Fueled (18 page)

I glance over at Colton’s profile as we wait for Sammy to finish whatever he’s doing. His head is leaning back against the headrest and his eyes are closed. My eyes track over the silhouette of his nose to his chin, down his neck and over his Adam’s apple. My heart swells at the sight of him and what he’s come to mean to me in such a short amount of time. He’s helping me overcome some of my fears, and I can only hope in time he will trust me enough to let me in on his.

Beckett was right about Colton. He evokes such extreme emotions. He’s easy to love and hate at the same time. Tonight was a breakthrough of sorts—for him to admit that I scare him—but I know in no way shape or form does that mean he’s in love with me. Or that he’s not going to hurt me in the end.

His lack of an answer tells me that his words and his heart are still in conflict. And that he’s not sure if he can get them on the same page. He wants to. I can see it in his eyes, his posture, and the tenderness in his kiss.

But I also see the fear, sense the trepidation and inability to trust that I won’t abandon him. That to love is not to give up control.

It seems like every time he gets too close, he wants to push me further away. Holding me at arms length keeps his fears at bay for a bit. Helps him push them down. Well, what if I just don’t cower at the comments? Worry about his silent distance? What if instead of letting it get to me, I just shrug it off and keep going like nothing’s been said? What will he do then?

Colton shifts his head over and looks at me with a softness in his eyes that makes me want to curl into him. How could I ever walk away from this face? Nothing short of him cheating on me would make me give up on him. He looks sleepy and content and still a bit buzzed.

Haddie hums the song that is playing softly on the speakers in the car. I strain to hear and meet her eyes when I recognize it as
Glitter in the Air
. Of all the songs to be on, of course it has to be this one.

“Fuckin’ Pink,” Colton snorts out in a sexy, sleepy voice that widens my smile.

Haddie laughs sluggishly in the seat across from us. “I could sleep for hours,” she says resting her head on Beckett’s shoulder.

“Mmm-hmm,” Colton murmurs, shifting so he lies across the seat and places his head in my lap, “and I’m going to start now.” He chuckles.

“You need all the beauty sleep you can get.”

“Fuck you, Becks.” Colton yawns. His voice is slurred from the mixture of both alcohol and exhaustion. “Should we finish what we started earlier?” He laughs softly as he tries to open his eyes. He is so exhausted they only open a fraction.

Beckett bellows out a laugh that resonates in the quiet of the car. “It’d be no contest. Us southern boys know how to throw a punch.”

“You’ve got nothing on some of the fists that have been thrown my way.” Colton nuzzles the back of his head into my abdomen.

“Really? Being bitch-slapped by a girl pissed off at finding out she’s a one-nighter doesn’t count,” Beckett replies, meeting my eyes and shaking his head to tell me that he’s making it up just to goad Colton. I have a feeling he might be lying.

“Mmm-hmm,” Colton murmurs and then falls silent. We all assume that he’s asleep, his breathing evening out, when he speaks again in an almost juvenile, dreamlike quality. “Try having your mom taking a bat to you…” he breathes “…or snapping your bone right through your fucking arm.” He grunts. My eyes whip up to Beckett’s, the same look of surprise I feel reflected in his. “Now that? That beats the one fucking punch I’d let you land before I knock you on your ass.” He emits a sliver of a laugh. “It most definitely beats your fist any day, you cocksucker,” he repeats before a soft snore slips from him.

My mind immediately flashes to the jagged scar on his arm—the one that I’d noticed last week. Now I know why he had changed the subject when I’d asked about it. I think of a little boy cowering in fear, green eyes welled with tears as his mother unleashes on him. The ache in my heart that moments before was because of my feelings for Colton has now shifted and intensified over something I can’t even begin to understand or fathom.

The look on Beckett’s face tells me that this is news to him. That even though he’s known Colton for all these years, he hasn’t had an inkling as to the horror his friend had endured as a young child.

“Like I said,” Beckett whispers, “
Lifeline.
” My eyes snap up to his and he just nods with a quiet intensity. “
I think you’re his lifeline
.” We exchange a silent acknowledgment and acceptance before looking back down at the man we love snoring softly in my lap.

The house is quiet and still despite the bright sun shining through the kitchen windows. It’s close to noon but everyone is still asleep except for me. I’d awoken, hot and claustrophobic, with a dead to the world Colton haphazardly draped across my body. As delicious as his body felt against mine, and as much as I willed myself to go back to sleep, I couldn’t. So despite Colton lying on the pillow beside me, I slowly extricated myself from him and the bed without waking him in search of Advil for my aching head.

I sit at the table, the soft snoring of Beckett asleep on the couch drifting into the kitchen. I swallow a big gulp of water hoping it will chase away the alcohol-induced fuzziness that clouds my head. I yawn again and rest my forehead on my arms that are folded on the table.
God, I’m tired
.

The distant and distinct ringing of my cell phone seeps into my dreams. I’m trying to help him. The little boy with dark hair and haunted eyes being pulled away from me by some unseen force. My hand is gripping his but my fingers are slipping ever so slowly as my muscles tire. He’s pleading with me for help. The ringing of the telephone starts, startling me so I jerk and he slips away from me, crying out in fear. I scream at the loss and jolt myself awake, disoriented from my position at the kitchen table.

My heart is pounding and my breathing labored as I try to steady myself.
Just a dream
, I tell myself. Just a meaningless dream. I drop my head into my hands and push their heels into my eyes, trying to rub away the image of the little boy I couldn’t save.

I hear the rumbling timbre of Colton’s morning voice from my bedroom. I stand and start to walk to him when the inflection of his voice rises. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, lady!” resonates down the hallway.

It takes a moment for my mind to register what’s going on...what day it is...the sound of my cell phone interrupting my dream. I shove the chair back and run down the hall to my bedroom. “Give me the phone, Colton!” I shout, my heart racing and my throat clogging with panic as I enter my doorway.

My eyes zero in on my cell phone at his ear
. On the bewildered look on his face.
My heart lodges in my throat, knowing the words filled with hatred that are assaulting his ears. I pray that she doesn’t tell him. “Please, Colton,” I plead, my hand outstretched for him to give me my phone. His eyes look up to meet mine, searching for an explanation as to what he’s hearing. He shakes his head abruptly at me when I keep my hand held out.

He sighs loudly, closing his eyes before speaking. “Ma’am? Ma’am,” he says more forcefully, “you’ve had your say, now it’s time I get mine.” Her voice through the speaker quiets down at his stern tone. Colton runs a hand through his hair, his V of muscle that sinks below the sheets flexes as he tenses up. “While I am truly sorry for the loss of your son, I think your accusations are sickening. Rylee did nothing wrong besides survive a horrible accident. Because she lived and Max died doesn’t mean that she murdered him. No, you let me finish,” he says sternly. “I understand that you’re grieving and always will be, but that doesn’t make Rylee guilty of killing him. It was a horrific, accident with circumstances beyond anyone’s control.”

I hear a litany of words in response that I can’t decipher through the earpiece, my body still tense as I guess what she’s revealing to him.

“And you don’t think she feels guilty enough that she lived? You’re not the only one who lost him that day. Do you really think a day goes by that she doesn’t think about Max or the accident? That she doesn’t wish it were her instead of him that died that day?”

Tears well in my eyes, Colton’s words hitting too close to the truth, and I can’t fight them. They slip down my cheeks and images flash through my head that will forever be burned there. Max struggling to live. Max struggling to die. My thousands of promises to God those days if we could just make it out alive.

All of us.

Something flickers through Colton’s eyes at her words, and the tears come harder. There is silence between the two of them for several moments as Colton digests what she has divulged. They flash over to mine, and I’m unable to comprehend the enigmatic look they hold before darting back to look out the window outside.

“I truly am sorry for your loss, but this will be the last time you call Rylee and accuse her of anything. Do you understand?” he says with authority. “She picks up the phone because she feels guilty. She lets you bash her and accuse her and demean her because she loved your son and doesn’t want you to hurt any more than you already do.
But no more
. You’re hurting her, and I won’t allow it. Understood?”

Colton blows out a large breath and tosses the phone onto the end of the bed where he stares at it for several moments without speaking. My heart pounds, the sound reverberating through my ears as I stare at him, emotions racing through me, tearing me apart as I wait.

Finally after what feels like hours, he shakes his head and looks down at his hands in his lap. “You are the most selfless woman I know, Rylee. Carrying around your own guilt. Allowing her to take her grief out on you. Giving everything of yourself to the boys…” My body trembles in anticipation of what he’ll say next, of why he’s looking at his hands and can’t meet my eyes. So many emotions overwhelm me, thunder through me as I wait for him to collect his thoughts.

He looks over at me slowly, his eyes filled with a mixture of confusion and compassion. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks gently, his eyes searching mine for an explanation.

I shrug, averting my eyes from his, trying to hold back the damn that threatens to break. I fail miserably, the damn splintering and the tears turn to sobs as he reaches out a hand and pulls me toward him. I sink onto my bed as he wraps his arms around me and gathers me to him. He smoothes
a hand over my hair repeatedly, trying to soothe away my pain with reassuring words while I cry. He releases me momentarily, propping pillows behind him before lying back and pulling me with him so my head rests on his bare chest, my hand covering his heart.

The constant rhythm of Colton’s heartbeat calms me. I realize that being here with Colton takes some of the sting out of today’s date. It doesn’t hurt any less, but it’s getting easier. I realize that for the first time, I can think of Max and see him in good times, not just the final images I have of him broken, bloody, and dying. I can smile about the teenager I fell in puppy love with and the man I promised to spend my life with. I can remember the anxiety in his face the day he proposed and the surprise, love, and excitement in his eyes when I told him I was pregnant. God, I was so scared to tell him—hell I was scared myself—but when he hugged me and told me he was ecstatic and that everything would be alright, I allowed myself to feel the hope and wonderment I’d been holding back.

Colton places a soft kiss on the top of my head. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I almost laugh at his words. They sound so hypocritical coming from someone who never talks about his past. A few tears escape, falling onto his chest, and I quickly wipe them away. “I’m sorry,” I apologize. I can’t look at him. “I’m sure after last night, the last thing you want to deal with is a blubbering idiot.”

He lifts his arm and runs his hand through his hair, sighing out loud. “I’m not good at this kind of thing, Rylee. Shit, I don’t know what to do or say here…”

I can sense his discomfort at a woman falling apart in his arms. He hates drama. I know. I stroke my hand down his chest. “You don’t have to do anything. You being here, sticking up for me with Claire...” I breathe out “...that’s enough.”

“How come you didn’t tell me?” I can hear a trace of hurt in his voice, and it surprises me.

And I know he is referring to the baby.
My baby
. The part of me that forever died that day. The place that will forever be empty inside of me.

“It’s not like you’re exactly forthcoming about your baggage,” I offer, the words hanging between us in silence. “You’re so adamant about no children, I didn’t think it was important for you to know. I didn’t think you’d care.”

I can feel him draw in a breath. “
Christ, Rylee.
” His voice strains, his hand fisting against my back. “Do you think that little of me? Just because kids are a deal breaker for me doesn’t mean that I’m not sympathetic to your situation. To your loss.”

I turn my head to prop my chin on my hand. I keep my eyes averted from his though by following my finger as it traces the lines of his tattoo that spans a portion of his rib cage. “I was…” I stop, trying to map out my memories. “I was shocked the day I found out I was pregnant. I mean I’d just graduated college. I was very black and white back then. I had a plan. First college, then marriage, and then a family,” I smile softly.