36. Sunny
Whether or not mymother was right, I had a recital to oversee.
After promising Mom a video call with her counselor, Tony drove me to the community center. Then dropped the other two boxes at my feet and took off back toward his car.
"Tony!" I shrieked after him.
"Sorry, mi amor," he called back, blowing me kisses over his shoulder as he yanked open the driver"s side door. "But you been known I am a punk-ass bee-otch outside the ring! Love you! Love you! Break a leg! Without me! Byyyeee!!!"
With that, Tony cut out of the parking lot like a NASCAR driver, tires screeching as he cut right into traffic and disappeared down the road.
"It"s not the words; it"s the do."
My mother"s advice rang ominously in my head as I carry three unwieldy boxes into the small dance studio, which we were using as a dressing room that night—since the community center's auditorium didn't have a real one.
"Wednesday Glo, your bunny ears and cotton tails are in the bottom box! Put them on and get out of the way!" I yelled out instructions as I came into the studio, boxes first. "Saturday Glo, I"ve got your cat ears and tails, girls, in the top box. Put them on quick like a bunny, even though you"re cats. We need to go over your routine a few more times before we hit the stage since I had to make a few changes to the choreography."
"Why'd you change it up?" I heard Lucia demand as I walked the oversized box to the bench, where the girls sat down to take off their street shoes.
Don"t cry like a little girl in front of these little girls. "Because your cousin Tony won"t be here to do the lifts, and I'm not strong enough to take his place. So, we're going to have to figure out how to do those parts without him."
I set the boxes down and began slapping cat ears and tails onto the bench.
"Why can't Cole do it? He"s way better than Cousin Tony. No offense."
"I already told you two weeks ago, Cole Benton"s not going to be here. Now, can you just get into your costume, Lucia? Everyone, come on, come on, get on your ears!"
"But Cole"s—" Lucia started to protest.
"Lucia, please!" I whipped around at the end of my rope to address the pushy eleven-year-old. "We don"t have time for..."
The "this" faded from my tongue when I saw Cole standing beside her.
In a hooded fluffy dog costume with long droopy ears. Like the girls, his nose was painted black, but unlike the girls, his eyes weren't filled with confusion.
Just pain. Raw and hungry pain.
Or maybe I was only imagining that was what it was since raw and hungry pain was exactly what sliced through me when I saw him standing there.
I shook my head. "No, Cole. Don't do this."
"Sunny. Hear me out. Listen to me," he said, his voice ravaged. "I tried to do it your way, and if you feel anywhere near as bad as I have over the last two weeks, then it's not working."
"I don"t care, and I don't know why you're here. But go away." I held up my hands like someone warding off a curse. "Please, just go away. I have to get this recital done."
"Ooohhh!!!" Theheads of the twenty-six recital participants ping-ponged back and forth between us like they were at a tennis match.
"Then listen to me," he insisted, his voice hardening. "If you want me gone—truly gone forever—listen to me this once. And then, if you want, I"ll leave, and you"ll never hear from me again. I promise."
"For real, this is better than a P-Drama," Lucia observed and got several nods of agreement from the other dancers.
"Why are you doing this to me?" I demanded, my heart beating like it was setting to shatter inside my chest any second. "These have been some of the most terrible weeks of my life. Why would you come here? You're only making it worse."
"Oooooh!!!"the girls said again, their heads moving back to Cole for his response.
"Because," Cole answered. "I"m so in hate with you."
The girls gasped. "That"s not what I thought he"d say!" someone whispered loudly.
"What does that even mean?" Lucia asked her fellow dancers.
"I"ll tell you what it means," Cole answered without looking away from me. "I hate that you made me skip so much work, Sunny. I hate that even when I"m not skipping work, I"m not getting as much done as I want to because I can"t stop thinking about you. I hate that you actually make me struggle with empathy and guilt—concepts I haven"t bothered with since I was a kid. I hate that you're everyone's best friend from the start—even if they don't deserve it, like me. I hate that every day—every single day—I couldn"t wait to come home to you and watch some silly show with you on the couch. I hate that you see through all my b.s. and force me to be a better man. And you know what I really hate, Sunny? I mean, absolutely fucking loathe?"
"Miss Sunny, he cursed!" one of the younger students called out from the back of the group. "Did you hear him? He cursed!"
Cole kept going, despite the language narc. "I hate that my grandma was right. She knew I'd fall for you. Fast. And I didn't want to admit it, but these last weeks in hell have made it clear as black ice. I love you, Sunny. Even though it terrifies me. But that"s the thing about you. You make me do all the things I know don"t make logical sense. You made me love you and miss you so much."
"No. No. You don"t suddenly love me." My heart was on a tightrope. Afraid to beat, afraid to breathe for fear of falling. "What's your endgame this time, Cole? You're telling me you love me, why? To get back at Max? To prove something to Nora? What is it this time?"
Cole shook his head. "I can't work. I barely sleep. All I can do is think about you and how stupid I was for letting you get away. For lying to you in order to become chairman of the board. Because guess what? I've got the chairmanship now. Nora put the resolution up at the last meeting without me even having to ask. So I finally got everything I thought I wanted, but it doesn't mean jack because you aren't there to share it with me. My only endgame is you, Sunny. You're all I want. I get that now."
The girls couldn't have possibly understood what half of that meant, but they all said, "Awwww!!!" just the same as if it were the most romantic thing they'd ever heard.
Then theirheads ping-ponged back to me.
But I could only shake my head. "I don"t understand. What do you want from me? I"m moving to New York next week to finally live my life—pursue my dreams."
"Okay, okay, move to New York," Cole agreed with a decisive nod. "I"m fine with that as long as I can move there, too."
"What?" My righteous anger started to wobble into confusion.
"I don't have to be here to run Benton Worldwide. I can work out of New York. It'll make things a little more difficult, but I don't care. Because you know what I hate the absolute most, Sunny? That I hurt you because I didn"t do this right the first time. Sunny, please..."
Cole went down on one knee, reached into the pocket of his dog costume, and retrieved a ring box, which he opened to reveal a stunning ruby ring encircled by sparkling diamonds. "Will you do me the honor of marrying me?"
My heart leaped forward, slammed into my chest wall, then exploded into fireworks that sounded an awful lot like little girls screaming at glass-shattering decibels.
Oh, wait, that was because there were twenty-six eight to eleven year olds screaming so loudly I could barely hear what Cole said next.
"No more contracts," Cole declared with the new ring held high, somehow managing to project over the girls losing their prepubescent minds. "All I need is your word that you"ll let me spend the rest of my life proving I deserve your love."
I stood there, frozen to the spot, unable to process what Cole was doing. What he'd promised. What he was asking me to promise.
"Ohmigod! Ohmigod! Ohmigod!" Lucia screamed over all the commotion, flapping her hands next to her face like a Jonah Hill meme—like she really was watchingthe end of a Philippine Drama. "Say yes, Miss Sunny! Pleeezzze, say yes!"