My brows furrow. “Eli, I—”
“—It’s only a phone, Rory. Use it, don’t, that’s your choice, but now you’ll know this is at least an option.”
Why do I get the feeling what he’s just said carries double meaning?
My mouth parts, words at the ready.
“Don’t overthink it,” he rushes out, sensing my unease.
I suck in a gust of air.
Don’t overthink it.The exact words Cole has told me what feels like dozens of times. At his house, on a notecard inside the jeep, endlessly, the words echo in his smug tone. Ringing as they buzz in my mind.
My hold tightens around the box. Is that what I’m doing now?
I exhale past the anxiety. “Thank you. This is thoughtful.” Fluttering my lashes with all the relief I don’t feel inside.
Gauging my reaction, his stare stays pensive. The edges of my mouth hook higher. The confidence I don’t have pours into every crevice of my deceitful face.
My shoulders want to drop with relief, but I refuse to let them when his gaze finally does soften. Refusing to give in to the lie.
He bought it.
That familiar sense of easiness that I can only ever associate with Eli settles in.
His feet shift. “I—uh, thought I’d give you that before you head out.”
I thank him again before he disappears off to the weight room.
Only after he’s gone do I drop the facade. The box no bigger than the size of a dollar bill width and lengthwise. About an inch in height and it feels like a fifty-pound brick in my palm.
It should be telling of how many wires are loose inside my head if a gift given only out of consideration screws me up this bad.
“Little early for Christmas.”
The comment as mocking as it is belittling.
My eyes close on their own accord. Cole’s presence is as consuming as his silence swaggered steps when he’d approached.
When I open them again, his oversized frame is within inches of my own. He’s comfortable being this close, I’m not.
At least he isn’t looking at me directly, but down at what’s in my hands instead.
“Don’t you think?” Eyes slanting as he speaks.
I feel him everywhere, his shadow my own.
Physically we’re close, yet distance-wise we’re miles from where we’d been before. The rubble we’d grown from was destroyed in a single confession.
The memory pinches at my throat and tugs at my heartstrings.
“I think it’s none of your business,” I say with too much resilience. My lips thinning around my teeth.
Cole reaches for me, but I misinterpret it after the fact. Shaking him off when he’d really been going for the box. Either way, it doesn’t matter now, I’m already walking away.
“What is that?” A low rumble thunders over my shoulder. “What did Eli give you?”
The question as rhetorical as this conversation. I know he’s seen the picture of the phone on the cover. Cole notices everything.