Page 26 of When We Fall: Part Two
I grunted and nodded, shoving him aside to go to Rosalie. Cole’s nose was bleeding, and he was trying to restrain her arms, but she kept freeing herself. The gun lay nearby on the floor.
Matteo and his men had taught her well. If the situation weren’t so fucked, I’d have applauded her.
I managed to untangle her from Cole and hauled her against me.
“It’s OK. Everything is OK,” I said on repeat to her. “Stop. LeeLee. Please. Everything is fine.”
She shook in my arms.
“Rosebud,” Cole called out, sitting up and wiping the blood from his nose. “Fuck. Hey.” He stumbled to his feet and tugged her away from me. “I’m sorry. Hey, look at me.” He tilted her chin up.
Tears were on her cheeks. Fuck, my heart hurt.
“It was a misunderstanding. That’s all. I-I wasn’t going to. I was just upset.”
“You have to stop, Cole. I picked you. I chose you,” she whispered. “Just stop. Please. I’m begging you. I’m fucking begging you!”
“I know, baby. I know. I’m sorry.” Cole hugged her against him as she sobbed. “Fuck, Rosebud. I’m sorry. I love you.”
Fox glanced at me as I grabbed my sugar. The look on his face told me what I needed to know. I should go before I made shit worse. I didn’t belong with them. Cole had been screaming it at me for months, but it took this instance for me to realize Rosalie really was all in with these guys. She even told Cole she chose him. That was her saying flat out, again, there wasn’t a chance in hell.
Maybe a small part of me was trying to cling to any possibility there was, but I couldn’t keep doing this to myself. It was killing me.
“I’m going to go,” I muttered, backing away from the scene. Rosalie didn’t even look at me. Her attention was on Cole as his nose continued to bleed on her.
At least she’d hit him in the face for me. That offered me some relief since he deserved it for the shit he’d pulled tonight.
“We’ll talk soon,” Enzo said to me, his face stony.
Fucking perfect.
I gave him a curt nod and pushed past E before leaving the house. Once I was back inside my car. I punched the dashboard, screaming out my heartache. My chest heaved as I tried to rake in even breaths.
Fuck, why couldn’t anything ever work out for me?
EIGHT
COLE
FUCK.
Everything was sucking. Rosalie was a goddamn mess after her old man left a few weeks ago. She cried basically the entire day after he was gone. Nothing any of us did could console her. She wouldn’t talk about any of it, so we still had no idea what happened between them. Then I’d gone and fucked things worse by putting my gun to Ass Hat’s head. That was a few days ago.
Now, I watched as Fox doted on her, rubbing her feet while on the couch, and telling her about a story he was working on while she petted Cotton. Fox hadn’t even seemed to want to do that, but I’d heard her begging him to distract her.
He was acting odd, too. It wasn’t just Rosalie.
It circled back to FUCK.
“Rosebud, do you want to order in or help me make something for dinner?” I couldn’t cook for shit, but I was willing to try. It was a feeble excuse to get her near me again, since she had been avoiding me.
She looked over at me, making my heart jump.
“I-I have Hamburger Helper,” I continued weakly, showing her the box. “Please?—”
“I’m not hungry,” she said, getting up. I watched with my heart in my throat as she kissed Fox gently on his head and left the room with Cotton.
“She didn’t eat today,” I finally said softly. “She-she needs to eat.”
