Hold the Forevers

I’d stopped after one. Getting drunk around Cole was asking to fall into his bed. As appealing as that sounded, I couldn’t go there again. I wanted to be coherent around him. It seemed safer in this new territory, where we worked at the same place and had the same group of friends.

He’d barely had anything to drink too. Nothing in the last hour.

I headed out of The Ivy with him, searching out his white Jeep on instinct.

“I upgraded,” he said, as if reading my mind.

And then we were next to his shiny, new Jeep in a bright Georgia red.

“Go Dawgs.”

He chuckled. “Sic ’em.”

“I’m over there,” I said, pointing out my black Hyundai. It wasn’t much, but my last car had died spectacularly a few months ago, and I’d needed something.

Still, I didn’t go toward my car.

“I didn’t think this would happen again,” I said

“Me neither.” He ran a hand back through his hair. “You and me in the same place.”

“I know.”

“I’m surprised that you stayed when you saw that I was here,” he said, leaning back against the Jeep.

I winced at the words. “It’s fine.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. This is fine.”

“It’s okay that we go out for drinks?” He tilted his head, the expression so familiar that my chest tightened at the sight.

God, I’d missed him so much.

I nodded.

“Lila,” he whispered. His eyes implored me to get what he was asking. To get past the bullshit and straight to the point.

Oh. I knew what he was afraid of. Not if it was okay for me to go out for drinks with him, but if it was okay for me to see him. He was asking if there was someone else still in my life. If I was still with Ash. But I didn’t even want to think of him right now when I was looking up into Cole’s face.

“Ash and I broke up.”

“I’m sorry.”

I arched an eyebrow. “No, you’re not.”

He grinned then. The first perfect smile that I’d missed so completely. “No, I’m not. Good riddance.”

I laughed then. It was so Cole.

In that moment, I wanted to kiss him so desperately.

But I held back.

Butterflies beat through my stomach. Everything felt warm and hazy and completely possible. I’d never thought that we’d make it back to this place. Had given up on that idea, but I wasn’t going to ignore it now that the opportunity had presented itself.

Cole and I had said that someday, if we were in the same place again, this could work. And I wanted to believe that the universe had finally made that happen.

20

Lake Lanier

August 1, 2015

Summer training camp was in full swing. The football players had reported to their camp in Northeast Georgia near Lake Lanier, three weeks earlier. My job was pretty much nonstop during the days, but Kristen and I had coordinated it so that we got our days off together. The team had put us up in a hotel near the facility, but she had insisted on renting a lake house, so we could actually enjoy ourselves.

Anyone else was welcome to crash at the place, which made it a rotating party house full of staff sunbathing in the August rays. Kristen knew everyone. Though some of the people were there for the training facility, many of them had driven up from Atlanta to partake.

I was in a tiny black bikini, my hair in a messy bun, with a beer in my hand as I pet my puppy, Sunny. She was a silky brown miniature dachshund, who I was mildly obsessed with. I was so focused on Sunny that I didn’t notice until the puppy abandoned me that Cole was on the deck in nothing but green board shorts. My heart leapt as he scooped up my pup. We’d been circling each other for two months. Both of us on the cusp of starting something over again and then backing off. We hadn’t discussed it, but we didn’t have to. I knew what he was thinking. That he didn’t want to get his heart ripped out again. That neither of us could survive that hurt again.

But damn, did I want it.

“Hello there,” he said, scratching Sunny’s head. “Yes, aren’t you so cute?”

I came to my feet. “She loves everyone.”

“But me most, right?” he asked the dog.

Sunny licked his face.

“What’s her name?”

I flushed. “Sunny.”

Cole’s eyes swept to mine. Heat seared between us. “Sunny, huh?”

I swallowed and nodded.

“Well, Sunny, you’re perfect.” He set her down on the ground, and she ran around in a circle before settling on my abandoned towel. He sank into a chair. “It’s so damn hot here.”

“You went off to San Francisco and got soft,” I teased.

He narrowed his eyes. “You don’t have to rub it in that I had perfect California weather for five years, and now, I’m back to drinking the air.”