To the house he moved back into.
The house of ghosts and dolls and blood pools.
Coming back here is the last thing I want to do, but I also didn’t sign up to be separated from Cole.
After putting in the code, I walk in slowly, watching my surroundings as if someone will jump me and jam a needle into my neck.
I stop when I make out his tense back. He appears melancholic, his shoulders drooping underneath his jacket. He’s standing in front of the pool, only, it’s empty now. No blood water or any water.
Several boxes are stacked above each other outside.
Is he moving out? Where to?
I tried asking Aiden how Cole was doing, but that bastard wouldn’t give out any information and I’m too exhausted to plot anything to force him.
“Are you going somewhere?” I stop beside him.
Cole’s gaze snaps to me. His dark green irises appear bottomless, hollow, almost as if they’ve already moved someplace else. “What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here.”
“Then why are you standing here?”
He stares back at the empty pool. “Go home, Silver.”
I barge in front of him, wrap my arms around his waist, and rest my head against his chest, breathing in his scent.
“What are you doing?” he asks without hugging me back.
“You told me to go home. You’re my home, Cole.”
He shoves me away, shaking my shoulders. “I’m not your home. I’m the son of the woman who almost fucking killed you.”
“You’re not her.”
“Maybe I am. I’ve lived my entire life thinking I inherited the fucked-up genes from my father, but it turns out, they were from her. Maybe I’ll grow up to be her.”
“You won’t.”
“How would you know that?”
“Because you shared my loss. You called it our loss, Cole, remember? You told me my pain is yours. You’ll never be her, because you care. In your own way, you care.”
He breathes harshly as if he’s still fighting that notion. That reality.
The fact he’s not his parents. He never will be. I know that for a fact.
“And I’m your chaos.” I smile through the tears pricking my eyes. “So you can’t leave me alone or I’ll haunt you.”
“You’ll haunt me?” he asks with a little smile.
“Yes, I will. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because I love you, Cole. I’ve been in love with you since you found me in the park that day and pulled my hair and told me you wanted my firsts. I’ve loved you more through the years, and I hated every time I had to face the reality that I couldn’t be with you.”
“I thought you hated me.”
“That was my way of saying I love you.”
He taps my nose. “You’re so weird.”
“Not more than you. You’ve been a dick to me for a long time.”
“That’s because I wanted you to stay interested in me. To never get tired of me. I beat you in everything just to see that fire in your eyes as you challenged me for a rematch. I beat you to keep you coming back to me.”
My lips part. I didn’t know that. “Really?”
“Really. I might have been in love with you for as long as you’ve been in love with me.”
Tears glisten in my eyes. “Oh, Cole.”
“Moan it. My name, I mean,” he says with mischievousness.
“I love you, Cole.” I sigh.
“Does that mean you’re mine now?”
“I always have been.”
He wraps a hand around my throat and his lips claim mine.
Epilogue 1 – Silver
Three years later
“What the hell are you doing here?” I whisper-yell as Cole leans against the bathroom’s door and clicks it closed behind him. “This is the ladies’ room.”
“I know.” He stalks towards me, and every step he takes is like he’s walking straight to my heart.
I was right. There’s no way my feelings for him would ever fizzle out.
With every passing day, I fall harder and faster into him.
With every day, he becomes my everything.
We moved to Oxford for university, and soon after, we told Mum and Papa about our relationship.
I can’t be with him officially. At least, not yet. Papa won the election and became the prime minister, then remarried Mum a year after Helen’s death.
That caused quite a ruckus in the media, despite their strategic approach. Frederic made it look like Mum consoled Papa and they rediscovered their initial attraction.
It’s true that Cole and I don’t live under the same roof anymore, and he eclipsed himself from the family circle to not be associated as my brother. But it’ll take years for the world to come to terms with us.
We’re bigger than the world, he and I. They’re not ready for us.
Papa and Mum are the Conservative Party — despite their non-conservative actions with that affair. I can’t exactly bring their votes down by announcing I’m in love with my ex-stepbrother.
I can only do that once Papa is out of 10 Downing Street.
Because of that, our relationship is just known on a familial and close friends level. As in only Aiden, Xander, and Ronan from our friends.
But even with that, Cole shouldn’t be here.
“Everyone else is outside,” I scold. “We’re supposed to be celebrating Xander and Kim’s engagement.”
“I know.” His eyes gleam as he cages me against the counter, his hands on either side of me.
I wrap both arms around his neck. “We can’t do this.”
“I know.”
And then his lips devour mine. I climb up his body as he fiddles with his belt, and soon enough he’s plunging inside me.
I kiss him like a madwoman as he fucks me hard, fast and dirty against the counter of the bathroom.
I’d be lying if I said this was our first time violating public indecency codes. Cole doesn’t show it, but he’s the adventurous type. He doesn’t stop when he wants something done — that something being me.
Nothing deters him, whether we’re at the university dorms or during a night out while everyone is getting drunk. And even during family dinners.
Mum calls him out on it every time, and he merely shrugs.
“C-Cole…” I grip his shoulders hard.
“Close, Butterfly?” he grunts against my mouth.
“Yes, oh, yes.”
“Who do you belong to?”
“You.”
“Say it.”
I bite my lower lip as I murmur the words that drive him crazy, “I’ve only loved you. Just you. You’re my first and last.”
He wraps his hand around my throat, squeezing as he pounds into me faster, making me fall.
Fall into him.
Fall into us.
He comes inside me at the same time as I shatter around him, biting his shoulder over his shirt to muffle my scream.
Once the wave subsides, I sigh, resting my head against the crook of his neck, breathing him in. “I love you.”
Instead of all the times I told him I hate him after sex, now I make it a habit to say my true feelings.
“And I love you.” He kisses my nose as I stand to my unsteady feet, stupid gravity pulling me down.
After I clean him and myself up, I face the sink to check my makeup. Cole remains at my back, wrapping both arms around my middle.
Not a day goes by where we don’t keep our hands off each other. We might not touch in public, but in private? We’re everything no one should know.
We’re kinky, we’re dorks, we’re nerds. Or, rather, Cole is. We’re in love. We’re happy.
As long as I have him, I know I won’t need anything else.
He rests his chin on the top of my head. “You’ll marry me, right?”
I freeze, the lipstick suspended in front of my parted mouth as I meet his gaze in the mirror. “W-What?”
“You’ll marry me?”
“Is this because everyone else is getting married?”
“Fuck everyone else. I’m asking you.” He kisses the top of my head. “I know it’ll be a long time until I actually marry you, but I want confirmation.”
“Oh, Cole.” I spin around and face him. “Of course, I’ll marry you. You’re the only one for me.”
“The only one, huh?”
“The only one.”
“And you’re the only one for me, Butterfly.” He kisses me so passionately on the lips, I nearly climb his body all over again.
“Repeat that in front of that fucker Aiden when we go outside.”
I laugh. Cole is still low-key mad at Aiden for the three years I was engaged to him, and he seizes every chance to take revenge.
Cole will always be Cole.
I’m just glad he finally put Helen behind him. We both did. Now, we only focus on us.
When he demanded my firsts, I saved them for him. In return, he saved me his. We’re each other’s everything.
Hugging him, I whisper, “One day, I’ll shout at the top of the world that you’re mine.”
“And you’re mine, Silver, always.”
“Always.”