Page 169 of Composed
“That’s not how you say my name, Rixie.’
“I said what I said,” I deadpan, though the corner of my lip twitches. “But yes to fajitas.”
He gives me a look, his eyes glinting under the LEDs. “You know what that means?”
A grin splits my face as a memory swirls.
“Frozen margs?”
Frozen margaritas were always our thing whenever I cooked at his house back then. His mum and dad would go out on date nights, and we’d have our own at-home dates. Music, movies, food, and since Cole can’t cook, he always took on drinks duty instead.
“Frozen margs, baby.” He spins the trolley, pushes onto the balls of his feet, and slides down the aisle. He disappears around the end, his voice echoing back to me. “Meet you at the freezers!”
Laughter bubbles up my throat.
How is this the same man who stands centre stage in a stadium and commands an audience of tens of thousands with his presence alone?
When he told me he was still the same Cole Hayes, I wasn’t entirely sure I believed that to be true. But he really is that same boy I fell in love with when I was just a kid.
Now if I can just figure out how to tell him all the deepest parts of myself; maybe we really do have a chance to make it last forever this time.
Well, assuming all goes well with dinner tonight. If I can’t fit back into this family we created together—the one that continued to thrive without me—then who knows where that leaves us.
I grab the last of the food we need and juggle it under my arms as I trail through the aisles.
Cole waits by the freezers as promised, the trolley stacked with far more things than what I wrote on my list.
My brow dips.
I point to the box of Monopoly stuffed in the child seat. “Really?”
He shrugs, a crooked grin lighting his face. “Who doesn’t love a good board game, Rixie?”
“You’re a rock star. Pretty sure you’re meant to be playing ring of fire or something.” I chuckle, spying the Trivial Pursuit buried beneath the blankets he definitely doesn’t need. “Dude! Did you ransack the whole shop?”
“Maybe a little.” He shifts his weight, throwing an arm over my shoulder as he presses a kiss to my hair. “I haven’t been to a big Tesco in years. Who knew they had all this stuff in here?”
I curl my hands around the trolley, mouth twitching when I peek at him from the corner of my eyes. “You’re a child.”
He hums, his grin widening. “But you love me.”
A breath catches in my lungs and I trip over air. The trolley rolls beneath me, blood rushes through my ears, and everything blurs as those four words hit me like a lightning strike.
If Cole notices my world spinning on its axis, he doesn’t show it. He just grabs the trolley and steers it towards the tills.
I don’t move.
Not sure I can.
The words run on a loop in my head.
So simple and so fuckingtrue.
It’s taken me years to box up those feelings for him and bury them so deep inside me that I can pretend they don’t exist. And here he comes, smashing that box wide open in a freezing cold aisle without even realising he’s done it.
I blink, emotion crawling up my throat, as I watch Cole saunter down the aisle.
He pauses, glancing back over his shoulder, and holds wiggling fingers out towards me. “You coming?”
