I had planned to wait him out, sitting up there on the shabby blue rug until my legs went numb. But then he said that one simple word—live. Looking back on it, I’m sure Cole didn’t mean much by it; he just wanted me to jump. It got to me, though, hanging in the air like cigarette smoke, thick and unwanted, until I almost choked. Why was I still here breathing when my family was gone, their lives cut short? Would they feel as guilty as me, I thought, if it had been the other way around?
A sudden surge of anger throbbed through my body, and I yanked the blue ribbon that was holding back my bangs out of my hair. Using it like a ponytail holder, I tied my locks back before stepping up to the edge of the loft. It took me three tries to reach the rope, my stomach pressed into the railing as I leaned out into the open air, fingers stretching. When I finally had the rope in my hand, I carefully swung my legs over the side and took a deep breath.
“You got this, New York,” Cole was saying now, but I couldn’t see him because my eyes were closed tight.
This was stupid, so unbelievably stupid, and yet, I did it anyway. With one huge push, I kicked away from the banister and sliced through the air with a whoosh.
The momentum that pulled me back and forth managed to drag a string of curse words out of my mouth, and I rounded it all off with a massive, “Walter, I officially hate you!” Finally, the swinging rope slowed, but not before I lost my grip. The ground rushed up around me, and I plunged into a sea of hay.
“See?” Cole said, wading through the hay toward me as I stood up. “That wasn’t so bad.” He was clearly pleased with himself, but my stomach was still up in my throat and the scratchy, dry grass was clinging to me in a million different places. There was still some anger running through my veins, and I slammed my palms into Cole’s chest, shoving him away from me.
At least, I tried to. He barely budged. It must have been the adrenaline that made me do it.
“Don’t you ever do that to me again,” I said, my tongue sharp, trying to make up for the fact that I probably wasn’t too intimidating after the failed push. “Not ever.”
Startled by my outburst, Cole stared at me momentarily, his mouth half open. I narrowed my eyes and glared at him with as much menace as I could muster, fully expecting an apology, but then he was laughing and it wasn’t just a tiny chuckle, more of a full-bellied, hands-on-your-knees kind of laugh.
“Quit it!” I said, when he didn’t stop.
“Oh God,” he gasped, wiping away a few stray tears. “That was priceless.”
“I don’t find anything about this funny.”
“Yeah, because you couldn’t see your face. You were all ‘Grrr’ and it was adorable.”
I choked on the words that were poised on my tongue in response. Adorable. Cole Walter had just called me adorable.
“Hold up,” he said, stepping forward and reaching toward me. I reared back, but Cole kept coming, his hand reaching toward my hair. When he pulled away, there was a piece of hay between his fingers. “Got it,” he whispered.
We were so close now that I could see the tiny scar on his forehead, a small L-shaped nick just above his left eyebrow. As he stared down at me, his eyes glossy with an intense, unreadable expression, it was nice to focus on that one imperfection. Knowing that he wasn’t completely flawless made holding his gaze a little easier.
Except for the soft rustle of the horses, it was silent. It felt like one of those romantic movie moments when a guy and a girl are standing close together, just taking each other in. The room goes silent in an electrifying way, and then he starts to lean in, hesitating for a second to build the suspense. Then, in one quick moment, he closes the gap between their lips and sweeps the girl off her feet. Standing next to Cole was just like that, except for the kissing part.
“Oww!” I yelped, as an abrupt pain stung my foot. “What the hell?”
Cole looked disoriented from our near kiss, blinking at me in confusion as I hopped away from him, but when a dog with floppy ears emerged from the hay, Cole started laughing again.
“That’s Bruno—mighty hunter of mismatched socks and smelly tennis shoes.”
“He bit me,” I said, looking down at the dog. In reality, it was more of a nibble, something that didn’t hurt, but the sudden nip had been so unexpected that my heart was thumping away.
“You’re joking, right?” Cole said, squatting down to scratch the mutt behind his ear. “Bruno wouldn’t hurt a fly. Probably just thought your foot was an old shoe.”
On further inspection, Bruno did look quite harmless. He was a brown dog, yet the fur on his muzzle was white with old age. He was probably a grandpa in doggy years.
“He’d be sorta cute if I wasn’t allergic,” I said, backing away as Bruno looked up at me, tongue hanging out of his mouth.
Standing up, Cole took my hand and led me over to a section of stalls that I hadn’t noticed before because they were tucked away in the farthest corner of the stables. They were much bigger, and so were the animals within. “Are you allergic to horses?” he asked, stopping in front of a stall with a stunning gray horse. Under the light of the stables, its hair almost looked blue.