“And after?”
Right. He’d never spent more than an hour or so working through problems with Max. Serena stabbed out wildly. “It doesn’t matter. Let him play video games if you want, or turn on some cartoons.” Max never got screen time until he was done with his homework, but she wasn’t going to bring that up—not when Cole was doing her a favor. When he was stepping about a million miles outside his comfort zone for her. “Please.”
She held her breath.
But then, finally, he sighed. “Bloody hell. Fine.”
All the air rushed out of her lungs in a whoosh. “Thank you, thank you. I swear I will make this up to you.”
She’d make him a whole set of china, or take him out to dinner, or—well, she had a variety of ways of showing her appreciation these days, didn’t she? He seemed unreasonably fond of her mouth in particular...
Before she could go on about all her plans for paying him back, a knock sounded on her door. She jerked her head up, stilling her pacing. Oh man, she hated when parents were early. Tilting the phone away from her mouth, she smiled at them, welcoming them in. “I’ll be with you in just one second.” Returning to Cole, she said, “Sorry, I need to go. You’ve got this, though, right?”
“Have them ring me when they’re here.” It came out strangled, and her heart panged.
Fervently, she said, “Thank you.”
Without another word, he ended the call. Something was still off there, but he was doing this for her. It was all she could ask.
Hoping for the best, she fired off a quick text to Penny to let her know what was going on. Then she pocketed her phone and put on her best, most reassuring smile as she moved to shake her next set of parents’ hands.
She had a job to do, and she would focus on that as opposed to the drama that might be playing out at her apartment any minute now.
Besides, who knew? This could be good for everyone. Penny might get the job, and Cole might see that hanging out with a kid alone wasn’t really that bad. He’d see she trusted him.
What was the worst that could happen?
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Come on up.” Cole’s voice came out raspy and raw, and a cold shudder of anxiety made its way up his spine. Releasing the button for the intercom, he shifted to press the one beside it. He waited until he heard the door downstairs swing open before letting go.
He stood there for at least another thirty seconds, eyes closed and hands numb. When he lifted his head, his vision spun.
He sucked in an aching breath.
He could do this. He had to. He’d promised Serena, and Max was charging up the stairs to her apartment right now and would beat Cole even if he left his own apartment this very instant. He had to go. Now.
Mechanically, he forced his legs to move.
At the threshold to his apartment, he leaned down to grab his bag, fingers death-grip tight around the strap, and with the other, he reached instinctively for his crutch.
Except—
Except he didn’t need that anymore, did he? His therapist had told him he’d let himself be dependent on it for too long. Relying on it had held him back, and so what if his knee was killing him? Twenty-four hours without the thing, and it had felt like a week, every step more labored than the last. Now he was supposed to make it down the stairs, even though those last few dozen steps had nearly pushed him over the edge after his appointment the day before.
His free hand twitched again. His crutch was right there. Would it be admitting defeat so much to lean on it for just one more trip?
He curled his fingers into a fist. Yes. It would. He wasn’t going backward anymore; he wasn’t standing still.
He was going down to Serena’s flat, and he was letting Max in, and they were going to study math. It would all be normal. The boy was nearly a teenager already—even Cole couldn’t cock this up too badly.
Pulse pounding, he let his hand uncurl. He opened the ruddy door.
Jesus. Each step he took down the stairs sent sharp jolts of pain shooting through his leg. It’d been achy enough before, but there was a low fire building now. He very nearly turned around. But clenching his jaw, he soldiered on.
By the time he made it to the final flight, it felt like bone grinding on bone. He turned the corner to find not only Max standing beside Serena’s door but Penny as well, looking a damn sight better than she had the last time he’d seen her. Drawing himself to his full height, he fought to keep the pain from showing on his face, but at least a fraction of it must have bled through.
She stepped forward, the little lines between her brows so much like her sister’s. “Are you all right?”
“Spiffing.”
She didn’t give him bloody space enough to breathe as he crossed the landing toward the door. Apparently that was a thing with this family. Hovering, she babbled, “Thank you so much for doing this. I can’t tell you how much it means to me...”
His own irritation with himself grew and grew. He’d been short with Serena on the phone already. All this time he’d been telling her to lean on him, and this one time she did, he’d been an arse about it. But everything hurt. He’d scarcely slept and he wanted to punch his physical therapist in the throat. He was tired and aching, and she knew. Serena knew.
She knew how terrifying this was for him.
And yet she asked it of him anyway. She was inviting disaster and there wasn’t a thing he could do.
Penny came a little bit too close to him, and that warning haze of crimson crowded his vision. He fumbled with his keys, dropping the whole lot of them, and he swore out loud.
Max whistled. “Does Aunt Rena make you put dollars in the swear jar, too?”
“I’d like to see her try,” he muttered.
Fucking hell, it was murder crouching down. Penny bent forward at the same time, and their heads crashed together. A shock of pain spread through his skull. He shot up, biting off a whole string of curses that would’ve put the last one to shame, and his knee screamed.
“Sorry, sorry.” Penny’s hands fluttered, and she was in his space; he couldn’t breathe. He wanted to shove her away, wanted her to go.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” he snapped.
She blinked, expression dumb. “Yes, but...” She gestured inarticulately at Max.
“I’ve got him.”
Her brow crinkled. “Are you sure you do?”
He wanted to throw his hands up in the air. No. Of course he wasn’t bloody sure. He’d tried to tell everyone he wasn’t sure. But Serena had asked him to do this for her and so he would, goddammit all. “I’ve got it,” he said, too short.
Ducking between them, Max retrieved the fallen keys and held them out for Cole to take. He plucked the little green one with the daisies that Serena had given him from the ring and finally got the bloody door unlocked.
“See?” he said, pushing it open and gesturing inside. “All sorted.”
She hesitated, teeth digging into her lip. “Okay. If you need me to come back, though...”
His heart spasmed with her echo of doubt. Serena was blinded, but apparently her sister saw him for what he was. Apparently, she knew the score.
He made a choked, wet sound in the back of his throat and waved her away. Casting backward glances at him, mumbling yet more thanks, she took off, leaving Cole and Max alone.
He wasn’t sure if that made him relax or if it set him even more on edge.
They went inside, and Max took off his jacket. Expression curious, he looked Cole up and down. “What happened to your crutches?”
“Don’t need them anymore.” Ha.
“Cool.”
Cole wanted nothing more than to collapse into one of Serena’s comfortable chairs, but she’d given him a job to do. Once Max had hung up his things, Cole gestured toward the kitchen table. Max groaned but went where Cole told him to.
Cole set down his messenger bag and his mobile, then got busy doing everything else Serena had told him to. A package of
mediocre biscuits in the cabinet and a glass of milk for the kid. He started tea for himself, then sat down with a groan. There wasn’t a decent place to rest his knee here. Perhaps they could do this somewhere else, except Max wasn’t supposed to be eating anywhere but at the table.
Max gazed at him over his glass of milk. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.” And it came out too sharp. He took a deep breath. “Just...I’m not feeling well.”
“Is that why you’re making tea?” He was spitting milk and biscuit crumbs everywhere, and the spring inside Cole’s chest wound tighter. “Aunt Rena always tries to make me tea when I’m sick, and it’s gross, but—” He kept babbling until Cole cut him off.
“I’m making tea because I’m British.” What was wrong with children in this country? “And it’s not gross.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“No, it’s bloody well not.” God, he was trying to argue with a ten-year-old. Was he mad? He reached into his bag for something to do, pulling out the problem sets he and Max had been going through, as well as the notebook with his own work. Later, when Max was entertaining himself, he might be able to make some progress there, God willing. “Come along. What did we leave off with last time? Geometry?”
“Uuuuuugh,” Max groaned theatrically, and Cole gained a whole new appreciation for what Serena put up with every day at her job. “I hate geometry.”
“You’ve barely met geometry.”
Things just devolved from there. Every problem elicited another round of whining until Cole was at his wit’s end.
“You’re not usually such a brat when your aunt’s around,” he muttered.
“I’m not a brat.”
No, not usually he wasn’t, but today...
Cole’s knee screamed at him as he pushed his chair out. The kettle wasn’t quite to a rolling boil yet, but it was close enough. He got out one of Serena’s mugs and the proper tea he’d smuggled into her stash. He poured the water and turned back around toward the table.
“I need to go to the bathroom.” Max set his glass down with a clunk, shoving back from the table—straight into Cole’s leg, and Cole buckled.
His whole world went white with pain. Fuck, Jesus fuck, it was like the day on the train all over again, like that arsehole standing over him and slamming a foot down into Cole’s knee.
The mug flew out of his hand, hot water everywhere, a scalding splash spattering Cole’s chest and his arm, more flying forward across the floor. The ceramic hit the tile with a crash.
“Fuck, fucking fuck fuck buggering fuck.” Cole caught himself against the edge of the table, and there were shards of pottery crackling underfoot, his knee was a throbbing mass, his shirt clinging to him and boiling him alive.
For a shivering, impossible second, everything was silent but for the pounding of his pulse inside his skin, the rush of a breath and another.
A tiny voice came out from beneath him. “I am so sorry...”
And he felt the crack. Red filled his vision.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” His ribs heaved, his brain spinning, and he slammed his palm against the table. Raised the other hand as if to...to...
Oh God.
The broken part of his mind snapped back into place, and the force of it drove the breath from his lungs. He honestly could have...He’d nearly...
He dropped his arm. His eyes leapt into focus, and oh hell. He was standing over Max, looming even with all his height and all his bulk. Bright green eyes stared back at him, wide from behind Coke-bottle lenses, and it wasn’t glass underneath his feet. He wasn’t stepping on a little boy’s spectacles, but he could have been. In another instant he could have become those boys, the ones who had stood over him and taunted him and hurt him.
And how close had he been?
He curled his fingers into his palm. Max flinched, and Cole’s veins turned to ice.
Christ. No. No.
He backed away so fast his feet slipped. His hip hit the counter behind him, and his knee was only barely holding up his weight, and he’d nearly hit a child. Not just any child, either, but this one, who had been through the same things he had—who had suffered enough. He’d raised his voice and raised his fist.
He was going to be sick.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he felt the room spin around him. He clenched his jaw shut tight around the bile at the back of his throat.
“I...I didn’t mean to—” Max started.
Cole shook his head and held out a hand. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I didn’t know you were behind me, and—”
“It. Was. Not. Your. Fault.”
It was Cole’s fault. Only Cole’s.
He’d known he couldn’t do this. Everyone should have known.
“But—”
Cole gritted his teeth. “Go to the living room, please.” He forced his eyes open. One small mercy—at least the boy was wearing shoes. “Carefully.”
“Ooookay.” There wasn’t any argument or hesitation. Only fear, and Cole hadn’t hated himself this badly in so long.
Numbly, he fetched the broom from the pantry. It was a sodden mess of shards and water that he piled in a corner of the room. When he tried to reach down with the dustpan, his knee shot off another burst of protest, and he stopped, panting, brow pressed against the smooth coolness of the wall.
“Mr. Cole?” Max’s voice was still small as he called from the other room.
Standing straight, Cole leaned the broom against the counter beside the mess. “Don’t touch any of that.”
“Okay.” He hesitated. “Can I play with my tablet?”
Serena had told Cole to tutor him on math, but that was a dream. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.
He’d been such a fool.
Nodding, he took one limping step toward the door. “I need to get something from my apartment. I want you to lock up after me, all right?”
“Why?”
“Just...” He took a deep breath. “Please.”
Max frowned. “Okay.”
It was the coward’s way out, and it was the safest thing for any of them.
How many times had he tried to warn Serena? There was something inside him that should never be trusted, something angry and wrong, and she’d let him in despite his protests. She’d entrusted him with things she never should have.
He ruined everything he touched.
And he should have known better than to have ever touched her life at all.
Of course the worst parent conference of the day had had to be the last one. Serena heaved a sigh as she stepped out of her car, shaking her irritation off the best she could. Teaching was her calling in life, and she didn’t shy away from taking her work home with her. But all the stresses? The bad moods brought on by difficult children and entitled, oblivious parents? They didn’t get to screw with her home life. Max deserved better. Her mom. Penny. Cole. They didn’t just get the dregs she had left after giving everything to other people.
She took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment and visualizing her grumpiness floating off like a balloon into the clear Midwestern sky. Weirdly enough, it wasn’t even all that hard to do. She hadn’t heard a thing from either Penny or Cole, but no news was typically good news, and a flare of optimism was a glowing ember in her chest. Penny was getting better, and she was taking steps to move on with her life, and Cole...
Cole had stepped up. He’d pushed past his fear and he’d agreed to help her out. Having someone she could lean on, someone she could depend on when she needed help...it meant the world to her.
And she was going to show him precisely how much she appreciated him tonight.
A flicker of a smile played at her lips as she climbed the stairs to her apartment. She let herself in, calling out, “Hello?”
“Hey.”
She nearly would’ve missed Max, curled up on the couch the way he was. Setting down her bag, she said, “Hey, kiddo.” She peered around the corner into the
kitchen. “Cole?”
“He left.”
“Huh?”
“He left. Like, right after we got here.”
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up on end. “Excuse me?”
She took a few steps farther into the living room, and she’d been wrong. Max wasn’t just curled up on the couch—he was curled up into himself, knees hugged tightly to his chest. His tablet game lay discarded beside him, and a hundred alarms went off in her mind.
“What happened?”
And it was like Max broke. He turned wide, glassy eyes on her, his whole face twisted. “I didn’t mean to. It was an accident, I swear.”
She was there beside him in an instant. He went into her arms without hesitation, and he was shaking, and something inside her trembled, too.
The story poured out of him then. How he’d been a brat and he’d made Mr. Cole mad, and he’d hit him with his chair by mistake; it had all been a mistake. She held him tighter as he pointed to the shattered pieces of the mug she’d made with her own two hands. Max’s and Cole’s papers were still strewn out across the table, soaked through.
“And he got really quiet, and he told me it wasn’t my fault, but then he left. I thought he’d come back, but he didn’t, and I locked the door the way he told me to, but...”
“But you’ve been alone.” Serena’s voice came out quiet and strained and foreign to her own ears. “For hours.”
“I didn’t know what to do.”
How would he have? He was a big kid now, and it wasn’t like they never left him by himself, but never for this long. Never without knowing when someone would be back. He hadn’t even had a phone; he couldn’t have called her or her mom or anyone. If there’d been an emergency...Her throat locked up with the mindless terror of it.
What had Cole been thinking?
More than once, Cole had tried to explain the anger that took him over sometimes, yet she’d never truly understood it until now. She’d been so preoccupied with her concern for her sister. She’d known she was pushing, but...
But she’d asked Cole to do one thing for her—just one thing, one afternoon, even with the promise of making it up to him later, and he’d let her down.
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