Crashed (45 page)

My whole body tenses at his words, and I’m so fucking pissed at myself that I don’t immediately tell him he’s full of bullshit. I’m so motherfucking angry that for a moment—just a flicker of a moment—fear consumes me so I think of flight.

Think of flight when she’s done nothing but prove she’s a fighter—a fucking gorgeous, defiant, scrappy brawler when it comes to what’s hers—while I fucking hesitated. My teeth are gritted so goddamn hard I swear my molars are going to break, and I turn my back to him and walk over to the railing and cuss out into the darkness that rivals the black I feel in my soul right now.

I don’t fucking deserve her. Sinner and saint. My caution to her motherfucking checkered flag. And as much as I know this—as much as my fucking chest hurts with each breath because of this—she’s the only thing I see. The only one I want.
My fucking Rylee.

“Cat got your tongue, Colt?” he taunts from behind me. “Are you that fucking stupid you’re going to walk away because she got pregnant? Because of some shit that hap—”

And I’m done.

Temper snapped.

Gas added to my fucking fire.

“You have no fucking clue about what happened!” I yell at him, my voice breaking as I turn to face him. “Not a fucking clue!”

Beckett’s in my face in five strides. “You’re right! I don’t have a fucking clue!” He grabs my shoulders so I can’t turn away from him, and as hard as I try I can’t shrug them the fuck off of me. “But, Colton,
brother
, I’ve watched you struggle for years with whatever the fuck that bitch of a mother did to you as a kid, but
that’s not you anymore
. You’re not that kid.
Never again
. And, dude, Rylee accepts that. Accepts you.
Fucking loves you
. Figure out how to accept it and the rest will figure itself out.” He reaches out and cuffs the side of my face with a hand before stepping back and shaking his head. “It’s time to man the fuck up and realize you fucking love her too, before it’s too goddamn late and you lose the one person who’s made you whole again. Figure out how to deal with your past so you don’t lose your fucking future.”

And with that the fucker nods his head and walks toward the house as if he didn’t just fuck with me. He stops as he opens the door and turns back to face me. “When we were younger I didn’t get it, but what your dad used to tell you about hurting is feeling and some shit like that?” I just nod. “Yeah, I think you need to remember that now.”

He turns back around and disappears into the house, leaving me all alone with nothing but an empty night and haunting memories.

Hurting is feeling and feeling is living, and isn’t it good to be aliv
e? My dad’s mantra passes through my mind as I walk into my room and see Ry asleep.

Fuck me.

She still takes my breath away. Still makes me want and need and fucking ache like no one ever has. And fuck I still want to corrupt her—that part will never go away. I laugh at my fucked up mind, but I know deep down corruption doesn’t matter anymore. Because she’s what matters now.

Rylee. Motherfucking checkered flags and shit.

I walk toward the bed knowing I could sit and stare at her for hours. Dark curls fanned across my pillow, tank top covering those perfect fucking tits and riding up on her abdomen so the moonlight shows the scars of her past. The scars that robbed her of a future she thought was impossible, until three fucking days ago.

I rub my hand down my side as I watch her, slide it over my inked scars that remind me of a future I never imagined was a possibility—until three fucking days ago, and my fingers linger over the last one—uncolored and empty. The one thing left I have to figure out before I know for sure if I can do what my head and heart agree on.

Because baggage can be a powerful thing. It can contain you. Prevent you from moving on. Kill you. And sometimes feelings aren’t enough to break its hold. To allow you to move on. But right as fucking rain, standing here, watching her chest rise and fall, it’s time my 747—baggage and all—takes fucking flight.

Because I chose fight.

My breath catches in my throat as I come to the realization that I want this. I fucking want her. In my life—day, night, now, later—and the thought staggers me. Breaks and mends me. Tames the un-fucking-tamable. Fuckin’A.

I shake my head and laugh softly. I guess I should say
A to fucking Z.
And I can’t resist anymore. I sink down softly into the bed next to her and push away images of what happened the last night we lay there together.

I give into the necessity coursing through me like the adrenaline I crave. I reach out and pull her in tight against me. When I do, she rolls over in my arms so her face is nestled under my chin, her arms pressed between our chests, and the heat of her breath tickling my skin as she murmurs, “I love you, Colton.”

It’s so soft I almost don’t hear it. So quiet and sluggish that I realize she’s still asleep but it doesn’t matter, my breath stops. My pulse races and my heart constricts. I open my mouth but then close it to swallow because I feel like I just ate a mouthful of cotton. I do the only thing I possibly can. I press a kiss to the top of her head.

I want to blame it on the fucking alcohol. And I want to think that someday it might be possible to actually say those words without feeling like I’m opening old wounds just to re-infect them.

I want to have hope that normal might just be a possibility for me. That this woman curled up beside me really is my cure.

So I settle for the only words that will come, the ones I know she knows matters.

“I race you, Ry.” I press a kiss to her shoulder. “Night, baby.”

“The ceremony starts at four. You’ll be there right?”

“Yes, Mother! We’ll be there.” Shane calls out to me as he heads out the front door with a huge grin on his face, a little swagger in his step, and car keys rattling around in his hand.

“I fear we’re creating a monster.” I laugh as I look over at Colton, who has one shoulder leaned against the wall and is staring at me with a quiet intensity. I notice the dark circles still under his eyes that have been there for the last few weeks, and it saddens me he’s having nightmares again and isn’t talking to me about them. Then again he isn’t really talking to me at all about anything, other than work or the boys or the ribbon cutting ceremony later today to kick off the project. And it’s weird. It’s not as if anything is off between us, actually it’s the opposite. He’s more attentive and physical than ever before, but it feels like this is his way to make up for the fact we still haven’t talked about the miscarriage.

He asked for space and I’ve given it to him, not talking about the loss or how I’m feeling, how I’m coping. I even went so far as to not tell him about my follow-up appointment yesterday.

I get that we’re both dealing with this in our own ways. His way is to wall himself off, figure it out alone, when mine is to hold on a little tighter, need him a little more. The momentary distance between us I can handle—I know it’s temporary—but at the same time, it’s killing me to know he’s hurting. To be hurting myself when I need him and can’t ask for any more from him. Needing the connection that’s always been a constant between us.

To give him the space he asked for, when all I want to do is fix.

Late at night when I wake from dreams filled with car crashes and floors filled with blood, I watch him sleep and my mind wanders to those deep, dark thoughts that I can hide from in broad daylight. I wonder if he’s not addressing or dealing with the miscarriage because he’s worried that maybe a baby is what I want now. That maybe we’re doomed because he never will.

But if I can’t talk to him, if he changes the subject any time I try to bring it up, I can’t tell him otherwise.

And yes, while thoughts of a baby have crossed my mind, I can’t hang my hat on the idea. I can’t let myself think that I’ll be granted that post-accident miraculous chance more than once in my lifetime. Hope like that can ruin you if it’s all you’re holding on to.

But what if I’m hanging on to the hope that he’ll talk to me—come back to me—rather than slowly slip away and through my fingers? Won’t that hope ruin me too? Becks has told me to sit tight, that Colton’s figuring out his shit as much as he can tell from their years of friendship, but to not let him pull too far away. How in the hell am I supposed to know exactly how far is too far?

I need him to need me as much as I need him while I go through the emotions of losing a piece of something that was uniquely ours … and the fact that he doesn’t, kills me. Yes, his arms are wrapped around me at night while we sleep, but his mind is elsewhere. Lost perhaps in his endless texts and hushed conversations as of late. The ones that unnerve me, despite knowing deep down, he’s not cheating on me.

But he’s hiding something, dealing with something, and it’s without me when I need him to help me deal with this.

I try to tell myself it’s the lack of our physical connection that’s making me read into everything way too much. Over analyzing everything. While I lie in his arms every night, pulled tight against his chest exactly where I long to be, we’ve yet to make love since coming back from the hospital. We kiss and when I try to deepen it, move my hands down his body and entice him to want me like I crave him, he’ll cuff my wrists and tell me to wait until I feel better, despite me telling him I’m not hurt and that I’m perfectly fine. That I want to feel him in me, connecting with me, taking me again.

The rejection stings something fierce because I know Colton—know the virile, physicality he needs when he’s hurting—so why isn’t he taking it, taking me, if he’s in the pain I see rampant in his eyes?

I shake myself from my thoughts and focus on the emerald eyes locked onto mine. The man I love. The man I fear like hell is slipping away from me.

“A monster? No,” he says with a shake of his head and a smile tilting up the left corner of his mouth so his dimple deepens. “A teenager on the loose? Most definitely.”

I smile at him as he closes the distance between us, free to touch me since the rest of the boys are at baseball practice and will meet us at the ribbon cutting afterward. “You okay?” I ask him, probably for the umpteenth time in the past week.

“Yeah, I’m fine. You?”

“Mmm-hmm.” And so goes our usual thrice daily conversation—at least. Our affirmation that everything is all right even though everything feels so very different. “Colton …” My voice fades as I lose the courage to ask him more.

He senses my hesitation and reaches out to cup the side of my face, his thumb rubbing gently over my cheek. I close my eyes and absorb the resonance of his touch because it’s so much more than just skin to skin. It vibrates through me and delves into every fiber of my being, seeping into places unknown and forever stamping them with his presence, ruining me for anyone else ever again with invisible tattoos.

When I open my eyes, his are front and center in my line of sight. “Hey, quit worrying. Everything’s going to be okay. We’re okay.” He swallows and lowers his eyes before bringing them back up to mine. “I’m just trying to figure out my shit so it doesn’t affect us.”

“But—” My question is cut off when his lips meet mine. It’s a soft sigh of a kiss that he slowly deepens when he slips his tongue between my lips to dance in a slow entanglement with mine. I taste need laced with desire, but all my head can think about is why won’t he act on it?

I move my hands up so my fingers can twist in the hair curling over his collar and tell my mind to shut up, tell it to quiet down so I can enjoy this moment, enjoy him. I feel the tears well as the tenderness behind his touch overwhelms me. As if I’m fragile and will break.

I’m not sure if he can feel the shudder of my breath as I try to rein in my emotions, but he places one more soft kiss to my lips and then to my nose, that almost breaks my floodgates, before pulling back to look at me. Hands frame the side of my face and eyes search mine. “Don’t cry,” he whispers before leaning in and pressing another kiss to my forehead. “Please don’t cry,” he murmurs.

“I just … ” I sigh, words escaping me on how to express what I feel and need and want from him without pushing him too hard.