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  “It’s dark out. Why don’t you let me give you a ride?” His voice was soft and filled with all the love and concern of my former best friend.

  Ugh. Cole. I could handle domineering Cole. And sarcastic Cole. Even joking Cole. But caring Cole? Caring Cole threatened me in ways I wasn’t sure I could handle.

  “Look, if you don’t let me give you a ride, I’m just going to have to drive home, following you with the windows down and the heat vents pointed at you.”

  He was ridiculous, and it almost made me smile. Almost. “What about my bike? And getting to school tomorrow?”

  Cole shrugged like it was no big deal. “Leave it here. It’s locked up, isn’t it? And I’ll just give you a ride in the morning. It’s not like it’s out of my way.”

  I glared at him. This was not good. Not good at all. Suddenly, I was beginning to see the implications of what I had done by coercing Cole into being in my play. The hours of interaction. The exposure to him, his smile, his laugh, his hotness. Could I really resist him? Would it even be an issue? I figure in some ways it would be. Three years ago, it had taken six months for Cole to stop watching for me. To stop calling me. To stop knocking on my door. It was almost a year before he began avoiding eye contact and turning the other direction if he saw me walking down the hall. So, opening that door? Yeah, that was a big deal.

  Groaning, irritated, Cole tossed his backpack over his shoulder and started for the door. “Sheesh. It’s just a ride home. I’m not letting you ride your bike in the freezing dark.”

  And that’s just how he was. He just turned and walked away, knowing I would follow. I ordered my feet to stay where they were.

  “Oh my gosh, Jo, come on. I’m not getting any younger here.” His voice echoed through the empty auditorium.

  I could just sit here. At least it was warm. I didn’t have to go out there and deal with Mr. Bossy. Where were his admirers anyway? The Cole I knew never walked the halls of this school without girls following him around waiting for any small particle of his attention. It was nuts. I mean yeah, he looked like a younger, taller, Tom Cruise (after the braces, Tom’s not Cole’s). Still, that didn’t mean he was all that, right?

  Ok, maybe he was all that. You know, sweet.

  Hot. Strong. Gorgeous.

  Friendly. Built like nobody’s business.

  Tender.

  Protective.

  Did I say hot?

  But that didn’t mean anything, right?

  Bracing myself for the confrontation to come, I shouldered my bag and made my way up the sloping aisle to the doors at the back of the auditorium. Stay strong, Joie! Oh, but Northern Indiana was cold! The blast of freezing air when I opened the door threatened my resolve. It was silly, wasn’t it? What good would it do to spurn a ride in Cole’s car which was already running while he scraped the windows? No good. It would do no good.

  But, no! Like I said before, encouraging Cole was a bad idea. Relying on Cole was a bad idea. Relying on anyone but myself? You guessed it- bad idea. Fumbling with the lock on my bike with gloved fingers, I preached to myself. No Cole. No Cole.

  “Joie! Stop being stubborn and get in the car! It’s like ten below out here.” Cole was in his car now and had pulled up to the curb by the bike racks.

  No. I shook my head and continued to try to unlock my bike.

  Cursing and the slamming of a car door preceded him. “Joie, I don’t want to have to manhandle you, but you are getting in the car.”

  I flinched. I didn’t want to. I knew Cole wouldn’t hurt me, but he did hurt me. Missing him hurt me. Him being nice hurt me. Knowing I’d hurt him, hurt me!

  Cole placed his hand on my shoulder. “Come on. Please. I can’t let you ride your bike in this. It’s starting to snow.”

  Darn Cole. Darn his soft voice. Darn this cold, snowy, weather. Christmas is over, Indiana! No one likes snow after Christmas!

  Cole’s hand drifted down my arm until it reached mine and closed over it. “You can still hate me and give me a cold shoulder. Just get in the car.”

  I let him drag me to the passenger door. He opened it and waited like a freaking chauffeur for me to get in. Knowing I’d lost this battle of wills, I plopped down in the seat and reached my hands toward the vents. Cole slammed the door shut and made his way, slipping and sliding, to his own door and seat.

  “Buckle up,” he ordered. “The roads are gonna be terrible.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. Cole reached down to the controls for the heat as though he wanted to turn the blower up higher, but it was already up as high as it would go. “Man, it’s cold.”

  “I swear, I hate Indiana. I’m moving somewhere warm as soon as I can.” Crossing my arms over my chest, I tucked my hands in my armpits in hopes that I wouldn’t lose my fingertips before we made it home.

  Cole laughed. “Yeah, I hear you. But then in summer, it’s like so hot and humid, you’re praying for winter, because the heat sucks so bad, too.” He shifted the car into drive and pressed on the gas. It fishtailed before straightening out and I held my breath. Thank goodness, the parking lot was empty.

  Cole drove toward the main road, but swerved at the last minute, heading back into the parking lot.

  “What are you doing?”

  But he just grinned and gunned it.

  “Cole, you idiot. Stop!” I shouted, but I couldn’t hold back my grin as he made donuts in the school parking lot.

  “Woohoo!” Cole laughed and pulled the emergency break sending us spinning. “You love it!”

  “I knew I should have ridden my bike,” I squealed the last word as I crashed into my door. “Cole!” But I was laughing. Probably harder than I had in three years.

  Around and around we spun for probably ten minutes. Cole would stop and act like he was going to pull out of the parking lot and head home and then at the last minute send us into another donut. My abs ached from laughing and my hands were cramped from holding onto my seat and door so tightly. Finally, when we were breathless and weak from the exhilaration, Cole made his way to the stop sign leading out of the parking lot.

  We were halfway home when Cole turned to me, a half-smile curling his lips. “See, that was way better than riding your bike in the freezing snow.”

  Rolling my eyes, I turned my head toward my window, so he wouldn’t see the smile I couldn’t seem to keep off my face. “You saved me from the cold just to see if you could off me by crashing?”

  Cole scoffed. “Crashing? We were never in danger of crashing, Jo. Come on.” He shook his head.

  “It’s still weird that you have your driver’s license.” The thought came out before I could stop it. Not that it wasn’t true, but it had been a thing between us when we were in middle school. Cole was a whopping twenty-six days older than me and always used to tease me about how he would get his license first. He graciously offered back then to drive me around wherever I wanted to go until I got my own.

  Ha. My sixteenth birthday came and went without cake or singing, no way was it going to include a trip to the DMV for a driver’s license. I suppose I could ride my bike down there to get it, but you must have so many hours driving and that’s hard to do when your mom was drunk or high all the time.

  The air between us quivered with awkwardness. I was sure Cole’s brain was just overflowing with questions, but I wasn’t in the mood to answer them. Instead, he settled for saying something else.

  “That offer to drive you around still stands.” The words were low and sincere, and they broke my heart.

  Chapter 9

  Cole

  If there was one thing I knew about Joie, I knew she kept secrets. Even though I knew something was off in her life from the time we were really small, it wasn’t until sixth grade that we actually talked about it and that was only because I pushed the issue one day. I don’t think she would have ever admitted anything otherwise. Until then, all I knew was that my best friend in the whole world lived scared.

  Joie’s dad was charismatic. H
e had a smile for everyone. Together, Joie’s parents were striking. I remember one-time Joie came to our house to stay overnight because her parents had some red-carpet kind of thing to go to for the premiere of one of her mom’s books. When they dropped her off at our house, they were already dressed. Her mom looked like a princess and her dad was every inch the dashing prince charming. Maybe that’s why it was so shocking the other day to see her mom looking so... haggard. Anyway, on the outside those two looked like they had it all together, you know?

  I could never shake this feeling around him, though. Maybe it was just that I was a kid and had that second sense you get sometimes about danger. But I never felt comfortable around Joie’s dad. I remember thinking his smile never reached his eyes and that Joie always shied away from him whenever he tried to hug her or show her any kind of affection. Coming from a loving home, myself, and knowing that I could crawl up into my dad’s lap when he got home from work and just sit there while he watched some game or other on tv, well, I guess I noticed the difference. My dad made me feel safe and I knew Joie’s scared her to death.

  One day when we were in the sixth grade, things had started to kinda change between us, Joie and me. We were still best friends and everything, but we sat closer on the couch to watch movies, making sure we were touching. A lot of our play was physical, you know, wrestling around and tickling, things like that. Well, on this day, we were down in my basement. Joie was trying to do her homework and I was trying to get her to do just about anything else. As usual, I took things too far and the next thing I knew, we were wrestling around. One minute we were laughing and playing and the next, Joie was on the ground, clutching her arm.

  Man, I felt like the biggest jerk. Sure, we joked around a lot, but I never wanted to hurt Joie. My mom raised me to be a gentleman and even when we played around, I tried to be gentle.

  “Oh, my gosh, Jo. Are you okay?” That’s it, just shoot me now. How could I have made Joie cry like that? I sat next to her and wrapped my arms around her shoulders. “Geez, seriously. Are you okay? I feel so bad.” I felt my own eyes fill with tears. Joie was my best friend and I loved her more than just about anybody.

  Joie sniffled for a few minutes more, her tears soaking the front of my t-shirt. It felt weird, but I felt so bad I didn’t even say anything about it. Finally, she lifted her eyes and glanced at me. I thought I was going to be sick, she looked so sad.

  “Jo-” I shook my head. I didn’t even know what to say.

  “It’s okay, Cole. It isn’t your fault. You didn’t know.” She raised her arm and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her shirt.

  “Didn’t know what,” I asked, completely confused. “What do you mean? I swear I didn’t mean to hurt your arm. I was just playing around.”

  “I know. It’s just-” she turned her head away from me. “It’s just it was already hurt.”

  “What? How did you hurt it? What happened?” Injuries were a badge of honor at our age. Joie and I compared scars and bruises all the time. I hadn’t heard anything about her arm. I wracked my brain to think of how she might have hurt herself.

  Then, it was like time stood still. Like everything stopped and I was looking through a long tunnel and Joie was at the other end. All I could see were her eyes. Eyes that were filled with the most aching, heartbreaking sadness I had ever seen. And I was reminded of something. Something dark that I usually tried to hide away because it interfered with the happy times Joie and I had together.

  As gingerly as I possibly could with my eleven-year-old hands, I took hold of Joie’s arm and began pushing her sleeve up. I knew I needed to see what was there, but in my heart, I was hoping she would stop me. That she would tell me everything was fine and not to worry about her. I wanted to go back to hiding from the darkness. Her darkness.

  Her eyes never left my face. Even when I had pushed her sleeve up past the black and blue fingerprints on her upper arm, Joie never looked away. And I felt like all the air, all the happiness, all the love had been sucked out of my soul. Who could do this to my beautiful friend? But I knew.

  Without knowing what I was doing, I threw my arms around her and cried. I think it was the first time I’d cried in years. I couldn’t even remember the last time I had. But there in my parent’s basement with my best friend crushed as close as I could get her, I sobbed. Before long, Joie began crying again and I’ll never know how long we held each other there and let out all our sadness. All our brokenness.

  “I’ll kill him,” I whispered into her hair. “I promise, I’ll kill him for what he did to you.”

  Joie shook her head against my shoulder. “No, Cole.”

  “Yes. I don’t want him to hurt you.” Even as I said the words, reality crashed around me and I knew, I knew this wasn’t the first time. Of course, it wasn’t. Hadn’t I seen the signs all along? Hadn’t I noticed the smile that never reached his eyes? Hadn’t I collected Joie almost every day for a few years straight from behind the trash bins? It crushed me. Fresh tears rolled hot down my cheeks.

  “No. Cole, don’t you see? Don’t you get it? You are better than him. Hurting people is not what you do.” Joie rose up from my hold on her and grasped my shoulders. “You can’t hurt him. It would hurt me to know you did something like that. You are so good. You’re all I have, Cole. The only hope I have.”

  The only hope she had. My friends wanted to know why I was starring in Joie’s play? That’s why. Because I was the only hope she had. That and a ten-year-old pact that included burning Joie’s mom’s incense and cutting our palms to become blood brother and sister and a promise to never say no if either of us invoked the power of our pact.

  Damn. I was such a fool.

  Joie

  I knew the minute Cole pulled up in front of my house I didn’t want to go in there. Lights glared through the window panes and 70’s disco music echoed faintly through the walls.

  Smiling as brightly as I could muster, I pushed open the door. “Thanks for the ride.”

  Cole’s hand on my arm stopped me before I could make my escape.

  “What?” I met his gaze over my shoulder.

  He glanced uneasily at my house. “What’s going on in there? Are you going to be okay?”

  Putting on a braver face than I felt, I stepped out of the car. “Don’t worry about me.”

  Cole was out of the car and by my side before I could even step up on the curb. “Come to dinner at my house,” he blurted, grabbing my hand.

  “What? No.” I tugged my hand, but he didn’t let go. Instead, he stepped closer until I felt his breath on my face. My heart stuttered in my chest.

  “Joie. I know you don’t want to tell me what’s going on with you and I get that, but I got this feeling. In my gut, I have this feeling that you are not okay.” His eyes hardened as he looked at my house. Two men had come out the front door to light up cigarettes, the sound of laughter wafted into the night air before they closed the door again.

  Anxiety that had nothing to do with Cole’s closeness threatened to crush me. He was right. There was no way it was safe for me to go in there. Things with my mother were getting worse.

  “Mom would love to have you for dinner and we can do homework up in my room. Just like old times.” Cole propelled me across the street, then deposited me on the sidewalk in front of his house. Jogging back to his car, he jumped inside and parked it in his driveway. Two seconds later, he was back at my side. “Come on.”

  Glancing over my shoulder, I caught the eye of one of the men on my front porch and shivered. As much as I didn’t want to rely on Cole, I’d never been more thankful for him.

  The Parker’s home was warm and inviting after the cold outside. Cole removed his coat and tossed it and his backpack into a pile at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Here,” he said, taking my stuff and adding it to his. “We’ll take it up later.”

  I just nodded, the awkwardness of the situation almost unbearable. What would his parents think?

  “It’s
okay, Jo. We’ve done this a thousand times.” I wanted to be reassured by the confidence in his eyes, but it was hard. We had done this a thousand times probably a few thousand times. I knew his home as well as I knew my own. I even knew the scent of the beef stroganoff dinner coming from the kitchen.

  “Oh, my goodness, Joie!”

  A dark-haired tornado hit me right in the belly. Laughing, I hugged Macy, Cole’s younger sister. “Hey, Mace.”

  “It’s so good to see you! I’m so glad you’re here.” Macy squeezed me tighter and my throat constricted. I hadn’t just shunned Cole three years ago, I’d shut out his whole family.

  “I’m glad to see you, too, Mace.” I hugged her close.

  “Are you staying for dinner,” she asked excitedly.

  “I- I think so,” I answered, glancing at Cole.

  “She’s staying.” Cole ruffled Macy’s hair. “Let her breathe, for heaven’s sake.”

  Macy grinned at me and loosened her grip around my waist, settling for grabbing my hand and dragging me toward the kitchen.

  “Look who’s staying for dinner!” Macy’s loud call preceded us into the kitchen. It looked exactly as I remembered it. Mrs. Parker had decorated the cheerful room with roosters. She stood at the counter wearing a rooster print apron that looked like it should be on a grandma and not a beautiful mom in yoga pants and running shoes. She was just pulling something out of the oven when we turned the corner. Rolls. Oh. Wow. They smelled so good! I couldn’t remember the last time I had a real home cooked meal. Probably the last time I ate at the Parker’s.

  Mrs. Parker’s face lit with a smile when she saw me. She quickly set the rolls on a hot pad on the counter and met me with a hug.

  “Joie! I’m so glad you’re here.” She smelled like expensive perfume and dinner.

  “I’m sorry to barge in like this.” I glared a little at Cole, but he just shook his head and smiled.