Page 157 of Cold As Ice

“Will yous be my special friend too?”

“If you want me to be.” Austin nodded.

“I’ll have to thinks ’bout it, Mr. Austins. I already gots Scottie as my specials friend.” She hopped down off the chair and smiled at him. “But I’m sures he won’t mind.”

“Where are you going, baby?” I asked her.

“To gets a drink and gives you and Mr. Austins some special time.”

Austin barely contained his laughter, but I stomped on his foot, turning his amusement into a pained groan.

“Is yous okay?” Imogen frowned at him.

“I’m good, princess.”

She skipped off happily and I covered my face with my hands.

“Come on, it could have been worse,” Austin said with a chuckle, leaning across to pry my fingers away from my eyes.

“Special friend, Austin. Really?”

“I panicked.” He shrugged. “Besides, it’s true. I do want to be your special friend.”

Humor danced in his eyes, but I wasn’t laughing. Not even a little bit.

“She’s never going to let this go, you know,” I said. “She’s worse than a dog with a bone.”

“So long as she’s in my corner, I’m not complaining.”

“Austin, will you be serious for just a second.”

“I am being serious. The way I see it is we just ripped off the Band-Aid. She knows we’re friends,specialfriends”—God he made the word sound so dirty, I didn’t know whether to punch him or pounce on him—“so if she starts seeing me come around more often, she’s not going to think it’s weird.”

“Why are you being so calm about all of this? You’re supposed to be the one running at the first sign of all my emotional baggage.”

“What can I say, I’m a changed man.” He smirked and I finally cracked.

“You are enjoying this far too much.”

“I hid out in your bathroom, Madi. It’s nice to see you squirm for once.”

I poked my tongue out at him because what else could I do?

He’d told me he was all in and I guess if we stood any chance of working out, I had to try and believe him. But it wasn’t going to be easy.

I had years of trauma and heartache to unravel.

“Where did you go just now?” he asked with a concerned expression.

“I can’t promise this will be easy,” I admitted. “That I’ll make things easy.”

“I don’t expect you to. But I need you to trust me, Madison. And I need you to talk to me.

“If I step out of line or do something that doesn’t sit right with you, you have to tell me instead of shutting me out. I’m not a mind reader, pretty girl.”

I nodded. “I can do that.”

“Yeah?”

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