I nod and wipe my face in my sleeve, “In pancake pajamas,” I mumble.
He smiles and drags me into his chest, kisses my head. “I love your pajamas, and they were the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
I wrap my arms around his narrow waist and feel his warm skin against my face. I should probably apologize for being so obnoxious and searching his home like a psycho.
“I know I did this. I’ll do a better job of making you feel secure, okay?”
“You don’t have to do that,” I speak into his chest.
“I want to.”
“Why do you leave every night?” I ask while my face is still buried, and he can’t see it. Part of me wants to quit while I’m ahead, but the other part wants to conquer the mountain and send the insecure, sniveling, whining girl inside to her grave.
He takes a deep breath, then sits on the edge of the bed and pulls me onto his lap. I swallow hard, sniffle, and Cole helps to wipe away my tears while I will myself to pull up my big girl panties.
“I’ve never spent the night with anyone else. It was always just sex. I don’t know where we are, Em, and…” He pauses and thinks a second, “I’m fucking terrified.”
“Of me?” I can’t help but let out a laugh.
“Yes, of you,” he wipes another tear away and pushes a strand of hair that’s stuck to my face away, “you scare the shit out of me.”
All these years, I felt like he had all the power. He was the one who left, and I was the one rejected. To hear Cole say these words now, it feels like we are on the same page again, being honest and raw with one another again.
“I’m scared, too,” I admit to him. “I don’t know what’s going to happen or if this will work. What if I’m always afraid you’re going to leave again?”
I can’t go through that again.
“I won’t. I know I left, and I take all the responsibility for it. I was young and stupid, but that doesn’t make it okay. But, I was always with you, Em. I never changed my phone number so you could always call if you needed me. My email is the same. I tried so hard to let you know I was always here. I was wrong to leave, but it was always you.”
He kisses me sweetly, then stands and takes my hand. “I want to show you something.”
Cole leads us out of his bedroom, across the hall, to the room with his trophies and helmets. Sleek glass custom cabinets hold what appears to be a hundred or so helmets, dozens of trophies from around the world, and empty bottles of champagne from podium ceremonies.
He pulls the first one off the top cabinet on the left and hands it to me. “My first F3 race, Donington Park. I was just a teenager.”
I move it around in my hands, inspecting the Union Jack design. I can see why it’s special to him, but I don’t get his point. “I don’t understand.”
He rotates the helmet and taps where his name is emblazoned along the middle. I study it closer. Where his finger is, I see EW in chrome, blended into the design. You’d never see it if you weren’t looking.
“My initials?” I glance up at Cole.
He puts the helmet back, moves a few paces down the cabinet case, and pulls another helmet off. “My first F1 race, Melbourne. I was twenty-one then.”
I take it from him and look all over. Finally, I see it, EW, in a slightly darker blue than the other colors.
“Barcelona, I was twenty-four,” he hands me the next one, and I find the same. Four or five more helmets, he shows me my initials on every single one, over all these years, across all these continents.
Here I thought he wasn’t as sentimental as I am.
“Cole,” I whisper, another godforsaken tear running down my cheek and making my eyes sting. This is not the same variety of tears, though.
“It was always you, baby. Always.”
Wrapping my arms around his broad shoulders, I press my lips to his and feel his strong arms pull me in. We’re clinging to one another, pulling and gripping, like our lives depend on it. There’s a hint of morning coffee on his tongue as it parts my mouth, and I open to let him explore.
When his face drops to the curve of my neck, licking and sucking, my tears are replaced with an overwhelming need to be closer and closer to him. Lifting one leg up, he slides a hand down and hoists me around his waist. My legs instinctively wrap around him.
He pushes me up against the door, our kisses so desperate we bang into a display case on the way. The way he’s kissing me, possessing me, I know he feels it. I know he’s rig