Chapter 124

By the time Cole had dealt with everything and shown him how to find the bathroom, being alone with Aiden felt incredibly significant somehow. Almost too much.

Cole had always loved her mom’s room. It had been storage space when they first arrived, but her mother had done it up. It was right at the back of the house, in the pointy bit. The bed was tucked under the eaves, and her mother had strung up a bunch of fairy lights so it felt like lying under a canopy of electric stars. It was Cole’s favorite place to read, tucked under the handmade quilt and propped up on the jewel-colored throw pillows, the sea whispering to her just on the edge of hearing.

It had seemed pretty magical at the time, but with Aiden standing there – hunching a little to avoid banging his head on the ceiling and looking as if he’d been airbrushed in from an issue of GQ – it seemed more kind of…shabby. Quaint, if one were feeling generous.

And then he pulled his jumper over his head, and Cole stopped worrying