Page 20 of Falling for Cocky Cole
Cole shakes his head. "I am serious about her. And I'll never let her go." He pauses, meeting my eyes. "But that doesn't mean you can't have her too."
My mouth falls open. "Are you... are you suggesting we share Ivy?"
"Why not?" Cole shrugs. "She likes you. Has since she was a teenager."
"Maybe. But that was before. She's different now."
Cole shakes his head. "Her feelings for you haven't changed. At least, not a week ago when we met at the Antler." Cole steps closer, lowering his voice even though there's no one around to hear. "She told me—after a couple of drinks—that she likes two men. One is her boss, the other is like her brother."
I feel like I've been punched again. "She likes Grant too?"
Cole nods, a rueful smile on his face. "Grant and you. You lucky bastards."
"But you're the only one who's slept with her," I point out, still trying to process what he's telling me.
"Yeah, but she doesn't love me," Cole says with a sigh. "We're just friends with benefits, at least for now. That's all she wants."
I put a hand on my brother's arm, not sure what to say. For all his cockiness, for all his charm, Cole actually sounds... hurt. Like he wants more from Ivy than she's willing to give.
"You're still the luckiest of the three of us," I tell him, meaning it.
We walk toward our vehicles, parked side by side on the gravel lot. Before we part, Cole turns to me. "Again, it's not too late to tell her how you feel."
I nod slowly. "I'll try." I pause, then add, "But what about Grant?"
Cole shrugs. "That's up to her. But my guess? She'll choose you if you actually make a move. Grant's too stuck in his head to do anything about his feelings."
I climb into my SUV, my mind racing. Ivy likes me. Has liked me for years, apparently. And now Cole is practically giving me his blessing to pursue her. This night has taken a turn I never could have predicted.
11
IVY
Emily's coloring book is spread across Grant's coffee table, her small fingers clutching a blue crayon as she scribbles outside the lines of what I think is supposed to be a unicorn. I watch her from the kitchen, my mind drifting miles away to my parents' orchard and what happened three nights ago with Cole. The memory makes my cheeks burn even now.
"Look, Ivy! I made her blue because blue unicorns are rare," Emily announces, holding up her masterpiece with pride.
"That's beautiful, sweetie. Very rare indeed." I force a smile, but my thoughts are stuck in a continuous loop of Friday night replays.
Cole's hands on my waist. The sweet, tangy smell of crushed apples. His mouth against my neck as I straddled him on that wooden bench. The creaking wood beneath us. The heat. The rush. The?—
The look on Caleb's face when he walked in.
Shit.
Three days later and I still want to melt into the floorboards every time I think about it. His eyes had gone wide, mouth slightly open, and for a single, frozen moment, all three of us existed in this bizarre tableau—me, topless, on Cole's lap, Cole’s head on my chest, Caleb framed in the barn doorway like some unwitting audience member who'd stumbled into the wrong theater.
And what did I do? What any mature, confident, twenty-five-year-old woman would do: I grabbed my shirt and ran. Fled. Disappeared like smoke.
"Can we have cookies?" Emily asks, breaking my mortifying replay.
I pull my thoughts together. “No sweetie. You’ll ruin your appetite. You’re going to have dinner at the diner, remember?
She grins. “Of course I do,” she says and goes back to her coloring book.
My mind returns to that night. I wonder what happened after I left. Caleb had looked astonished, yes, but there was something else there. Anger? Disappointment? His jaw had that tight set to it, the same one I've seen directed at high school boys who used to call me "Poison Ivy" when I was fifteen. That fierce, protective look that made my teenage heart flutter wildly in my chest.
God, I hope they didn't fight. Cole didn't do anything wrong. We're both consenting adults. But something in Caleb's eyes told me he wouldn't let his brother off easily. I know that look too well—I've been cataloging Caleb's expressions since I was twelve.
