Page 35 of Tempted Hearts
He actually laughed at that. “Old Cole? Who’s the new one?”
I thought back. Was it the night we talked? No, maybe before that.
“I dunno. At some point the day you came I realized you weren’t spawned from the devil.”
“Did you now?” he teased.
“Yes. And don’t avoid the question.”
He was looking at my lips. Blinking, Cole sat back in his seat, stared out to sea and sighed.
“Go on,” he said, as if resigned. “Tell me the difference between ‘new’ and ‘old’ Cole. Last I noticed, there was only one of me.”
Easy. “Old Cole looked at me like I was a bug crawling out from under a rock. New Cole noticed I was a ladybug, and not so scary.”
“A ladybug?”
I nodded, warming up to the topic. “New Cole has nicknames for me. And talks”—this was a biggie—“into the night. Old Cole clams up, hardly says a word and gets a new room, without even talking to me about it.”
There. All in the open.
“I got the impression you wanted separate rooms.”
How did he get that impression, exactly? I’d already said too much. Letting Cole know I was disappointed about our new room arrangement was one thing. Harping on it… entirely another.
“How would you have a clue? You basically stopped talking to me.”
“You wanna talk?”
I nodded.
“Then let’s talk.”
Just like that, new Cole was back. If I were a ladybug, he was a turtle. Cole had come back out of his shell, but it was still there, and there was no telling when he’d retreat back inside.
More importantly, why.
15
COLE
“Let’s go find that focaccia place.”
It had been difficult to pull ourselves away from the scenic overlook, but so far the only thing we’d seen of Riomaggiore was a massive set of steps and a bar. After gingerly navigating Juliette’s obvious frustration with me, I allowed myself a bit of slack. I reminded myself that getting to know her, allowing for proper conversation, didn’t mean we needed to end up in bed together. In fact, it couldn’t. I’d all but promised Parker to behave, and I would.
But I didn’t typically befriend women I was attracted to. This was new, and not necessarily comfortable, territory. But keeping my distance had only served to piss her off, and rightly so.
“For dinner?” I asked as we attempted to follow the signs into town.
“No, silly. Dinner isn’t for another few hours. We’re in Italy, remember. You can’t eat dinner at six o’clock.”
Silly. I was fairly certain no one in my life had ever called me that.
“My stomach would argue that point.”
“Which is why we should find the focaccia place. For anaperitivo.”
Anaperitivowas a drink, but I didn’t correct her. Mason not so gently told me once I didn’t need to share every piece of knowledge that popped into my head. And he was right.
