Page 81 of Going Solo

“Oh. That’s disappointing,” Cole said. “I thought I was connecting with my culture.”

“Besides, I thought you liked your boys fat and synthetically orange.”

“Someone once told me the correct term was cherubic.” Cole rolled onto his side, facing me, and propped his head up on his hand. “I like that too. But then, I think we always have a thing for guys who remind us of our first love. Subconsciously, at least.”

“I remind you of your first love?” I frowned, pretending to be confused.

Cole smiled and flicked me with his stalk of grass. I pushed it away, playfully, hamming it up a bit because, well, I was lying in a wildflower meadow with the most beautiful man in the world and he was flirting with me like we were sixteen again.

“Can I play you a song?” he said.

“You’re not getting a guitar out, are you?”

“Oh God, no! I’d never serenade anyone.”

“Thank goodness for that, babes. Because, to be honest with you, people think things like that are romantic, but it makes the person playing the guitar look like a divvie, and it’s dead uncomfortable for the person forced to listen to it.”

“Noted,” Cole said, with a wry smile. “I was planning to play you something from my phone, if that’s OK?”

“Sure,” I said, still uncertain. Cole scrolled through his phone, then laid it on the grass between us. It started playing “The Flame.” When the words kicked in, Cole sang softly along with them, his eyes never leaving mine.

“You lit a fire inside me that burned like the sun. You lit the way forward. You were the one. How did it burn out? Please, baby, explain why the fire died inside you. And I’m still holding the flame. It burns and it burns and it burns. You turn and I yearn and you burn—me.”

I lay in the grass, stunned. Nick had been right. I’d never truly listened to the lyrics before. The song finished, and we lay there for a moment, looking at each other. Cole’s mahogany eyes searched mine, begging me to say something.

“Did you write that about me?”

“I wrote itforyou,” Cole said. “It’s about us.”

“But it’s a song about unrequited love.”

“You know, you’re very deep into mansplaining territory at this point.”

I rolled onto my side, leaning on my elbow.

“I wrote it one night after watching you onCelebrity Dorm Room.”

“Not the?—”

“The drunken night on the couch?” Cole chortled. “Yeah, that episode.”

I cringed. “I’m sorry for anything I said that upset you. I didn’t mean to tell your business. I went on that show wanting to reclaim my narrative. I only meant to tell enough to exorcise the ‘marriage material’ demon.”

“I don’t think you can exorcise it, Toby,” Cole said. “That meme is bigger than either you or me. It belongs to the culture now.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way, but I supposed he was right.

“Anyway, I didn’t mean to tell the whole country about losing our virginity. In my defence, I was terribly drunk.”

Cole laughed. “Don’t be silly. That conversation gave me hope. I sat up all night, pouring out my heart onto the page the way you’d poured yours out on that couch.”

A dragonfly hovered between us for a moment, then zipped away.

“That was five years ago. Why did you only reach out now?”

“Felicity. The band. The rules. I’m sorry.”

“The album…” I said, recalling what Nick had said to me. “Everyone reckons it should be called ‘Reborn,’ but you called it ‘The Flame.’ That’s for me too?”

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