Chapter 13: A Dangerous Toast
The wine was good. Better than good. A deep, garnet-colored Sangiovese that tasted of dark cherries and old wood, and Jade focused on that—the specific, tangible pleasure of it—as she sat alone at the small table tucked against the velvet-draped wall. The restaurant was a cave of murmured secrets and flickering shadows. Every clink of cutlery, every low laugh, felt charged. She was here to prove something to herself. That she could enjoy a meal, alone, in a beautiful place, after the day she’d had. That the stain on her blouse, now hidden under her jacket, didn’t mark her.
She’d almost finished the glass when the waiter appeared again, silent as a ghost. He placed a second, fresh glass of the same red wine before her with a practiced tilt of his wrist.
“Compliments of the gentleman,” he murmured, his voice barely rising above the ambient hum. He didn’t point, just gave a subtle nod towards the long, mahogany bar at the front of the room.
Jade’s pulse, which had finally settled, gave a hard, single thump. She knew before she looked.
Cole sat on a stool at the corner of the bar, one elbow propped on the polished wood. His motorcycle jacket was a slash of black leather slung over the stool next to him. He wore a simple, dark grey t-shirt underneath, the lines of his tattoos just visible along his corded forearms. He wasn’t grinning. He was just watching her, his fingers idly tracing the wet rim of his own whiskey glass. His expression was unreadable from this distance, but the intensity of his focus was a physical weight across the room.
The old Jade, the one from a week ago, might have blushed. Might have looked away, flustered. The Jade from this morning, fueled by pure defiance, might have thrown the wine in the waiter’s face.
This Jade—the one with the painting called “Boundary” waiting for her at home—sipped her original wine slowly. She placed the glass down with a soft click. She looked directly at Cole, held his gaze for three steady heartbeats. Then she stood, picking up both glasses of wine.
She weaved through the close-set tables, the second glass held precariously, feeling the eyes of other diners following her. The scent of garlic and rosemary grew denser, mixed now with the clean, sharp smell of whiskey and, as she got closer, Cole’s own scent—mechanic’s soap and something warmer, like sun-baked leather.
He didn’t stand up. He just swiveled slightly on his stool to face her as she stopped before him.
“You shouldn’t have,” she said, her voice level.
“I saw a beautiful woman drinking alone. Seemed criminal,” he replied. His tone was light, that familiar playful charm slicked over everything. But his eyes, a hazel-green in the bar’s low light, were serious, scanning her face. “Especially one who’s had a day.”
“What do you know about my day?”
He reached out and took the extra glass from her hand, his fingers brushing hers. A simple, deliberate contact. “I know you walked out of work before three. I know you went to the gallery on Wabash. I know you bought a painting that costs more than my bike’s rear tire.” He took a sip of the wine he’d sent her. “And I know you sent Dex a text that probably made him punch a hole in a wall.”
She didn’t ask how he knew. Dex. It was always Dex between them. “So this is what? Reconnaissance for your best friend?”
Cole’s smirk finally appeared, but it was thinner, less sure. “Nah. Dex doesn’t send scouts. He’s a siege weapon. This is just me.” He gestured to the empty stool beside him with the wine glass. “Sit. You’ve got two drinks now. Seems wasteful not to.”
The logical part of her screamed to walk away. To let the painting on her wall be the only statement she made today. But another part, the part that had thrilled at the vibration of the motorcycle, that was drawn to the raw, unpolished edges of this world, won out. She sat, perched on the edge of the stool, placing her own glass on the bar.
“Why are you here, Cole?”
He swirled the wine, watching the legs streak down the glass. “I was in the neighborhood. Seriously. Got a part for the Ducati from the shop down the block.” He glanced at her. “Saw you through the window. Looked like you were trying to have a philosophical debate with a bowl of cioppino.”
She almost smiled. “It was ravioli.”
“Even worse.” He took another drink. “The text, though. That was some cold shit, Jasper.” He used the nickname, the one from the bike ride, but it didn’t sound teasing now. It sounded like a reminder of a connection. “‘I deserve a love that doesn’t leave marks unless I ask for them.’ You write that yourself? It’s good.”
“It’s true,” she said, meeting his eyes. The air between them crackled, thick with everything unsaid—the memory of his teeth on her neck, the heat of his body, the way he’d watched while Dex claimed her.
“It is true,” he agreed, surprisingly soft. He leaned an inch closer. The candlelight from a nearby sconce danced in his eyes. “But let me ask you something. That night, in the hallway… did you ask?”
The question stole her breath. It was a direct hit. The memory surged back, unbidden: her back against the wall, his mouth hot on her skin, her fingers gripping his shoulders not to push away, but to hold on.
She didn’t answer.
He nodded slowly, as if her silence was answer enough. “See, that’s the thing. We’re not the guys in your office, Jade. We don’t send calendar invites and brush up against you in the break room. We’re direct. Dex sees something he wants, he takes it. I see something I want…” He trailed off, his gaze dropping to her mouth for a fraction of a second. “…I appreciate it. I enjoy it. But I also know when it’s not just mine to take.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means Dex saw you first.” He said it simply, a statement of law in their strange, tribal world. “That matters. But what you wrote him today? That matters too. It changes the game.” He finished the wine and set the glass down with a definitive tap. “He’s pissed. But he’s also… intrigued. You’re not running. That’s new.”
“I’m not a game,” she said, but the heat was gone from her words. She felt unmoored, adrift in the rules of a universe she didn’t understand.
“Everything’s a game, Jasper. The trick is knowing if you’re a player or a prize.”
“Cole,” she whispers. “ I’m not a prize. I don’t wanna play your game. I don’t care what rivalry you guys have together. I’m a woman and I deserve to be loved.” A pause. “ I deserve to be wanted for who I am, not because I’ve reminded someone of an old flame. Not because I’m part of a stupid game.”
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Cole didn’t laugh. He didn’t smirk. He just stared at her, his playful mask gone, washed away by the raw honesty in her words. The low hum of the restaurant seemed to recede, leaving only the crackle between them.
“An old flame?” he repeated, his voice quiet. He studied her face, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Is that what you think this is?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Jade said, the fight seeping out of her, leaving exhaustion. “He looks at me like he’s trying to see someone else. You look at me like you’re betting on a fight I didn’t agree too.”
He was silent for a long moment, spinning his empty whiskey glass on the mahogany. The ice cubes clinked softly, a lonely sound.
“Her name was Anya,” he finally said, the words blunt. He wouldn’t look at her. “She was… hell on wheels. Brilliant, furious, loved the track more than either of us. Three years ago. She left. Just packed up and vanished one night.”
Jade felt the air leave her lungs. This was the shape of the ghost.
“Dex didn’t take it well. Shut down. Built a wall.” Cole finally met her eyes again, his gaze intense. “Then you walked into the apparent complex. You have the same laugh. The same way you toss your hair when you’re arguing a point. It’s fucking unsettling.”
“So I’m a replacement,” Jade whispered, the words tasting like ash.
“No.” He reached out, his hand stopping just short of touching hers on the bar. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You’re the opposite. Anya ran from everything, especially from him. From us. You stood your ground today. You sent that text. You bought a painting called ‘Boundary,’ for Christ’s sake.” A genuine, tired smile touched his lips. “You’re not her ghost. You’re the thing that might finally exorcise it.”
The confession hung in the scented air, vast and disorienting. She wasn’t a prize. She was a catalyst. The knowledge was terrifying and, perversely, empowering.
“And you?” she asked, her voice steadier. “What do you get out of this? Besides enjoying the show?”
His smile turned wry, self-deprecating. “I get a best friend who isn’t a ghost himself anymore. And I get…” He finally let his finger brush the back of her hand, a whisper of contact. “I get to want something I know I shouldn’t touch. It’s a specialty of mine.”
Her phone buzzed, a violent shudder on the bar between them. The screen lit up. Dex’s name. No message preview, just the name.
They both looked at it. The charged atmosphere coiled tighter, a spring about to snap.
Cole leaned back, putting physical space between them. His earlier intensity softened into something more like resignation. “That’s your call, Jasper. Always has been.”
Jade looked from the buzzing phone to Cole’s careful, waiting face. The painting waited at home. The broken door waited. A line, gold and sharp, waited to be drawn. She picked up the phone, her thumb hovering over the screen.
She didn’t answer. She didn’t decline. She simply silenced it and slipped it back into her jacket pocket. The action felt monumental.
She stood up, leaving both wine glasses unfinished on the bar. “Tell him whatever you want,” she said. “Tell him I’m not playing. Tell him I’m going home to hang a painting.”
Cole watched her, something like respect in his eyes. “He already knows.”
His words hung there, a flat statement in the fragrant air. They confirmed everything and nothing. This had never been just about her. It was a game with old rules, played on a board she hadn’t seen.
Jade stood up from the bar stool, the movement abrupt. The legs screeched against the tile floor, a sharp sound that cut through the restaurant’s murmur. She reached down and grabbed the long, cylindrical bag holding her painting, its weight solid and reassuring in her grip.
She looked at Cole, really looked at him—the practiced charm, the watchful eyes, the loyalty that felt like its own kind of prison. A cold, clean clarity washed over her. “You’re both so fucking immature.”
She didn’t wait for a reply. She turned and walked, not with the hurried escape of earlier, but with a deliberate, steady pace. The painting’s tube felt like a baton, a tangible proof of her own agency. She felt his eyes on her back all the way to the door.
The night air outside was a slap of cool relief after the restaurant’s cloistered heat. The city sounds felt cleaner somehow, more honest than the loaded silence she’d left behind. She tightened her grip on her boundary, sealed in cardboard and plastic, and merged with the foot traffic, disappearing into the stream of people who knew nothing of bikes or ghosts or games.