Landslide (46 page)

“With Tillamook cheese, real butter and real cream? Not milk?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You gonna put crumbled Ritz on it?”

“Yep. But if you’re not hungry or would rather have some alone time, I completely understand. Just say the word and I’ll get out of your hair.” I immediately start praying again. I
need
to be with him right now. I need to feel safe and there’s nowhere on Earth I will ever feel more safe than with Cole.

For a fraction of a second, his eyes light with concern. “No, no. I can eat some macaroni and cheese.”
 

I silently let go of the breath I’d been holding. “Good. ‘Cause I don’t want to go home yet and I have
got
to know what that sweater is all about,” I tell him with a small chuckle that belies my unease. Using my busyness with beginning to get everything prepped for cooking straight away, I further hide how agitated I feel on the inside.

He gives me a disgruntled look and pouts, “What’s wrong with my sweater? It’s festive. I wear it every year.”

“Do you really?”

Up until the other day when we were going to get our Christmas trees, I’d forgotten how much Cole loves Christmas. All the radio stations were broadcasting news, weather, sports, or just plain old crappy music, so I asked him if I could switch over to his CD changer. As soon as I did though, I had to bite my lips to keep from laughing at him. The CD was in the middle of playing “Frosty the Snowman” being sung by Alvin and the Chipmunks. And it wasn’t a Christmas compilation CD with songs by various artists either; it was
all
Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. He sort of stiffened but when he saw me struggling to keep my mirth at bay, he gave me a sideways look and simply reminded me that Christmas is his favorite holiday by saying, “What? So I like the classics. Big deal. You know how I feel about Christmas…” Even so, I never in a million years would’ve dreamt he’d dare to wear one of ‘those’ Christmas sweaters.

It’s actually really kind of adorable on him though. Like Cole combined with a garish reindeer on his chest is just a non-verbal, yet exceedingly loud invitation to love on him. So much so that I’m suddenly finding it difficult to not give in to the temptation of wandering over to him, wrapping myself up tight in his arms, and then luxuriating for hours in a knitted Christmas Cole embrace.

“Yep. My dad has a matching one,” he simply states as a matter of fact, which essentially has my eyeballs popping out of their sockets in disbelief.

“He does not!”

“He totally does. His girlfriend, Amelia, made them for us the first year we lived up here together.”

“Does he actually
wear
it?!” I’m having the hardest time accepting this and forming a mental picture of Cole’s rigid, no sense of humor whatsoever, father wearing a reindeer sweater with bells on it.

“Uh-huh. But not in public and only on Christmas Eve. We go through a lot of eggnog. And, you know, whiskey.”

He then excuses himself and goes outside to shovel his driveway and porch. Apparently it’s less labor intensive if one stays on top of that kind of thing, rather than letting it pile up into a foot or more. A quick glance out the kitchen window tells me he’ll be several minutes at least so, I begin mentally outlining the best way to go about explaining Greg to Cole. Originally, I hadn’t planned on mentioning anything about running into my ex when I was stuck down the hill that night, but with him showing up last night and the situation as it is now, I need to tell Cole. I’ll feel better the sooner I say something and it’s simply the right thing to do. I just have to be careful.

He comes back inside, pulling his beanie and gloves off, and then hangs them along with his jacket on the hook just inside the entryway. My eyes follow him into the living room where he stops to tend the fire. Once he’s finished putting another log on and is satisfied with the level of heat, he turns and catches me watching him.

“What?”

“Well…I need to tell you something.”

The dooming intensity in which he meets my eyes with, though it’s just for a split second, makes me feel as if one or both of us is about to be forced off a plank at sword-tip. I don’t understand it. Unless he already knows, that is. I don’t really see how he could, but then again, it is a smaller town and people talk…

“What’s that?” he asks, raising a barely interested eyebrow and crossing his arms over Rudolph, bringing me back to my original theory that no one’s said anything to him.

“Greg showed up last night.”

Cole nods and turns around, walking over to his tree to open a box of Christmas decorations. “Oh yeah? Bet that was a surprise. You haven’t even spoken to him in something like a year, right?”

“Yeah, about that…”

“So how’d he even know where you’re living now?”

“That’s what I’m trying to explain, if you’ll let me. I ran into him that night I couldn’t get back home after seeing my grandma. And I, um, stayed at his place instead of a motel,” I admit and watch Cole dump an armful of garland onto the couch. It’s almost like he’s not even listening. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you.”

He shrugs his shoulders and faces me, his expression flat and possibly even dismissive. “Why? That doesn’t involve me.”

“Well—uh…I guess I just thought since we, um—”

“Erica, you don’t owe me an explanation about what you do just like I don’t owe you any. I mean like you said, we were just messing around a little. No big deal.”
 

“O—okay. Nothing happened though…I just want you to know that.”

Cole shakes my reassurance off and goes back to rummaging through decorations. “Don’t worry about it. Even if something did happen, I don’t care.” It isn’t what I want to hear…

A frustrated
humph
escapes me and I feel myself becoming defensive. “Well, you may not, but I
do
care. I don’t want anyone thinking I’m some kind of slut, Cole,
especially
you.”

He throws me an annoyed look over his shoulder and mutters, “Okay, Erica, Jesus. You’re not a slut.”

“What is wrong with you? Are you mad at me or something?”

He sighs and turns to face me again. “No, I’m not mad at you. I didn’t have the best night’s rest though, my back hurts and I’m trying to avoid taking any of the good pain killers ‘cause it’ll knock me out and I wanna deck the halls of my damned house this evening, and you showed up unannounced, wanting to cook me dinner out of the wild blue, but then you start telling me about sleeping at your ex’s place, and I honestly don’t give a rat’s ass whether you did or not because what you do is your own business and even if you did nail the guy all night long, you still wouldn’t be a slut because as far as I’m aware, you’re not even dating anyone, let alone sleeping with anyone so I just don’t see why you’re making it such a big deal.”

I watch him stretch his back, frustration and pain written all over him, and I decide that he’s actually right. He’s in a shit mood and probably could’ve been a little less hostile in saying all that, but still, he’s right. Except for maybe the not dating anyone point in his argument. He apparently hasn’t felt this way, but to me it’s sort of felt like that’s what we’ve been doing. It’s all been extremely casual and kept on the down-low for the most part; however, that doesn’t negate how the time we’ve spent together has
felt
. Then again, how we’ve been together these last weeks
is
pretty much how we were on our road-trip, and we were
definitely
not dating then.

“You’re right, I’m sorry. Again. It’s just me and everything about this shitty day…when I was leaving the grocery store I ran into Ryan,” I pause when Cole lifts his head and gives me his ‘I’m being serious’ questioning look, “I mean not literally like with my car or anything…he stopped me in the parking lot to apologize. He said he rejoined AA this morning so you can expect an apology from him too next time you see him.”

Relaxed again, Cole nods his understanding. “Gotcha.”

“Yeah. So anyway, I wasn’t prepared to see him again quite so soon, and I think I’m still a little bit on the what the fuck just happened side of things in terms of Greg spontaneously showing up on my doorstep. I mean, talk about unannounced…”

“Yeah well, he wanted to see you. What’s wrong with that?”

“Uh, he didn’t just want to
see
me. He wanted to move in with me. He thinks we’re, like, actually married or something.”

“Come again?”

“Yeah! That’s what I thought! I don’t know if the guy is a lunatic and I just never realized until he went off his meds, or maybe he’s suffered a break from reality, because I’m telling you, he’s bat-shit crazy now.”

“In what way?” Cole asks and raises an interested eyebrow at me; it’s a reminder that I need to watch my words…

 
“Well, first, get this…somehow he got it in his head that after I refused his offer to stay at his house like three times, it would be totally normal to pretend that his neighbor was his girlfriend when he called her to reassure me it would be fine sleeping there because nothing would happen. Well, something
did
happen. He went through my purse I think when I was asleep in the guest room and found my address on my new checks.”

“You’re kidding?”

“Nope. Only thing I can think of because I only told him I was living in Lake Arrowhead now, that’s it. Not even that I’m actually here in Crestline.”

“Well, that’s not, um…stalkerish. How’d you find out about the neighbor being his fake girlfriend?”

“Oh, he full-on admitted it when I asked him what happened to his girlfriend.”

“Wow.”

“I know, but wait, there’s more. So,
so
much more…”
 

I then launch into the veritable crazy of my night and morning. I explain how Greg showed up late last night, waited for me to come home for however long, he started complaining about how cold it was the second I opened my front door, which he quite literally
tried
to pick me up and carry me over the threshold of—mind you, I’m emphasizing tried for a reason—so I locked myself in the bathroom using the excuse of needing to check my elbow to see if there was any blood on it after I was first rammed into the doorframe and then basically dropped onto a little table against the wall next to the window, where a pretty Tiffany knockoff lamp I found used to be before it was broken during the whole ordeal of getting myself in the house. While I was in the bathroom and without even asking or saying a
word
, Greg strips down to his boxers and gets in
my
bed and passes out. Granted, I used all the hot water taking the longest shower ever because I was hiding from him, but still.

I get to this morning and I’m telling Cole that Greg woke me up by French kissing my freaking
eyelids
. Cole just raises both his eyebrows until they practically disappear into his hairline while he shakes his head, ‘no.’ It’s quite obvious he’s dying to laugh, and I’d love it if he finally did this evening, but this is really nothing to laugh at. I’m being straight-up serious. The freak kissed my closed eyelids when I was dead asleep. With tongue. Fucking wrong on
so
many levels…

“Seriously. Do you have any idea how creepy, disgusting, and
completely
disturbing that is?”

He considers the question briefly. “Sorta. Skull Eater does that.”

“She’s a
dog
, Cole. Not a grown-ass man with no real grip on reality to speak of.”

“True. Why didn’t you call me?”

“You were in
jail
, oh hero of mine!”

“Oh yeah. Sorry. I got out early though. If you’d left me a voicemail last night I probably could’ve prevented the eyelid ick factor of your morning.”

I blow out a breath, thinking, if only… “Yeah, well…I didn’t think of that last night. I did this morning though and by then, I was so truly frightened, you have no idea.”

“And you still didn’t call…?”

“No! I couldn’t because the freak-show got a hold of both my phone
and
my iPad at some point this morning and deleted every number belonging to anyone with a guy’s name, including my new boss’ number who happens to be a woman by the name of Terry. Not only that, but he also deleted every text and the complete and total history of every phone call and FaceTime conversation you and I have ever had. Believe me, I looked everywhere in my phone and iPad that I could think of for your number.” I was also kicking myself but good for using that damned cocktail napkin to wipe with. “I asked him if he’d gone through my stuff and deleted anything and sure as shit, the whacko admitted it! He said, and I quote, ‘Damn straight I did. Can’t have my bride carrying on with another man. Can’t allow you to cuckold me.’ I’m not even kidding. That’s what he said.”

Cole barks out a laugh, finally. “No fucking way! He actually used the word
cuckold
?!”

“Yes!!”

“Who talks like that?”

“Crazy people! I ended up calling the police, Cole, and when he realized what I was doing, he got physical.” It just slips out and I slam my mouth shut, only…not in time.

Cole’s face turns ominously dark. Just like I was afraid of. I didn’t want to tell him this part because it’s over and there’s no sense in getting him all worked up over something he can’t do anything about after the fact. Everything else can be laughed off, I suppose. Although I was honestly frightened, I didn’t feel like I was in any actual danger. Not until Greg grabbed me by my arms, digging his fingers into my skin, and started shaking the shit out of me. I felt like I was holding onto that phone for dear life, and even crying hysterically, I managed to relay my address coherently enough to the 911 operator before Greg pried the phone from my grip, pulling out some of my hair as he did. He shoved me so hard into a dining chair, it couldn’t withstand the force and stay upright with my landing; I ended up on the floor with the chair on its side next to me. Then, so calmly it was terrifying, he walked to the sink, turned the water and disposal on, and dropped my phone down into the drain. I scrambled back into the bathroom and locked the door and didn’t come out even after I heard the front door slam closed. When the police showed up and I was done giving my statement, a report came in that the driver of the car Greg was driving had just been pulled over for blowing through a traffic light a few miles away and then was subsequently arrested for assaulting the officer with a golf club.