there was only silence.

“Where are you?” she finally asked.

“The beach.”

“With her?”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.”

“I love Annabelle. Hell, I’ve always loved her. I can’t even remember a time I didn’t.”

“You cheated on me.” She’d stated it like it had just been confirmed, like maybe she’d suspected it already happened.

“No, I didn’t. That’s not the kind of man I am. Hannah, I never told you that I loved you. I never made you any promises. But I always promised myself that if Belly was ready for me, then I’d make myself ready for her.”

I heard the sniffles through the phone. “So now she’s ready for you all of a sudden, so you just jump?”

I ran my hand through my hair, feeling awful that I was making her cry. “I don’t know, but I’m about to find out.”

“You’re an asshole.”

I deserved that, and maybe even something else. “I’m truly sorry, Hannah. I have to follow my heart,” I admitted, knowing full well, that that blow had to sting, considering that was the one thing she wanted that I could never give her. The sound of silence for the next several seconds alerted me that she disconnected the call. I swiped my phone off and stuffed it back into my pocket.

Looking up, I saw Annabelle standing in the big, window, ruffling Brian’s hair.

Let’s do this, Cole
.

The ride to the restaurant felt awkward but I felt lighter, since I was no longer in a relationship with another woman.

We were seated immediately at a small round table tucked in the back of the restaurant. It was like the gods were favoring my side, giving us the privacy I needed with her. She diligently studied the menu over and over as I waited for her to come up for some air. We both knew what she always got here, so I knew she was just as nervous as I was about being alone.

The bottle of wine I had ordered came a few minutes later, and then we placed our order. The server never ID’d either one of us, so I just went with it. Belly ordered her typical coconut shrimp. I ordered my typical steak with a side of crab legs.

“So, tell me about California. I want to know everything.” I figured I’d start with a topic she liked to settle her nerves down.

She gulped her water down before looking at me. “I told you already. It’s boring. Why don’t you tell me about football and what college is like.”

I shrugged. “College is fun. Hard work, but I’ve made some good friends on the team.”

“Was Hannah your first girlfriend there?”

I couldn’t help but smile. She was going in for the kill. “No. I mean, she was technically the only one I saw more than a few times. Most of them rolled in at night and out the next morning.” I ripped a chunk of bread from the basket and dunked it into the oil on a saucer. Her mouth hung open in surprise. “What else do you want to know about my love life?”

“Never mind.” She cleared her throat and threw me a small, barely there smile. She shifted, resting her arms on the table. “What’s your coach like?” She took a piece of bread and bit into it.

I leaned my elbows on the table. “You really want to sit here and talk about my coach?”

She pouted. “I guess not. I’m just trying.”

“I know you are, Belly. You don’t need to try so hard.” I reached across the table and took her hand in mine. “Tell me about California. Mama called me the night you came back. I didn’t like what I heard, so I stayed away.”

“What do you mean?” She looked crushed, but she didn’t pull away.

“She told me how your mama almost fell over right there in the baggage claim at the weight you lost. Why? Why would you do that?”

She turned her head away from me.

“Look at me, Belly. Why?”

“I had to, Cole. The competition is fierce out there. You don’t understand.”

“You think I don’t understand competition? Darling, look at who you are talking to?”

It was easy to see the lump in her throat as she swallowed. “It’s a different pressure. There are contracts and people telling you that you’re fat when you barely wear a size two. If I didn’t do as they said, I didn’t get the parts or get the photos in the magazine. I didn’t make it. I couldn’t come home without making something of myself.”

“I get that. I do, but isn’t there a way to stay healthy and just be real good at acting to get the part? I mean you’re too pretty for people to turn down having you in their magazines. They’re crazy if they do.” I dropped her hand and sat back in my chair. “I don’t want that life for you. I want you to do what you love, but, Belly, how can you love something that makes those demands on you?”

“Can we talk about something else, please?”

Letting her off the hook for the time being, I stared into her eyes, hoping she’d be honest with me. “So, you were dating your agent. Was he the only one, or were there more?”

Annabelle growled, literally growled at my question. “No, just Aaron. Next topic please.”

“All right.” Just as I was about to test the waters our food was delivered. Belly stayed perfectly content not speaking and cutting each shrimp into tiny pieces to keep her mouth occupied from talking. I finished my steak before she was even on shrimp three. I placed a crab leg on her plate like I always did. That got me a small smile.

She went to reach for my nutcracker to bust open that crab leg, but I grabbed her hand instead.

“I need to tell you something about earlier.”

“O…kay,” she said slowly, unsure of what was on my mind.

“I think you need to know that I broke it off with Hannah before dinner.”

“What?”

“Hannah and me. We’re over. I don’t love her, and I was done pulling her along for a ride that was going nowhere.”

“Oh, well, if it makes you happy then good for you.” She pulled back some and stood. “I’ll be right back. I need to use the bathroom.”

Fuck! That was so far from the reaction I was hoping for and I knew I was running out of time. I had three more days until my father expected me home and back on the job site. Ten minutes later, Annabelle emerged from her hiding spot. She took her seat when I pulled out her chair for her and tucked it back under the table.

“Everything all right?”

“Mmm, hmm,” she mumbled with a smile.

I wanted to say something, anything that would make her figure out what it was that I wanted, but didn’t want to do it in a restaurant with the knowledge it might end in disaster. So I made my game plan as she finished her shrimp and wine.

After a twenty-minute ride with neither of us talking, we pulled inside the garage and I turned off the engine. Belly started to jump down, but I reached out for her. “Let’s go for a late night swim?”

“Cole…”

“Please, Annabelle? Just a swim.”

She licked her lips, which almost threw my brilliant plan out the window, because the only thing I could think of was kissing her, tasting her.

“All right, Cole. I’ll meet you outside in ten.”

I nodded. We both went inside to our rooms. Quickly, before heading out, I grabbed a bottle of white wine that I had seen in the fridge earlier. I uncorked it and grabbed two plastic wine glasses and headed out. The wine was poured, the moon full, the stars above our heads were all I needed for my plan to kick itself into gear. Annabelle slowly walked down the patio steps. Her bathrobe was tied so tight I had to hold back a laugh. “I poured you some wine.”

Her eyes shifted to the bottle and glasses. “Thanks.” She turned to untie the robe and my imagination started running wild about what she had on, or quite possibly didn’t have on. The cotton slipped off one shoulder and then the next, before it pooled to her feet. Annabelle turned around and I burst out laughing, unable to hold it in. She was wearing a Speedo suit that she only wore when she was doing her laps. She was all covered up. Not even a little cleavage.

“What’s so funny?”

“You. Now get that fine ass you’re trying to hide in the water.” I slapped my hand down, splashing some up.