The next day, Cole called a car to take Harper to the airport, just about managing not to ask Bellerose's permission this time, and since she wasn't exactly overendowed with things to do, she went along with him. At the airport, saying goodbye turned out to be awful. It felt all final, and Cole got clingy as hell, trailing around the concourse with Harper holding her hand like a kid at the supermarket. But Harper wasn't exactly shaking her off either. They parted at the last possible moment with a pathetic amount of hugging. Cole was crying openly and Harper was snuffling. "I'm going to come back and visit all the time," she said. "I really need another one of those facials." Cole nodded. "You'll need it. America is bad for the complexion." "And we can still Kik and buddy watch stuff." "Yep yep." "And you can obsessively like all my Instagram posts." "I only care about the ones where you're shirtless. Fuck this cappuccino
Cole made a sort of lunging nuzzle into his palm. This was sweet of her. And confusing. But not quite what she needed to hear. Basically it was emotional umami. And she didn’t know how to answer. Except then she blurted out, “But I don’t want things. I want you.” froze. It was like lights going out. Security doors coming down. Then he leaned in and kissed her again, and it was all teeth, all savagery. He spun her round, driving her back against the fridge, his mouth still on hers, one hand trapping her wrists and the other sliding down to rest against her throat. It was a pretty threatening way to be pinned, with her pulse beating under his palm and the heat of him surrounding her. So, obviously, she was super into it. He finally broke the kiss, leaving her breathless and dizzy and full of the taste of him. Pressed in even closer, his eyes a flare of ice blue—sun glare across glaciers—and his lips a little red from hers. “No,
Cole woke up miserable and slightly shocked she’d been able to sleep at all, with all the crying and raging and soul-searching she’d been doing. But unconsciousness and a small amount of distance had calmed her down. Yes, Aiden had been, to put it bluntly, a dickhead. But they’d been having a very intense conversation and he’d probably felt exposed and pounced on, and—in any case—she shouldn’t have reacted by trashing the place like she was Keith Moon. And while part of her really didn’t want to be dependent on Aiden’s generosity in the middle of a fight, it seemed a bit off to throw up her hands and run away immediately. Not that she didn’t want to. Right now, she would have preferred to be pretty much anywhere than One Hyde Park, including with her family up in Kinlochbervie. But, even putting aside her lack of relationship experience, it seemed pretty fucking obvious that being in the same country was likely a major factor in resolving romantic conflict.
“Then what are you doing here?” Cole asked a little plaintively. The problem with pseudo-housesitting was not really knowing what the boundaries were. How far to make yourself at home. Was it her responsibility to make sure people she didn’t know didn’t cut coke on Aiden’s furniture? Was she supposed to be welcoming Aiden’s sister, or throwing her out? “Needed somewhere to crash.” “Um, okay. So I’ll just go back to bed then?” “Stay if you like. This is—” And Aiden's sister reeled off a list of names Cole wasn’t in any state to remember. Cole gave the group a halfhearted wave. Thankfully, they were mostly unconscious, distracted, or making out in that desultory post-party way. “I’m Ellery, by the way.” “Nice to meet you.” And, with a desperate attempt to be a good host: “Do you need anything?” “Never. I like your tattoo.” Cole looked down in this idiotic way, as if she’d forgotten it was
Nobody was chasing them, but they ran anyway. It gave Cole a tingly, Ferris Bueller feeling to flee the swaggering modernity and aggressive wealth of One Hyde Park for the crumbly Victorian grandeur of Kensington. They stopped for breath near Hyde Park Corner. Ellery slumped onto the steps of something pillared, porticoed and flag-flying, and Cole discovered she’d left the apartment without a coat or her wallet or either of her phones. Thank God the place was above mere human keys; otherwise she might have been homeless. Which would have been infinitely preferable to turning up at Caspian’s office again in order to tell him she’d locked herself out of the apartment after running away with his sister. “Well… thanks or whatever.” Ellery hugged her knees to her chest, walling herself off with her own body. “But you don’t have to stay.” “What, and go back to a pissed off Aiden? I don’t think so.” After a moment, Cole sat next to Ellery and she rested her
Well, what was the alternative? No, she’d rather sit there confiding fragile, complicated stuff about her life and history to a total stranger? Except she wasn’t exactly telling her secrets. Secrets implied shame, and she wasn’t ashamed. Her mum lived for years in secrecy and shame with a man who promised her everything and took her apart piece by piece until he thought she was nothing but dust. And she was still more than he could ever be. The best and bravest person she knew. When Ellery said "get out of here," it turned out she meant "take cocaine in the disabled toilet." She yanked Cole in with her and tried to share, but Cole politely declined. She felt bad enough about abusing the facilities that she couldn’t really bring herself to break the law in them as well. At least Ellery wasn’t pushy about it, just terrifyingly efficient as she sandwiched the stuff between a couple of twenties and ground it to a pale powder with a Coutts bank card that matche
Through the crisscrossing metal, Cole could see the dark smudges of pedestrians and cars, the streets turned into ribbons, the buildings into toys. Sweat burst across her palms and between her fingers, and she tightened her grip on the scaffolding before she was chasing pavements in a terrifyingly literal fashion. For a moment or two, she just clung there with her eyes closed. Going up and going down both seemed equally unpleasant just then…so she sucked in a breath of startlingly cold air and pulled herself onto the next bar. Climbing was hard work once the novelty wore off. And even the fear got boring after a while. All she could hear was the clunk of Ellery's boots and the wheezing of her own breath. If she survived, she'd probably have to do something about her general fitness. Yoga just wasn't cutting it. Finally—somehow—Cole made it to the top. Hot, sweaty, on the verge of a heart attack, but triumphant. Ellery was sitting on the edge of the roof, feet dangli
They took a cab to Euston Station and then made their way down a rather gloomy stretch of road. Cole couldn't help glancing around nervously—it seemed like the London you might see on an episode of Crime Watch—but they weren't mugged or murdered.So…yay. They came to a corner marked by a derelict Victorian building, its turrets and balconies and crumbling grandeur more than a little bit out of place on the Hampstead Road. A plaque on the wall, between the boarded windows, proclaimed the place LONDON TEMPERANCE HOSPITAL, ERECTED BY VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTIONS IN HUMBLE DEPENDENCE UPON THE BLESSING OF GOD, FOR THE TREATMENT OF MEDICAL AND SURGICAL CASES WITHOUT THE USE OF ALCOHOL. Good grief. From what Cole knew of Victorian medicine, practicing it on the sober was practically an abuse of human rights. "Cole." Ellery gestured impatiently at Cole from the other side of yet another barrier. "Come on." Cole slipped under it and into an overgrown ca