“You know rusty? Big red?” I tried again, enunciating the words. “Lobster?”
“What are you talking about?”
Did I have to spell it out for him?
“Madison,” I say. “That’s why you were there, wasn’t it?”
The lines in his forehead crease, mouth twisting with disdain. “Do you think I give a full-fledged diarrhea shit—how she gets home?”
A pitter-patter form sounds in my chest when his eyes go flat. Cole was only staring but it felt like he was breathing straight down my neck. His gaze consuming, intense.
My brain a jumbled mess of confusion.
“That’s a shitty thing to say about your girlfriend.”
“She’s indifferent.” Dismissively waving his hand. “An easy fuck, to fill my time with.”
Ouch. I didn’t have to berate her. Cole seemed to have a grasp on that all his own. I mean, I didn’t like her any more than the next person but still. That’s cold, even for him.
“Sounds like boyfriend of the year material,” I deadpan.
His mouth creased. Repeating the word boyfriend like it was a disease.
“You know, the word for someone who is in a relationship with someone else?”
“I know what it means,” he spits out.
“Do you, Iceman?” My tone was dry, dull. “Because your comment makes you sound like an asshole.”
His jaw flexed. Dipping his chin like he was aggravated. “I am an asshole.”
I shook my head and turned away. That wasn’t new information. Anyone that had the unfortunate opportunity to be in a room with him knew that.
I could feel his anger sweltering, like the sun in late summer. The longer our silence grew, the thicker it became.
My gaze at the window when he speaks again.
“Christ.” He curses, voice still defensive but more sober. “Madison’s not my girlfriend. She likes tothinkshe is but never has been.”
Blood pumped through my heart. Thickening my veins.
“Why?” The single word falling out in a whisper.
A swirl of emotions twisting inside at his confession. My soul stayed quiet, waiting for the answer. When he was silent for too long, my nerves got the better of me.
I looked over and our eyes locked. All the air leaving my lungs.
His tongue runs along his teeth. “I need you to stay the hell away from me, Rory.” That single sentence fracturing me apart more than it should.
His focus goes back to the road. Posture as tense as his hold on the steering wheel. Cole was never not confident. When he decided something, it stuck.
My tongue swelled in my mouth.
“When you’re around me I don’t—can’t think rationally.” Cole’s voice cracked but his face was a mixture of fury and rage. “You make me irrational and that’s something I can’t afford to lose.”
A lump formed in my throat. The rawness of his truth, making my head spin. I’ve accustomed him with hatred and wrath that this shift unsettles me. His bluntness hurting more than him telling me to leave.
I felt Cole’s gaze on me the rest of the way, but I don’t break my stare from the window. The quiet around us was loud.