Colton (Found by You Book 7)

by Victoria H. Smith

  “We did,” he chose to say, clearly analyzing the situation as his honeyed irises shifted between Colton and me. He obviously noticed—us and, I wagered, was trying to figure out what to do with the situation presented before him. “For about a year,” he said, finally finding my eyes. He smiled a little. “Seems like a lifetime ago, though.”

  The audacity of the statement had me wanting to share a few words, which I ultimately chose to keep in. What seemed like a lifetime for him was every day for me, every time I looked out my window and saw a new environment, not because I wanted to but had to. I could never work in New York City again thanks to my relationship with him, and I was reminded of that every day.

  Pocketing his hands, Taylor tipped his chin at Colton. “Who’s your friend, Cami? Or are you going to leave me to wonder?”

  I’d prefer not to introduce my new boss to my old one, but since we were here, I had to do something. “This is Colton, my, um…”

  “Boyfriend,” Colton just went ahead and finished for me. He obviously was playing into all I’d set up, and I was grateful. Especially when he made his arm snug around me. There was so much comfort in the action I dared not admit and probably wouldn’t when it was over.

  For obvious reasons.

  This entire situation was messed up, but thankfully for me, my new boss was putting up with it. He stapled on that heartbreaker smile, bringing a hand down my arm.

  “You’re both headed to the city, then?” Taylor asked us. He straightened his bag over his arm. “May I ask, business or pleasure?”

  “I’d have to say both,” Colton chimed in, smiling a little. “I’m traveling for work and didn’t want to make her wait for me. Be bored at home? You know how that is.”

  Taylor’s brown eyes panned to me. “I’m sure you wouldn’t be bored with this one at all,” he said tilting his head. “Definitely gave me a run for my money while we were together.”

  Meaning, I challenged him, which he definitely hadn’t liked. Men like Taylor, powerful in their industries, were used to getting everything they wanted. They were used to followers while they were leaders. He led me down a path I readily took, until I’d become smart enough to know I didn’t deserve it. I deserved both his time and affection, his love, and when I didn’t get either of those, I chose to walk.

  He didn’t like that.

  He didn’t like it enough to ruin my life. He made it so I could never work in New York City again with his influence. It was the ultimate reason I ended up in LA and working for Colton in the first place. Each prospective job I had in NYC after leaving Taylor’s firm led to canceled interviews, and any offers I had prior were shut down before I could even sign the paperwork. He essentially blackballed me from acquiring any work in his city.

  And he did it without a sweat.

  The hurt, the pain, instantly resurfaced at those thoughts, and I moved closer to Colton. Like he knew what I needed, he came closer too. His hold on me warm, he clasped my arm securely. He didn’t let me go, staring down at me.

  “Well, she’s very special,” Colton responded with, my heart squeezing in response. He rubbed my arm. “I’m only sorry another guy had to lose out for me to have that.”

  It had been absolutely the perfect thing for him to say and sounded so genuine I thought he actually meant what he said. As if they weren’t just words or an act for him. They sounded real, and I had to shut that possibility out of my mind.

  Otherwise, I’d be the one to ruin the act in the end.

  “I hope you have a safe trip wherever you’re going,” Colton said to Taylor, smiling, and I bet, knowing him, he did mean that, what he just said. “If you’re going by chartered jet too, it’s nice, good snacks.”

  Taylor only looked at him. I was sure he didn’t know what to do. He’d looked even more out of sorts than I had initially.

  I held Colton tighter, enjoying his warmth when I had no right to. It wasn’t meant for me. I made sure of that, hadn’t I? I’d chosen a different route, and I did so because of this man before us, my old boss, Taylor. He was a guy I still couldn’t get out of my head, even after all this time. I would have liked to think he never owned me, that he never held a claim on me, but some of that would always remain a little untrue. Some of what he’d done still affected me, a tiny bit of that hurt still there, and I guess it traveled with me all the way to LA.

  “Enjoy your time in the city,” Taylor chose to say, and really, what else could he have said? Colton had the win here, and like Colton had said, he got to have it because Taylor missed out.

  Lifting his hand, Taylor waved his goodbye, and almost at the same time, Colton let go of me.

  “Thank you,” I said to him, trying to find his eyes. “I appreciate it. That guy’s a real…”

  “No problem.” Colton had spoken the words the same time he raised his hand to Jesse, gaining his friend’s attention. Bouncing, Jesse had two sets of coffee, heading over to us. Colton had started to walk that way, but I braced his arm.

  “Colton, I—”

  “It was really nothing, Camille,” he said, his bag in hand. “But I guess it is nice to know I’m not the only one.”

  I frowned. “Not the only one in regards to what?”

  “To having baggage,” he stated, straightforward, and then his friend arrived with his coffee.

  “What did I miss?” Jesse asked, exchanging glances between us. He obviously picked up on something. He crossed his arms. “Something going on or…?”

  By then, Tommy, who had my coffee, had also joined us. I supposed we had a big old party in the middle of the airport now.

  Colton brought his coffee to his chest. “Absolutely nothing,” he said, his expression grim as he stared at me. “At least not anymore.”

  He left me frazzled, basically dumbstruck, in front of both his friend and my assistant, but I shouldn’t have been.

  Because he was absolutely right.

  Colton left after that, and with a shrug, Jesse went off after him.

  Tommy handed me my coffee. “Everything okay, Cam?” he asked me, looking back at Colton. “I would have come over with these sooner, but…”

  He’d seen something, and he didn’t need to tell me to let me know. What was basically an atom bomb explosion occurred right here only moments ago, and if he’d been paying even a shred of attention, he’d know something was up between Colton and me.

  Passing it off, I blew on my coffee.

  “Everything used to be,” I told Tommy, being honest. “That was… until me.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Cami

  The events that occurred in New York basically set the tone for the rest of the trip. Colton partook in his various promotional activities and pretty much ignored me the rest of the time when he didn’t have to listen to me. I kept his schedule, made sure he got to where he needed to be, and he basically treated the situation as such. I worked for him.

  And he made that clear.

  His stop at ESPN, where we went to in New York, proved to be more than fruitful. He showed up with a smile, cracking a few jokes in his muscle tee, and when things got serious in the conversation, he did too. He talked about his situation pertaining to drugs and alcohol—by the grace of God, the media hadn’t picked up on the events at The Luxe not that long ago—and when the topic went that way, he spoke both eloquently and as truthfully as my words allowed him to. I wrote what I was expected to write, the story about a man and the tough times he’d fallen into, but in the end, how he managed to get out. It didn’t matter if that story was skewed or fabricated a little.

  After all, what did the truth matter anyway?

  The spectacle continued on to Indianapolis and various stops in the Midwest until we went south.

  “I’d like to just get in and get out, please,” he’d said during a flight to Texas. His media feature that day just happened to be an hour-and-a-half drive from El Paso.

  Where his family stayed.

  Whenever we were close to whe
re his family lived, time was always put in for him to travel there. For the most part, he usually took advantage of that, but that had been well before the events that happened in LA. It’d been before all that drama and my drama with him, and I supposed if it were my family, I’d have the same position on visiting them too. Whatever the case, deciding on how to both spend and allocate his time was Colton’s choice, and I ignored the phone calls that came in after we were back in the air and flying over Texas. Some of them did come to my phone when they couldn’t get his, his family.

  But everything was okay, right?

  I supposed I had to believe that, forcing myself in my own world and placing my attention where it needed to be right now. The deadline with Roxie didn’t stop just because I was working, and any moment I wasn’t with Colton, I worked on it. I woke up early, went to bed late, and even designed during various parts of the day when Colton was doing, say, a university or park appearance. I didn’t stop and I couldn’t. Working on this, Roxie’s project, was a possible means out of the situation I was currently in, and even though I always knew that was the end game, this path seemed to be a necessity now.

  Especially when I crossed paths with ultra-blue eyes. I didn’t catch them staring at me a lot, but when I did, it was always hard. Like during our flights when he believed I was on my laptop and not paying attention, or even worse, in long car trips when we were all trying to catch a few winks of sleep before Colton’s next feature. I noticed sometimes he wouldn’t be sleeping. Those eyes would shift and suddenly be on me, always in the distance like he’d never left.

  We’d returned to California about a month into Colton’s tour, but not to LA. We were more upstate, in San Francisco where Colton had a television appearance on a local talk show. He’d finished that interview quickly, moving on after answering their questions, and now was in the middle of a photo shoot with his buddy Jesse. Jesse hadn’t been with us after Colton’s trip to New York, doing his own schedule, but he rejoined us for Colton’s activities today. Bumping fists, the guys had too much fun on set.

  I supposed that had to do with the women.

  Earlier that day, some of the guys’ cheerleaders had joined us for a promotional shoot. They met up with us all for lunch before cruising over to the studio and posing for pictures with two of the hottest guys on the LA court. Sporting their little outfits, the ladies seemed very comfortable with both Colton and Jesse. They had to be, since they were hanging off them.

  Each guy had a girl literally hanging on their biceps like zoo animals. The photographer told the players to lift the women off the floor, which they easily did. With Jesse’s height, he had the girls clear off the set, but Colton did one better.

  “Wrap your legs around me,” he told them both, grabbing their asses to hold them up. They giggled, and spandex stretched tight over their supple asses as they got into a good position for the pictures.

  The photographer chuckled. “That’s great, Colton. Do you mind if the ladies give you a little kiss on the cheek?”

  And what guy would, right?

  Certainly not Colton, and preparing, he cheesed for the camera while the girls placed a kiss on his cheeks. He made the ladies laugh a little as he bounced them. The giggles of glee definitely made the picture look more genuine as they were in mid-smile, but the whole thing was a bit obnoxious, and I think even Jesse noticed that.

  Frowning, the man actually shook his head at Colton, glancing away before taking his attention back to his own ladies. He busted out a smile as he still had a hold on his girls, but when the photographer took the photo, saying his smile was forced was an understatement. The shutter flashed, and he released the girls off his sides. Colton, on the other hand, kept his close.

  Bouncing, the dancers begged him to sign their chests, which you’d think they would have enough of, considering they saw him all the time during his games. I supposed the attention never got old, though, and he gave in to them, asking for a pen. Someone handed one to him, and he moved permanent ink over their tanned, double Ds. Finding my eyes, he noticed me watching as he went for the second set, and I veered my attention.

  At the shift, I found Tommy who’d also been watching the whole spectacle like I had. I used to be taken aback whenever he’d catch moments of whatever… thing Colton and I had been putting ourselves through, but over the constant days of travel, it’d been nice to have somewhat of a confidant in all this. Even if he was my assistant. He didn’t know what was going on, too polite to ask I could imagine, but the man wasn’t stupid. I was sure he picked up something, and it was nice to know I wasn’t alone in all this drama.

  Forcing a smile at him, I put out my hand. He’d thankfully brought me coffee.

  “Thank you,” I told him, and nodding, his attention shifted to the shoot again. Jesse had joined the group of Colton and the four ladies, and smiling, he seemed to be getting into whatever they were discussing. I bet, knowing my boss, they were setting their aims on doing some clubbing later tonight. I heard whispers of such during lunch when we sat down with the girls. I had other plans.

  Not that Tommy and I were invited anyway.

  “I’m going to take off,” I said to my assistant. I lifted my coffee to the set. “You got this? Please tell me you got this.”

  I’d scheduled time ahead for my other venture. Roxie wanted the final drafts of the rebranding concepts done tonight. Knowing that, I planned to overnight copies to her I’d be picking up at the printers. I knew I didn’t have to provide her physical copies, but I wanted to impress by having something in full color and physical for her to place her eyes on. I supposed that was the marketer in me, and in any sense, making the concepts in this way wasn’t a problem. A local printer I looked into merely needed my final concepts. I planned to email them and they’d be printed before I even arrived. I’d ship them after that and they’d be good to go to Roxie.

  I worried when this moment came—the time for me to leave—Tommy might lose a bit of his nerve. He had before when I placed him in similar situations involving Colton, but my assistant had shown me a lot through this media tour. He was tackling tasks alongside me, and I trusted him to be able to handle the rest of Colton’s day.

  He handed me my bag. “I’m good. Go and good luck. You deserve whatever comes from this.”

  Tommy’s gaze panned over to Colton and party again. His frown was definitely present before he wiped it away and gave me a smile. “Hurry up. You don’t want to miss your deadline.”

  Finding that sweet, I squeezed his arm. He was rooting for me as much as I was.

  He wanted me to move on from this too.

  Colton

  I was in the middle of a text when I noticed Cami was gone, my constant awareness of her stronger than I liked most days. She’d made herself pretty damn clear where she stood in regards to us. Especially with that incident concerning her ex-boyfriend. Frankly, the whole thing more than pissed me off, and thinking back, I did act rashly when it came to the incident. I knew that moments after it occurred and took the feeling along with me on each leg of my media tour. I supposed maybe pride got in the way of actually talking to her about anything, and though I had no intentions of doing so at the present, I never did like when I couldn’t find her.

  I just got too used to her being there.

  One could do with that what they wished, but I forced myself to put my phone away as I looked for her. I passed Jesse along the way, and thank fucking God I had my friend on board for today. I needed someone to release the tension with, and my buddy Jesse was definitely good for that. He was talking to the girls we’d been shooting with before, and I pounded his fist as I slipped by to seek out Cami.

  He faced me. “Hey, Colt—”

  “One sec, K? I need to find Cami.”

  His head tipped back with the words, his smile not quite reaching his eyes at his acknowledgement. He went back to talking with the girls, but I noticed his gaze followed me away a little before he did. I loved having him here, but he had
seemed a bit moody today. He hadn’t been his normally boisterous self, and I could only blame that on me, my attention divided. Between all this shit with Cami and the rest of the mess my life turned into due to previous acts, I was completely on, and that had everything to do with me. I was still dealing with my family, avoiding them, and after what my brother said about my mom, that lifted a whole new level of stress. Not a single member of my family had ever mentioned Momma since we were kids, and that’d only been because I pressed. I pushed them about it naturally. They remembered her, and I hadn’t, so obviously, I had questions.

  I shut them down when they stopped answering them.

  My phone burning in my pocket, I ignored the sensation and ventured over to Tommy. Finding him was better than nothing. Technically Cami’s assistant, he could tell me where she was.

  “Hey, Tommy, you seen Cami?” I asked, looking around. She hadn’t been on set for a long time.

  Tommy lifted his head from the digital planner Camille normally had on her.

  “Uh, she scheduled time off for today,” he said, obviously distracted when he went back to the tablet. “Wanted to finish her project for your sister-in-law.”

  I closed my eyes at that, how she’d been working even harder since the incident that occurred in New York, and with the whispered exchanges I heard between Tommy and herself, it wasn’t hard to pick up what she’d actually been trying to do in the passing days. Especially when she was scheduling time away just to work on said project.

  I brushed my hand over my head, still buzzed close, as I preferred it that way. It was easier, low maintenance, and I had enough to think about these days.

  I folded my hands on top of my head. “She’s wants to leave me that bad, huh?” I asked to no one, but I guess Tommy—his eyebrows flashed up in surprise. I folded my arms across my chest, shrugging. “I’m not stupid, Tommy. I know she’s trying to use this to get out. If she’s not trying to get a job with Roxie, she’s obviously trying to get a good recommendation.”