Page 34 of Thunderstruck
I sigh. “Fine. But you’ll tell me if you ever need it?”
“I won’t need it.”
“But in case you do, you should have my number.” I hold out my hand for his phone, ignoring the thrill that runs through me when he places it in my palm without hesitation. The sun is on his face now, illuminating his dark eyes so I can see the flecks of caramel in the brown, and everything about him looks so much warmerthan it has so far. There’sdefinitelysomething different about him, but I still can’t quite place what it is.
Clearing my throat, I force my focus to the phone and add my contact info, complete with a selfie that I take because the lighting is fantastic right now. “I’ll have you know,” I say as I hand it back to him, “I told the rest of the guys on the team that they couldn’t have my number.”
Cole’s eyebrows shoot up, though his gaze is on the phone in his hand. On my picture. “Why?”
“Because I believe in boundaries. And I don’t date people at work.”Never again, I silently add.
“Why?” he asks again, this time while looking at me.
I don’t want to admit the truth, but he told me something so personal when he explained why he doesn’t drive. I owe him something personal in return. My heart kicks up into an uneven rhythm as I curl my fingers around the steering wheel and speak to my lap, my throat growing tight. “Because the last time I did that,” I say, my voice strained, “it didn’t end well for me.”
Dang it, I wasn’t supposed to start crying!
I sniff and reach for the gear shift, as if I can drive away from the wounds that are still raw and ragged.
But Cole wraps his hand over mine, and with his other hand he pushes the start button and turns the car off again. “I’ve already told you I’m a good listener,” he says, his voice impossibly gentle, “but you should also know that I wasn’t raised to let a woman cry if I can do something about it. Can I make you dinner?”
Is he serious? Based on the concerned look in his eyes, I think he is. I nod slowly. “I was planning on popping in a TV dinner and watchingBridgertonon my phone until I fell asleep in the hopes of keeping my mind off the fact that I’m three thousand miles away from home and don’t know anyone in this city. But your idea sounds better.”
He wrinkles his nose. “Bridgerton?”
“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”
“Ihavetried it.” He slips out of the car and opens my door before I can figure out where the handle is. “My ex was a fan. Me, not so much.”
I nearly say ‘Your ex sounds like my kind of gal’ but stop myself at the last minute because that’s probably not the sort of thing he wants to hear. “Too much lovey dovey nonsense?” I guess, taking his hand and letting him help me up.
Cole looks like he’s chewing on his words as we stand there for a moment, still hand in hand. He seems to be debating the merits of answering my question. “I don’t mind romance,” he says after a moment, and his words come out gruff. “Aspects of it, anyway. Sage, my ex, loved reading those hockey books that are popular, but I’ve always thought they were…” He coughs and drops my hand. “Problematic is the nicest way to put it.”
Snickering, I bite my lip and try to imagine someone like Cole reading a hockey romance. “Did she like the spicy ones or the strictly kissing ones?” Huh. Apparently big burly guys can blush, and that answers my question. “The spicy ones? While I can’t say I generally read those ones, I hear they’re fun.”
“They’re something,” Cole agrees and leads the way back into the kitchen. “Are you sure you want to stay for dinner? I don’t want to pressure you into—”
“I was serious when I said I was going to use questionably historical television to soothe my loneliness,” I say, settling myself down on one of the kitchen chairs. I’m immensely grateful for the distraction this conversation is offering. “And I haven’t had a chance to do much grocery shopping. Plus, you’ve already caught my interest in your cooking skills with your lemonade, so I was probably going to beg you to cook for me at some point anyway.”
He grunts and starts rummaging around in the pantry next to the fridge. “Lemonade isn’t cooking, so you might be putting too much faith in my skills. I’m not Derek.”
It takes me a second to process that, but when I do, my jaw drops. “Wait, are you saying Derek Riley cancook? I thought he would have people for that.”
“He does have people for that, but he only uses them when he has to. Did you ever see the movieFood for Thoughtless?”
I shrug. “Hasn’t everyone seen that movie? But just because Derek played a chef, it doesn’t mean heisa chef.”
Cole is nearly smiling when he emerges from the pantry with a box of pasta in his hand, and the sight of him is breathtaking. Which is a problem. I’ve already broken my rule about not giving out my phone number, which is dangerous enough. I don’t need to start making plans to get another smile out of the man. There’s no way I wouldn’t get attached.
“Not many people know this about Derek,” he says casually, like we’re not talking about one of the most famous people in the country, “but he never does something on screen that he can’t do in real life. He worked undercover in a restaurant for three months before he started filmingThoughtless.”
I may have spent an afternoon with Derek and found him to be as stunningly handsome in real life as he is in the movies, but I refuse to think he can actually play the piano or shoot a bow and arrow with perfect accuracy. “There’s no way. He probably told you he can do all those things to make himself look better.”
The laughter that comes out of Cole makes me jump, not because it’s loud or sudden but because I honestly wasn’t sure if he knew how to laugh. In the time I’ve known him, he’s been so stoic and has only given me a single real smile. Granted, I haven’t spent all that much time around him, but his teammates have had plenty to say about their total grump ofa scrum-half. They’ve said he rarely showed emotion, even before he got dumped. Then again, maybe I shouldn’t listen to guys who are unafraid of expressing how much they don’t like their rookie teammate.
“I’ve known Derek Riley for eight years,” Cole says as he fills a pot with water, “which means I knew him before he knew how to cook. I’m the one who taught him to surf. He took guitar lessons from Liam, who more than once declared Derek a hopeless cause because he was so bad at it starting out.” Pausing, he frowns and cocks his head. “Maybe don’t tell your sister any of that.”
I grin. “I promise Darcy has no reason to besmirch any names. She prefers telling uplifting stories anyway, and the main reason she came to the field as Tamlin was because she helped me get the job with the Thunder.”
