Consolation Prize (Forbidden Men Book 9) (21 page)

She nodded, letting me know she’d heard, and I touched her hair again, hoping to God she’d be okay. Then I hurried from the room and down the hall.

“Hey, little girl,” I said in a soft soothing voice as I neared the crib. She quieted just hearing me but still continued to sniff and whimper when I held her against my chest and patted her back. “It’s okay now. Mom and Dad stopped yelling. No reason to get so upset. It’s over, baby girl.”

I paced the room with her until she calmed down completely. Then I checked her diaper, which was full, and I changed that. Afterward, we got a bottle, and I rocked her in the glider, feeding her until she fell asleep in my arms.

Probably about half an hour had passed since I’d come in to check on her before I was laying her limp sleeping body back into her bed. Then I stood there a moment, watching over her before I heaved out a breath, shook my head, and left the room.

I checked on Aspen next. She was passed out in basically the same pose I’d left her, but her face was turned my way with her eyes closed. Her shoulders lifted every few seconds with every breath she took, telling me she was alive, but I still stole silently to her side and gently placed my hand on her cheek a second before I left again.

Not sure what condition I’d find my brother in, I stepped outside into the darkness of the backyard and stopped in my tracks when I heard sniffling from the picnic table.

Fuck. He was crying.

I think I would’ve rather tried to handle a pissed-off Noel.

With no idea what I was going to say to him, I shoved my hands into my pockets and shuffled down the ramp, then to the table and sat on the bench across from him. My eyes began to adjust to the dark just enough to make out him resting his elbows on the tabletop with his head in his hands.

“Both ladies are finally asleep,” I said quietly.

“Good.” He sat upright and wiped his face with both hands. “Thank you. Where’s Beau?”

“He fell asleep watching movies with Teagan so Caroline said he could stay the night.”

“Probably for the best.” His voice sounded hoarse, which killed me.

“Man, what happened tonight?”

He immediately hung his head. “I don’t know. I just…I lost it. I swore to myself when this started that I would never lose my shit. I wouldn’t lose my temper, I wouldn’t yell, I wouldn’t…fuck, but I totally lost it.” He wiped his face again and sniffed. “I can’t believe I yelled at her. I know she can’t help it. I know it only makes things worse. Why couldn’t I just keep it to-fucking-gether?”

I shrugged. “Because you’re human.”

A bitter laugh spilled from him. “A little too human tonight. I can usually read her better. I can tell when she wants space or when she needs me around. I guess she wanted space tonight, except I tried to be there. Big mistake.”

“But a fixable one,” I reasoned. “From what I heard, neither of you said anything that couldn’t be taken back. You’re still… tonight was a hiccup. That’s all.”

“Yeah, but how much longer is this shit going to last? The therapy sessions haven’t worked. The medicine hasn’t worked. Nothing I do works. I just want my wife back. My children want their mother. I want…Jesus fucking Christ, I hate this. I hate being so fucking worthless and helpless to her. I hate not being able to fix anything. Why does nothing I do help her?”

When he couldn’t speak anymore, emotion clogged my veins before I cleared my throat and shook my head. “I don’t think what you’re doing is worthless. I think maybe it
is
working. You are helping her. But maybe all the stuff that’s been fixed on the inside just hasn’t started showing results on the outside yet.”

Noel didn’t immediately answer. He waited a quiet, contemplative moment before saying, “Maybe. I hope so.” Then he lifted his gaze to me. “Thank you, Colton. For everything. I don’t know what we would’ve done without you tonight. You saved the day.”

J
ULIANNA’S
C
HAPTER
|
20

I
only received those three text messages from Colton on Saturday morning. I don’t know how, but they kept me full of hope and promise and excitement throughout the entire day, and yet they didn’t…because I wanted more from him.

It was like reading a really good book. I wanted to rush through it because I wanted it all now, and yet I wanted to draw it out and make it last for as long as possible because I didn’t want it to end.

The damn boy was conflicting my heart.

I ignored the little warning bells clanging in the back of my mind, telling me how bad it was to count on and look forward to my next encounter with him because it wasn’t serious between us, we weren’t starting anything long-term. But I didn’t want to think about that. So I didn’t.

I was still rocking my afterglow all through Saturday. I even smiled during karaoke night at the bar. And I smiled as I fell asleep that night when I got home from work.

The next morning, I woke with a grin because my phone was chiming with a new message. Not sure how I knew it was him, but I did. I was even sure I knew what it’d say.

And I was right.

I replied:

And then ran my fingers over the screen where his name was displayed at the top.

He quipped back:

And that was our communication for the day.

I didn’t realize I had the phone pressed to my heart until I was leaving the bedroom with it. Blushing hard, I hurried it back to my nightstand to set it down, cleared my throat, and made my way to the kitchen.

Theo was the only one stirring. He grumbled a halfhearted greeting from where he stood leaning against the counter and hovered over the coffeepot that was still brewing as he bit into a piece of toast.

“Morning,” I chirped, unable to stop smiling until I opened the cabinet to pull down my special loaf of wheat bread so I could make myself some toast too. The bag was still there, but it was empty save for a few crumbs.

Mouth falling open, I turned to gape at Theo as he swallowed the last piece of my bread. He’d never eaten my bread before. I don’t think he even liked wheat bread. “What…?” I started, completely confounded.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said with his mouth still full as he lifted his hand to his bulging cheeks. “Was that your bread?”

I blinked, still confused. “You know it was my bread,” I said slowly. He’d seen me eat that bread every morning he’d ever stayed overnight with Tyla.

“My bad.” He shrugged and dropped his hand, smirking. “I could’ve sworn you only took it white these days.”

I gasped and slapped his arm. “You fucking son of a bitch. How dare you?”

He laughed and dodged away from me, only to grow serious a few seconds later. “For real, Juli? What the fuck? If you were that hard up, you should’ve just said something. I know plenty of black guys who would’ve agreed to hook up with you.”

“Oh, well thank you so much,” I sneered sarcastically. “I didn’t realize I was so freaking lame that you were willing to set me up with just any benevolent guy handing out pity fucks.”

“Hey, anything would’ve been better than you picking up some white jackass. I mean, seriously. It’s fucking embarrassing. What am I supposed to tell my crew when they ask about how one of my girl’s roommates is fucking a—”

“Yo, man, leave her be,” Chad chastised as he came shuffling into the kitchen, bare-chested with his track pants hanging low on his waist. “The guy can’t help what color he is.” He went straight to the coffeepot where it had just finished brewing and poured himself a cup. “My momma’s half white and dad’s a quarter Filipino. I have relatives all over the color spectrum, and honestly, we’re basically all the same. We smile when we’re happy, cry when we’re sad, eat when we’re hungry, and sleep when we’re tired. Juli did nothing wrong, so stop hating.”

When he took a sip and arched his eyebrows warningly at Theo, Theo sniffed. “But everyone’s going to assume she thinks she’s too good for us now. You
know
they are.” Then he glanced at me with a look that told me that’s exactly what
he
thought of me.

“Then that’s their problem,” Chad answered, throwing a supportive arm around my shoulders and tugging me close. “Not ours.”

I lowered my face and hugged myself, feeling suddenly vulnerable. I hadn’t thought about how my decisions with Colton would impact my roommates or their boyfriends. Back at home, it’d been easy to stay within the limits of my own kind. There had been a lot more noticeable division in groups there. But when I’d come here to college, everyone seemed lumped together and a lot more diversely interspersed. Over the past couple years, it’d been easier to see exactly what Chad had just said; we were all basically the same, so much so I didn’t even see a
white guy
when I was with Colton. I just saw him.

“Just ignore him, Juli,” Chad told me, jostling my shoulder to get a response from me. Except Sasha chose that moment to enter the kitchen and discover her boyfriend cuddled up with me as I looked all morose and contemplative.

She slowed to a stop, glancing between us before slowly asking, “What’d I miss?”

“Asshole over there’s giving our girl shit because of her new man,” Chad explained.

“I wasn’t giving her shit,” Theo immediately defended himself. “I was just saying…people are going to talk.”

“Do you have a problem with it?” I asked Sasha, my gaze seeking and scared. “With me and Colton being together?”

Her mouth fell open, and for a moment she looked cornered, but then she glanced at her boyfriend before turning back to me and shaking her head. “No, of course not. I just want you to be happy.”

“And Tyla?” I pressed. I hadn’t talked to either roommate since Friday. They’d gone out with their men that night and stayed over at their places, then hadn’t come home before I’d left for work yesterday. My gaze veered meaningfully toward Theo before I returned to Sasha. “Does
Tyla
have a problem with it?”

She had to have been the one to tell Theo about Colton, and if he was making an issue out of it, then maybe it was because she’d made one to him.

“Do I have a problem with what?” Tyla asked as she walked in.

“Apparently you need to have some
words
with your man,” Sasha immediately charged. “He’s giving Juli shit because of her choice of flings.”

“I was not!” Theo cried, lifting his hands innocently. “I just said—”

He was going to lie again and try to play it off like he was simply concerned about me, while honestly, I just wanted to be over this conversation. So I cut him off, blurting, “He ate all my bread.”

Tyla blinked at me a moment before lifting her eyebrows his way. “Why would you do that? You know that’s JuJu’s special bread.”

“I was
hungry
,” he protested. “I wasn’t paying attention to whose bread it was, baby. I just…”

I didn’t listen to the rest of his excuse. I had already eased out from under Chad’s arm and was escaping the kitchen. I returned to my room without coffee or breakfast. When I slumped onto my bed, I grabbed my pillow and rested my cheek against it, closing my eyes.

Whenever I was around Colton, everything seemed to live in this amazing technicolor moment. It was all so vivacious and alive. But then it was like I returned to reality whenever he was gone and, bam, the black and white facts had a way of slapping me right across the face sometimes.

I’d talked to him in public before, but I suddenly wasn’t sure how I would handle it if we held hands or—holy shit—what if he came into philosophy Monday morning and
kissed
me in front of everyone? It would be so bold. Bolder than I was. People would stare, some of them would whisper, and not always nice things. I wasn’t the type of person who made those kinds of waves. I wore bland colors—blacks and whites and grays and tans—and I took care to make sure I was one hundred percent presentable with no reasons for other people to gossip about me whenever I left home. I didn’t like sticking out from the crowd.

Being in an interracial relationship would cause more notice than I wanted.

And what if Theo had been right, and people said I thought I was too good for the black guys now? I didn’t want anyone thinking I wasn’t proud of my heritage because I was, from my hoodoo grandma, to my strong equal-rights-advocate father, and all the way back to my enslaved ancestors. They had gone through hell and came out on the other side
survivors
. Of course I was honored to come from that kind of strength and endurance. I already had hours and hours of stories prepared to tell my children and grandchildren someday about our amazing roots.

It all made me experience a niggle of shame as if I’d betrayed my people or something.

But then…then Colton’s face flashed through my head. An image of his ornery grin and glittering brown eyes trickled in, followed by the look on his face the last time he’d come inside me, and the feel of his hands as he held me so tenderly afterward, his voice in my ear as he told me his secrets. And then I felt as if I’d betrayed
him
for even having one iota of doubt about us.

Chad had been right; when it came down to it, there was no difference between us. We were all human. And besides, I’d just proclaimed my proud, sturdy stock. I could weather a little nasty talk. I wasn’t going to let any barbed words or censorious glares buckle me under. Nothing was going to take away the joy I experienced whenever I was with Colton.