Out of Nowhere (12 page)

Seeing Cole interact so effortlessly with my brother, I finally let myself accept what I’d been trying to deny all along. He
was
pretty hot.

Chapter Nine

My cell phone rang while I was sitting on the bus, en route to work. Ignoring the old man across from me who was giving me a kids-these-days-with-their-newfangled-gadgets look, I rummaged around in my bag for the phone. It was Eva, back from the cottage and hungry for news. It was good to hear her voice.

“We should get together later,” I said, glancing out the window. It was a warm Sunday afternoon and the streets were full of shoppers and baby strollers. “Lucas and I both get off at seven.”             

“How about I pick up Syd and we meet you guys at Jitters at around ten to seven? Then we’ll all go get some dinner.”

“Sounds good.” The four of us hadn’t been in the same room together since school ended. This would be like a mini reunion.

Later that afternoon, Lucas and I were in the back room, restocking the fridge during a mid-day lull.

“So how’s it going with the bad boy who’s so not your type?” he asked. “Did you give in to the sexual tension and jump him yet?”

I passed him another carton of skim milk, resisting the urge to clobber him with it. “He’s not bad,” I told him. “And it
is
possible for a male and a female to be just friends, you know. Why is that so hard to believe for some people?”

He loaded the last of the milk into the fridge and shut the door. “I believe it. I’m ‘just friends’ with lots of girls.”

We headed back out front. “Okay,” I said, grabbing a clean cloth to wipe down the counter. “It’s possible for a straight male and a straight female to be friends.”

“Of course,” Lucas agreed. “But not if the straight male and the straight female regularly look like they want to rip each other’s clothes off.”

I whirled around and threw the cloth at him, getting him right in the chest. “Shut up, Lucas. I mean it.”

He laughed, making me want to fling something heavier and sharper at him. But he did shut up, lucky for him.

The place was still pretty dead when Eva and Sydney showed up at quarter to seven. Eva looked pretty in a short white sundress, skin tanned and hair bleached even blonder from the sun. She grinned when she saw me and ran over for a hug. Then she tackled Lucas when he came out from the back room.

“Missed you guys!” she said, pulling back to beam at us. Her eyes, though, didn’t seem quite right. Like they’d lost some of their sparkle.

“We’re almost through here,” Lucas said. “Sit down over there and I’ll bring you guys some iced tea while you wait.”

“Iced
coffee
,” Sydney corrected, and the two of them went to sit down.

“What’s with Eva?” I whispered to Lucas when we were safely behind the counter.

“I don’t know,” he replied, filling two cups with ice. “Let’s go find out.”

He brought the drinks over to Eva and Sydney’s table and sat down in an empty chair. Since the place was completely dead and there was nothing left to do, I made my way over too. Our tables were too small to comfortably accommodate more than three chairs so I plunked myself down on Lucas’s lap.

“So Eva,” I said, leaning against the table. “I figured you’d be with Sebastian tonight.”

When her face crumpled, I knew I’d touched a nerve. Something was up with her boyfriend. “Um,” she said. “No.”

Sydney took a long drink of coffee. “They broke up,” she said flatly.

“Oh no.” I reached for Eva’s hand, squeezing it. “What happened?”

She shrugged and started blinking really fast, like she was trying not to cry. “The night before I left for the cottage, he came over to my house and told me he thought we needed some time apart. A
breather
, he called it, like our relationship was just so exhausting for him.”

“Asshole,” Lucas said. He’d never liked Sebastian, claiming he acted fake around him because he was a closet homophobe and suspected that Lucas was gay.

“Why didn’t you tell us before?” I asked her. “Those two weeks at the cottage must have been hard for you.”

She picked up her coffee and stirred it around with the straw. “No, it was good. I was glad to get away. I thought being gone for a couple of weeks would give him time to think and he’d come to his senses, but…” She sipped her coffee and swallowed hard. “But then Syd told me she saw him at the movies Saturday night with Bailey Strickland.”

“Bailey
Strickland
,” Lucas bellowed right in my ear. “The girl with the black nail polish and belly button ring who transferred here last year from an all-girls school?
That
Bailey Strickland?”

Sydney nodded. “That’s the one.”

“Boyfriend-stealing whore.”

“Jerks,” I added, squeezing Eva’s hand again. She smiled thinly at us.

“Thanks, guys. I’ll be okay. It was kind of a shock, that’s all. I mean, we were together for five months and I thought everything was fine between us. I’m naïve, I guess. Or stupid.”

“You’re neither,” I told her. “Sebastian is the stupid one.”

Lucas and Sydney nodded in agreement and I had a déjà vu of my break-up with Adam, after which the three of them said the same kinds of things to me. At the time I’d appreciated their support, soaked up their comforting words, but it took me months to accept that they were right. I
was
better off without him.

The squeak of the door signaled a customer. The four of us stopped talking and turned toward the sound. It was Cole, who’d arrived just in time to see me perched on Lucas’s lap with my arm circling his neck and his hand on my hip. Lucas immediately turned me loose and I got up and walked over to Cole, my cheeks burning.

“Hey, I wasn’t sure I’d see you today,” I said. Sunday was his day off, which meant he was usually either out on his bike or at the beach, risking his life on a surfboard.

Cole glanced at Lucas and then back at me, a tiny flicker of uncertainty marring his features. “I was at the beach all day.”

I wondered what he was thinking. My cozying up to Lucas was all innocent, of course, but he didn’t know that. “Come and meet my friends,” I said. I brought him over to the table and introduced him to Sydney and Eva. Lucas had disappeared.

“Well, hello,” Sydney said, looking him over. She tilted her head and smiled, a gesture of hers that was as familiar to me as her name. “We’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Nothing bad, I hope,” Cole said.

“No,” she replied, ogling him shamelessly again. “It was all good.”

Eva, obviously embarrassed by Sydney’s forward behavior, broke in with, “So Cole, we’re heading out in few minutes for a bite to eat if you wanted to join us.”

“Oh, uh…” He shoved his hands in his pockets, looking everywhere but at me. I’d never seen him act flustered before. “Thanks, but I have plans. I just came in for a coffee.”

“I’ll get it for you,” I told him. My shift had ended five minutes ago, but I still hadn’t clocked out.

Cole said good-bye to my friends and followed me over to the counter, where I poured his cup of coffee and placed it in front of him. “Is everything okay?” I asked softly. He seemed agitated, but not in the usual can’t-sit-still way.

“Yeah,” he said, his expression blank. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I don’t know.” But I did know, and I wanted so badly to tell him there was nothing going on between me and Lucas, even though the scene he’d just walked into suggested otherwise. I wasn’t sure why I longed to tell him this, because if Cole and I were really just friends then he shouldn’t care whose lap I parked my butt on and why. Just like I shouldn’t care about explaining it away.

“I gotta go,” Cole said as he slid two dollars across the counter. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, and he picked up his coffee and left.

I went to the washroom to pee and fix my hair. My stomach was knotted with tension, just like it had been the night I fought with Mom during our Chinese food dinner. I’d felt so guilty then, for hurting her.
Is that it?
I wondered as I brushed my hair at the sink. Was I feeling guilty because I hurt Cole? Because he wanted more from me than I was allowing myself to give?

I found Lucas out back, flinging trash into the dumpster. “Lucas,” I said, clutching his sleeve. “Please let me tell Cole.”

He let the dumpster lid slam shut. “That you love him?” he said with a grin.

“No.” I dropped my hand. “That you’re gay. I think he thinks we’re secretly dating or something.”

He wiped his hands on his apron and headed back inside. I followed. “Okay,” he said, shrugging. “Tell him. But what difference does it make if he thinks we’re secretly dating? You guys aren’t together.”

“I know, but…” I stood there watching as he scrubbed his hands in the sink. “I think he might have been jealous.”

“Ah ha.” He paused in his washing to hold up a dripping index finger. “And
why
was he jealous?”

I stuck my tongue out at him. “Thanks for your help.”

“No problem, my love. And tell him I’m sorry for groping his girl. I didn’t enjoy a second of it.”

He dried off and we went out front to meet Sydney and Eva, who were waiting impatiently by the door.

“I’m starving,” Eva moaned. “I want a huge plate of fettuccine alfredo with cheesy garlic bread on the side.”

We all gaped at her. She didn’t usually eat heavy things like pasta and greasy bread. Then again, I’d gone through four containers of ice cream the week Adam dumped me.

“Damn, Riley,” Sydney said as we walked down the crowded sidewalk to where Eva’s car was parked crookedly along the curb. “Lucas was right. Your friend Cole is
hot
. How can you not want to tap that?”

“Nice, Syd,” Eva said, shaking her head.

“What? I’m just sayin’.” She nudged me with her elbow. “So what’s his phone number?”

“Why?” I said, suspicious.

“Well, he’s single, right? And
you
seem to have no interest in dating him, so…”

We reached the car and Eva unlocked the doors. “What happened to Caleb?” she asked Sydney.

“Oh,” she said with a dismissive flip of her hand. “It’s not like we’re exclusive.”

I got into the backseat and buckled my seat belt, my heart fluttering in anticipation of Eva’s erratic driving. Or maybe something else was making it convulse like that. “Um,” I said to Sydney, who’d climbed in next to me. “The thing is, Syd…you’re not really his type.”

“No?” She frowned for a second, then put a finger to her lips, scrunching up her brows as if she didn’t quite understand. “So what you’re saying is, you’d rather I didn’t call him?”

I looked her straight in the eye. “Yes, Sydney. I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t call him.”

She sat back, a small, satisfied smile on her face. In the front seat, Lucas caught her eye in the mirror and winked. I decided I hated them both.

* * *

All through dinner I was distracted, thinking about Cole and what I’d say to him later. I was eager to get home and call him, but by the time we’d gotten served and gossiped our way through the appetizer, main course, and dessert, it was after ten o’clock. When I finally got home, Mom and Tristan were already in bed.

I changed into pajama pants and a tank top and dialed Cole’s cell. There was no answer, so I sent him a text:
Call me please. Need to talk to you.
Then I went to wash my face and brush my teeth, taking my cell with me so I wouldn’t miss his call.

Ten minutes later he still hadn’t called back, so I got into bed with a book. Lucy jumped up to join me, curling up against my legs. She started bathing herself, stopping every so often to listen for Alice, who must have been downstairs in the litter box. Five minutes later she appeared and settled down near my feet. Lucy, content now that her friend was nearby, rested her head on her paws and closed her eyes.

Finally, at around midnight, my cell phone rang. “Hey,” Cole said, and I stifled a sigh of relief. At least he was still talking to me. “Did I wake you?”

“No, I was up.” I eased myself into a sitting position. “Thanks for calling me back.”

“Sorry it took so long. I was out with some friends.” His voice sounded different than usual, subdued and maybe even a little hostile. Okay, so obviously I had offended him. “You said you needed to talk to me?”

“Yeah.” I hesitated, not sure how to approach this. “I wanted to tell you something. When you showed up at Jitters tonight and saw—”

He cut me off. “Listen, I think I know what you’re going to tell me.”

“You do?”

“Yes. You’re going to tell me you’ve been dating Lucas all this time and he doesn’t want you to hang out with me anymore. Right? I mean, what kind of guy is okay with his girlfriend spending all her free time with some other dude? Like, what the hell—”

This time I cut
him
off. “Whoa,” I said, laughing a little. “You totally have the wrong idea, Cole. That’s not what I was about to tell you, at all. Not even close.”

“What, then?” he said, thoroughly confused.

“What you saw earlier, with me sitting on Lucas’s lap…it was nothing. I’m not dating Lucas. I’ve never dated him, and I never will. He’s gay.”

“He’s
gay
?”

I explained the situation to him, how I couldn’t tell him before because Lucas wasn’t out yet and didn’t want too many people to know. He was silent for a minute, absorbing it all. If he doesn’t believe me, I thought, what will I do? It wasn’t as if “homosexual” was inscribed on Lucas’s photo ID card along with his date of birth.

“Wow,” he said, at last. “Of all the scenarios I had bouncing around in my head all night, that wasn’t one of them. I had no idea he was gay.”

My stomach started to unclench itself. “Not many people do. He gave me permission to tell you tonight.” I took a deep breath. My next question would have to be posed delicately. “You don’t…have a problem with that, do you?”

“With people being gay?” He laughed. “If I did, that would make me a really shitty brother.”

Now it was my turn to be confused. “What do you mean?”