WHEN THE RAIN STOPS- Scrutinized [TANNER x LUNA] 2 IN 1

SIDE STORY PT. THRITY

|LUNA|

It was the morning after and I woke up alone, I had forgotten for a minute that Tanner and I had broken up and yawned. Soon brushing it off. I grabbed my phone and looked to find 107 missed calls, from you guessed it, Tanner. But that didn't surprise me, what surprised me was that Laurence and Layla called me around 10-15 times each. I immediately called them back. "Luna?!" Layla screamed. "Yea! Is everything ok?! Did something happen?!" "Oh besides from the break up you didn't tell me about?!" I exhaled out of relief and rubbed my eye. "God! Layla you scared me." "Answer the question! What happened?!" I scoffed a laugh. "It was just out time. Now I gotta go, I have stuff to do." She spoke fast to avoid the hang up "Luna, don't you dare push-." I hung up on her in the middle of her sentence and got up to brush my teeth. I didn't feel like getting scolded today. So while I brushed my teeth I remembered that Cole was still here. I spit out my toothpaste and went to cook breakfast for us, maybe French toast. But when I came to the living room I was stopped by finding Cole in a weird ass position on the couch. I giggled and noticed his bandages were still on and almost bleeding through. I exhaled through my nose and decided to focus on the french toast. After getting all the ingredients I quickly made some sticks for us. Of course in that time span he woke up and I gave him an extra tooth brush. I was in the middle of my second batch of sticks when I heard a knock on the doorframe. It was Cole. "Good morning." "Morning. Your French toast is on the table." He thanked me with a warm smile that was dusted with blush. I grabbed my plate and turned off the stove to go eat across from him. We talked about our past and just opened up to each other. Then I told him I had work tomorrow. "Really? What's your job?" "I'm a criminal analyst for the districts attorney's office." I sighed, he laughed a little then said "that's a long title." "Yea, the job is ok. At least I get to put bad people away right?" I smiled and he nodded. "Yea, I'm just a writer. But your job sounds way cooler."
"Oh don't be that way, I bet it's fun writing papers and books for?" "I write stories about what happens in the crime world." My eyes open up a little more to show my impressed expression. I nodded my head slowly to match. "Nice."

He let out a little flustered laugh, "thanks." "So have you finished your book yet?" "Not yet, I was too busy reading yours last night, Remember?" "Pft, yea. Thanks again, it was nice." "Anytime." I went to put the dishes in the sink and he followed, while I washed them he stood beside me "So are we just gonna ignore the elephant in the room?" "Which is?" I still sported a smile on but when he said what the elephant was, my smile evaporated. I sighed. "You know I don't want to talk about him right now." "Yea, but it's gonna be hard since... he lives closer to you than I do and he basically stalked yo-." "Wait, how'd you know that?" I stopped rinsing the dishes and turned to him. Giving him my full attention. "It's not like you were there." I said. He prepared himself with some air and then told me the truth. "Him and I were close, so of course I knew he worked on the dark web and he told me about you around July of last year for the first time. 'Girl with brown curly hair, blue eyes, sucked in cheeks.'" He sighed "I knew right away that you were the same girl 2 nights ago." "Does anyone else know?" He shook his head left and right. "No, just me." Relief fell over my body as I relaxed a little. "Good, good." I said to myself. "Now I just need to find a way to avoid Tanner." Cole looked at me weird when I said that. "Why?" "Because I don-." "I know it's early but you guys were planning on having a kid. You at least need to call him." "For what?!" I yelled.

He stiffed up in shock that I yelled at him, to the point where I felt awful about it. I slouched down to the counter and scouted down it to sit on the floor, covering my tear soaked face. "Just leave." I said , barley holding back my breaking and cracking voice. "Lu-." "Leave." I stayed crying for a minute. I thought he left so I just let it out but when I felt a hand on my back I uncovered my face to find Cole crouching down to me. "Why aren't you gone?" I asked "most people leave.." I said to myself in disbelief. "Because I know you don't really mean the words that are coming out of your mouth." He sat down next to me and almost spooned me while rubbing my back. "You feel as if everyone in your life leaves you at some point, so you push them away before they can get close or before you get too attached." I looked to him with wide eyes. He was reading my mind again. We made eye contact and he rubbing the side of my face with his thumb. "That's why it took you a while to process that Tanner... left." Our foreheads made contact and we scooted closer to each other. "So I'll stay.. if you'd like me to." I put a hand on his cheek and lifted my head a little and in a breathy whispered tone I confessed "Yea... that'll ..be nice.." and with that our lips made contact. For some reason his lips felt.. clammy. Attached.