Ignoring the tingles his rough voice had inspired in her, she took a deep breath. “I was just going to put on some sweats.”
“Are you cold?” He pulled her closer to him and rolled to his side, slinging his leg over her, which brought her hip into direct contact with another part of his body that was very much awake and ready for round four.
No. She could not be distracted by that. She had to stay strong.
“Cole…”
“Hmm?” he whispered huskily as he pressed his lips to her neck.
Pleasure dripped through her body like warm honey. Closing her eyes, she started reasoning with herself that one more time wouldn’t hurt. If she just made sure he left after…
A little voice piped up that that wasn’t a good idea, and as much as she wanted to ignore said voice, she knew she couldn’t. In her heart, she knew it was time to rip the Band-Aid off.
Pushing up on her elbows, she rolled out from under Cole’s body and slid off the bed.
“What are you…?”
Julianna didn’t even look back at him. She walked straight to her dresser and pulled out a shirt, underwear, and sweats. Being the quick-change artist she was, she was fully clothed in mere seconds. Then, taking a deep breath, she turned to face the music. Or, in this case, a very nude Cole.
He sat in the middle of her bed, naked as a jaybird, his elbows resting on his knees. His expression did not look happy.
“Want to tell me what’s going on?”
No.
“Nothing,” she said dismissively as she started gathering up his clothes. “I just have to get up early in the morning to get things done before I pick up Anthony, and I do tend to oversleep when you and I spend the night together. So…”
After she grabbed his shirt and shorts, she tossed them on the bed towards him. She knew that her behavior was ridiculous, but she was scared to get near him. If she did, she would get sucked into his vortex of sexiness, and this was already one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do.
Not making any move to get dressed, Cole looked down at his clothes then back up at her. Then his eyes narrowed. “We can set an alarm. Whatever you have to take care of, I can help.”
“No. You’re just…” Julianna did not know how to handle this. She’d never been in this situation before—in an adult relationship, no matter how casual. “Too distracting. And besides, our deal ends tomorrow. There’s no reason to drag this out.” He winced at her last statement. “Okay.” Then he nodded. “I actually wanted to talk to you about that. Why does it have to end tomorrow?”
Crossing her arms, she shifted on her feet. “Because. It does.”
“Why? I care about you, Julianna, and I know you care about me.”
Cole stood, but Julianna backed up. When he saw her retreat, he stopped and his brow furrowed.
“What is this about? Why are you acting like this?”
“Can you just get dressed?” she asked as panic rose inside her and a lump formed in her throat.
Cole’s breaths were labored as he searched Julianna’s eyes, but she was careful not to let anything she was really feeling show.
“Fine.” His jaw was tense and his muscles flexed as he hastily pulled his clothes on. When he was dressed, he looked at Julianna with frustration and anger brimming in his eyes. “What’s going on?”
It felt like a stab to the chest, not seeing him look at her like she was the best thing in the world.
Clearing her throat, she sensed tears forming behind her lids, and she knew that she needed to get him out of here before they overwhelmed her.
Trying her best to appear cold and detached, she shrugged. “Look, this was fun. But it’s over. We both knew that this arrangement had an expiration date.”
“That’s it. You’re going to stand there and act like this week meant nothing to you,” he said flatly, no emotion infused in his deep voice.
If he was pretending to be cold and detached, then he was doing a much better job of it than Julianna was managing. When she didn’t answer him, his eyes softened as he sat on the side of the bed and raked his fingers through his thick, brown hair.
“I wanted to talk to you, not like this, about us. I…I love you, Julianna, and I want—”
“Stop,” she said louder than she’d meant to. Shaking her head, she tried not to let the words he’d said penetrate her heart any deeper than they already had. Her chest felt like an elephant was sitting on it. Her throat felt like it was closing, but she strained to get the words out. “You think you love me, but you don’t. This is not my life. This was a vacation for me. I turned in my freak pass. My life is work, Anthony, and more work.”
“I know.” Cole stood and started towards her again.
“No.” Julianna held up her hands defensively. “You don’t know. You’re a famous athlete. You’re rich. You have two cars and no responsibilities. You got to go to college and follow your dreams.
“You don’t know what it’s like to have a child when you are a child. To know that every decision you make affects that child’s life. You don’t know what it’s like to be two hundred dollars overdrawn on your bank account with an empty fridge, one piece of bread in the pantry, no gas, and a hungry baby that you have no idea how to feed.”
The tears started pouring down now, but Julianna wasn’t scared or sad—she was mad.
“You’re right. I don’t know those things. But I want to be here for you. For you and Anthony,” Cole pleaded.
“Why?” Julianna let out a forced laugh. “What the fuck could you possibly get out of it? I told you. This”—she gestured to the bed—“is not me. I’m not some slut who bones guys with her son in the next room.”
“You think that’s what I want?” Cole’s expression was pained and angry. “After everything we… All the time we’ve spent together… Is that really what you think of me?”
Julianna knew that, if she wanted to end this, she needed to lie. And she needed to do it convincingly. So, channeling Cole’s flat, emotionless tone, she wiped the tears off her face, stared right in his eyes, and lied through her teeth.
“Yes.”
Cole’s face went blank and he stood stock-still.
When Julianna’s lip started quivering, she knew she needed to go in for the one-two punch before he saw her fall to pieces. “You should Google yourself sometime. It’s very enlightening.”
Julianna saw the light in Cole’s eyes extinguish. Without another word, he walked out of her room. A few seconds later, she heard the front door slam and she knew that he’d just walked out of her life. For good.
Standing in her room, she waited for the tears to start flowing, for the pain to twist in her chest like a vise squeezing her heart. But all she felt was…nothing. She was completely numb.
When her phone buzzed, she walked like a zombie over to her bedside and picked it up.
Cole: Lock your door.
Those three words burst the dam of emotion inside her. Pain ripped through her chest as tears flowed down her face like Niagara Falls. After sliding down her bed, she held her knees as she cried. Cried because her mom had left her. Cried because her aunt had kicked her out on the street. Cried because the father of her baby had left her the day their son was born. And she cried because she’d fallen in love with someone she could never be with.
She cried until there were no more tears to cry. Then she picked herself up, walked to the door, and locked it. The lock clicked into place, and it felt final. Like closure.
Tomorrow, she would pick Anthony up and put this week, this month, behind her. Her life would go on—even if her heart was broken.
Chapter Sixteen
Walking into the Thunder Youth reception, Julianna could feel Cole’s stare on her. She did her best to ignore it and him. Looking down at the simple black dress she was wearing, she felt a wave of self-consciousness, which she did her best to push down. It didn’t matter what she was wearing. Tonight was about Anthony and the other kids in the program. Not so
me soap opera that had played out.
“You okay, Mom?” Anthony asked as they made their way to the buffet line.
“Yep. Great,” she said with a smile she hoped was convincing.
“Anthony!” two boys called out as they motioned for him to come over.
“Go ahead,” she encouraged her son. “Go hang out with your friends.”
“Are you sure?”
The questioning look in Anthony’s big, brown eyes made Julianna feel like the worst mom in the world. He’d been named MVP of the program and received a citizenship award that had been voted on by the other participants. He should be celebrating, not worried about his mom.
“Abso-freakin-lutely!” she smiled.
“Okay,” he said with a small laugh before running towards the boys waiting by the large, wooden dance floor that was in the center of the room.
Julianna sighed as she picked up a plate at the end of the long line at the buffet table. It had been a week since Cole had left her room in the middle of the night. She’d barely slept. Barely ate. Barely functioned.
Around Anthony, Julianna had done her best to pretend that everything was fine, but like Cole had said, he was a smart kid. Nothing got past him. Luckily, what had happened between Julianna and Cole had not affected Cole and Anthony’s relationship. They’d talked and texted like nothing had changed.
The truth, which was starting to sink in, was that nothing had changed. She’d taken her little walk on the wild side, and now, things were back to normal. Cole hadn’t texted or called her—not that she’d expected or wanted him to.
Okay, that was a lie. She had wanted him to. But why?
Their situations were exactly the same this week as they had been last week. They lived in two different worlds. Eventually, he’d get bored with playing house, and then what? Not only would she be trying to mend a broken heart, but Anthony would know what it was like to have a broken family instead of a single-parent one. It wasn’t ideal, but it was stable.
“Hi.”
An attractive woman with kind eyes, who looked to be in her mid-forties, smiled at Julianna as she stepped behind her in line.
“Hi.” Julianna grinned back.
“I’m Hillary Carson, Cole’s mother. You must be Julianna.”
What the…?
“Um…yes. It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Carson.”
“Hillary, please.”
Julianna’s heart was racing, although she really didn’t know why. It wasn’t like she and Cole had done anything wrong. They were both consenting adults. But she had no idea his mother knew anything about her, including her name.
“Have we met? Or umm…how did you know…?” Julianna had no idea how to just ask someone how they knew her name.
“Your name?” Hillary finished with a knowing smile.
Julianna laughed, thinking that, if this woman weren’t Cole’s mother, she would get along with her really well.
“Well, I’ve been hearing about you for a while now, and my son hasn’t been able to take his eyes off you all night. So I put two and two together.”
Nodding, Julianna smiled even though she felt like she was going to throw up. Cole had been talking to his mother about her? What had he told her? Julianna knew that some people had really close relationships with their parents. Did that mean he’d told her about their week together? About her freak pass? Oh dear God! Did Cole’s mother know about her list?
“That Anthony is quite an amazing boy. You have an incredible son there,” Hillary said affectionately, as she looked towards where Anthony stood talking with his friends.
“Thank you. So do you.” The second the words came out of Julianna’s mouth, she wished she could rewind time and not say them.
Hillary turned back to Julianna, her smile widening. “I’m so glad you think so.”
“Oh no, it’s not like… I mean, Cole and I are just friends. Well, not even that, really. He’s just…” Julianna shut her mouth. Every word she said sounded wrong. She had no idea why she was so flustered.
Hillary placed her hand over Julianna’s and patted it twice. “Did you know that, when Cole was in middle school, they told me that he couldn’t play football?”
What? Cole had never told her that.
“No.” Julianna shook her head.
“They did. They said that he was too small. ‘A runt,’ I think, was the coach’s exact term. And that, if I allowed him to play, he would get hurt. I’m sure, as a mother, you can understand that, after hearing that, I went home and told Cole that he couldn’t play football. There was no way I was going to let him get hurt because of a game.”
Julianna nodded in agreement. She’d barely agreed to let Anthony play, and if anyone would have given her a reason not to, there was no way she would have let him.
“Well, as you can imagine, it did not go over well with Cole. He was furious. He argued with me, but I held my ground. He was a kid. I figured it was a phase. But after about a month, he was still miserable, and he was doing anything and everything he could to prove to me how responsible he was. That he was responsible enough to play.
“I went back to the coaches and asked if there was anything Cole could do so that he could safely play. They said they would allow him to be on the team, but until he put on weight and muscle, he would only run drills without pads.”
Hillary put her hand over her chest and her eyes grew misty. “I’ll never forget how hard he worked for the next two years. He kept up his grades, which was one of our agreements, and he was in the gym or studying playbooks every second he wasn’t doing homework or at school. Thankfully, he also hit a growth spurt and grew six inches between seventh and ninth grade. That certainly didn’t hurt.”
Hillary and Julianna chuckled.
“Cole loves football. He knew, even at twelve, that’s where he belonged. I could see it in his eyes. I knew that it didn’t matter what he had to do. He would do whatever it took so that he could play. Why do you think I added that he had to get good grades as one of the requirements for him to play?”
Julianna laughed again. That was actually a pretty smart move.
Once more, Hillary covered Julianna’s hand. “That’s why I went back to talk to the coaches—because of the look I’d seen in my son’s eyes when he’d talked about football. Not because he was upset that he couldn’t play, but because it was already a part of him. I hadn’t seen that look in my son’s eyes again—until you came into his life.”
Julianna had no idea what to say to that. She wanted to argue and say that Cole didn’t feel that way about her, but she didn’t think Hillary would appreciate that. Plus, Cole had said that he loved her. Julianna just hadn’t wanted to hear it.
“Just food for thought,” Hillary said as she lifted her plate and they both moved to separate sides of the buffet line.
Julianna smiled as she filled her own plate, reminding herself that, sometimes, mothers saw what they wanted to see. She knew she was probably guilty of that herself. Also, Cole might have felt something for Julianna before last week, but after what she’d said to him, she was pretty sure he didn’t anymore.
* * *
“So, that’s your idea of un-complicating things?” Alex asked as he handed Cole a beer.
“What?” Cole took the bottle, which he needed. He was wound tight, and he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off Julianna all night.
She looked amazing. His body ached for her. Not just in the sexual way, either. He missed her laugh, her voice, and her ability to make him forget the rest of the world, including football. When he was with her, he was just Cole, not Cole Carson, starting quarterback of the Miami Thunder.
Which was why their fight had affected him so much. Julianna had gone directly for the jugular. He’d been replaying their conversation all week, and he’d come to the conclusion that that had probably been her intention.
He hadn’t called, texted, e-mailed or stopped by to see her. Part of it, he was fully aware, was because he was li
cking his wounds. He’d never really thought that he’d had a big ego, but apparently, he did. The other part was that he wanted to give her time to think—and to miss him. If what they had was really what he thought it was, then she’d been as miserable as he’d been this week.
So many times since he’d walked out of her condo seven days ago, he’d picked up his phone to call her, and when he’d been texting with Anthony, he’d been tempted to ask about her. But he hadn’t. Maybe if he hadn’t known that he’d be seeing her tonight, he would have caved. Having a timeline until the next time he knew he’d see her gorgeous face had been the only thing that had kept him strong.
Cole took another swig of his beer as Alex shook his head in mock disappointment next to him.
“I tell you that she’s off-limits and you start something with her. I tell you to un-complicate things and you send your mom over to talk to her?”
“I didn’t send her over there.”
He had invited his mom to this event after the first night he and Julianna had spent together. He’d thought it would be a no-pressure way for them to meet. After last Friday night, he’d tried to uninvite his mom, but that hadn’t gone too well. When Hillary Carson made up her mind to do something, there was no talking her out of it.
“What happened with you guys? Seriously. You’ve been like the walking dead this week.”
“Nothing,” Cole snapped.
“Right.” Alex nodded. “Nothing.”
Cole had nothing to say. He didn’t know what he was doing. If he did, he would be with Julianna right now, not gawking at her from across the room.
“Well, just a piece of friendly advice—not that you’ll take it. You need to handle that nothing before the season starts.” Alex’s tone had turned serious, and he knew what his friend was trying to tell him.
Cole nodded. He knew that Alex was right. If he didn’t get the shit in his personal life straightened out, it would affect his game.
So, after a quick trip to the DJ booth, he made his way over to the table Julianna had sat down at, which was filled with other parents of kids in the program.
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