Colton

by Melissa Belle

  I would miss this party in a fucking heartbeat if it meant I could see Sky. But she’s still more comfortable meeting me in a crowd of people right now. She’s avoided being alone with me as much as humanly possible since she was at my house and I nearly took her against the foyer wall.

  Fully aroused at the memory, I jump in the shower to cool off. Then I make myself a huge breakfast, before sitting down on the couch and grabbing the remote. ARTWAVE is on in a half hour, and it’s quickly become my only can’t-miss TV.

  Sky and I spent the week exchanging flirty texts and nightly phone calls. We could talk forever and never run out of things to say. I’ve never had this—nothing even close to this—with any woman before. I’m falling so hard and fast I can’t imagine how much it will hurt if things don’t work out. Loss isn’t something I ever want to feel again.

  Because of that, I’ve kept my situation with Sky to myself. Other than Dylan, I don’t tell anyone about her. Even Jenson, my best friend who knew about Sky way back when. He was the only one I talked to about her when I left Boulder. But I haven’t said a word about running into her again. I’ve been evasive on our phone calls, and I know I have to tell him soon, but I want to wait until I feel more sure of things.

  I’ve just picked up my phone to check if I missed a text, when it rings and Jenson’s name pops up on the screen.

  I almost don’t answer, but I know he’ll just keep calling if he doesn’t reach me.

  “Hey, J. Everything good?”

  “Yeah. I’m good. And the boys are great.”

  “Glad to hear it. Tell Kyle I owe him a ticket to my next game in Pittsburgh. He was so mad you wouldn’t let him go last time we were in town.”

  “I know. He seems to forget he had an ear infection and couldn’t leave his bed. I’ve already promised him that this season we’ll go to a couple of games—I’m going to fly out to L.A. with them in October sometime.”

  “Sounds cool. You’ll stay with me, of course.” I have a special guest room set up specifically for Jenson’s young sons. As they’ve grown, the room has changed, from two cribs to twin beds.

  Jenson keeps talking, and I try to stay focused on the conversation, but my phone beeps with a text from Sky. She has a live interview with Rosea Spaneli, an up-and-coming local author, in just a few minutes. Worried that something’s wrong, I pull the phone away from my ear to read her text.

  Starting in fifteen. Don’t worry—I’m still coming tonight.

  I turn on the TV, not wanting to miss her opening introduction.

  “Hey!” Jenson’s calling loudly through the phone.

  I put him on speaker. “Sorry, J. I missed that last part.”

  “You’ve been out of it the last two times we talked,” he says. “What’s going on?”

  “Not much,” I say, hating lying to him. “I’m just…I don’t know. Busy?”

  “Something’s up,” he insists. “I can hear it in your damn voice.”

  I knew picking up the phone was a bad idea. Jenson and I have known each other for too long for him to miss anything.

  We met at a youth football camp when we were kids. We were both towheads and the two youngest boys there. We bonded immediately, and stayed in touch afterward, despite living on opposite sides of the country. He’s like family to me, and we’re always there for each other.

  “I’m fine,” I say, then realize that doesn’t tell him shit. “Sorry.”

  “You’re not fine.” He says it with certainty. “So tell me what the fuck’s going on.”

  “Christ. Can’t a guy have any damn secrets?” I mumble.

  “No,” he says. “Not with me. So what’s her name? It’s got to be about a woman, or you wouldn’t be acting this weird. You’re usually an open book, even when it’s painful shit.”

  He’s right, of course. My parents raised me to be upfront and honest. But with this…

  “The last time I remember having to pull something out of you was when you came back from that Boulder trip,” Jenson says. “You told me all about your vacation, and how your dad was doing. What you didn’t want to mention was the girl you fell for.”

  “Right.” Apparently Sky Rosewood brings out the private side of me.

  “Seriously, why are you being so vague?” Jenson says, in a tone edged with concern.

  “I’m not being fucking vague,” I say. “It’s just…complicated.”

  He lets out a short laugh. “And you think I don’t understand complicated?”

  “Your situation is different.”

  “Because I can’t go there with her right now.”

  I don’t say her name, and neither does he. Some things are too filled with pain to voice out loud.

  But he’d played his trump card. Not a lot could beat Jenson’s romantic heartbreak, certainly not my current love life. So I break, and tell him everything.

  “The same woman from ten years ago.” He chuckles incredulously. “Freaking amazing you bumped into her again.”

  “I know.”

  “And you’re dating her.”

  “Sort of. I wouldn’t say what we have is that defined, more like I pretend she’s mine all the fucking time. Because I feel like she is.”

  “Look,” he says, “Here’s my opinion: I can’t address my fucked-up love life. Not yet anyway. Maybe not ever. But you can, Colt.”

  “I know. And I’m sorry for shutting you out. It’s just…Sky and I have such a strange past, and I honestly don’t fucking know what she’s thinking half the time.”

  “She’s a woman. Of course you don’t know.” Jenson’s quiet for a moment, before he says, “If you feel that strongly about her, don’t fuck it up.”

  “Thanks, J. That’s great advice.”

  “Hey, I wasn’t prepared to have to give you advice. You usually have it all together.”

  Not with Skylar Rosewood, I don’t. I don’t feel like I have it all together at all.

  But I like the way she makes me come unglued. I fucking love the way she gets me going, until she’s all I see, and smell, and taste. I want her. And I’ll wait as long as I have to for her to realize she wants me, too.

  After Jenson and I finish our phone call, I look up at the television as ARTWAVE begins and Sky lights up the screen.

  She does a kick-ass introduction, and I relax against the couch cushions with a smile. I love how confident she is at her job, and how much research she comes armed with for every interview. No matter how big or small the interview is, Sky’s always prepared. She knew so much about Maxwell White’s backstory, that even he said he was surprised. She got him to emote, and to share personal details I would imagine he hadn’t planned on sharing with the world.

  It’s the same thing today. Sky greets Rosea warmly, as they both take seats across from each other, with a small table in between. The conversation starts easily, with Rosea discussing her latest novel, and the thread of romance weaved throughout the fantasy story.

  “Did you always plan to have your main characters end up together?” Sky asks. “Or did it happen as you were writing?”

  “You know,” Rosea says, “It’s interesting. I was always very bitter about love. I never thought I’d get married, or fall into deep love. But then I met my fiancé. And he’s changed everything for me.”

  “How so?”

  “The biggest thing that happened is I had to come to terms with the abuse I suffered as a child.”

  Sky flinches.

  She covers quickly, and most viewers probably wouldn’t have noticed.

  But I’m not most viewers.

  Rosea continues talking. “You know, I had to shine a light on it, and on how my body, but even more importantly, how my soul, had suffered.”

  Sky’s jaw tightens, and her breathing grows uneven. She glances off camera, something I’ve never seen her do once in the entire five and half weeks that I’ve been watching her work. Whatever she sees beyond the screen settles her, because she turns back to Rosea and says, “Tell me mo
re about how you healed.”

  Rosea lets out a pained laugh. “I wouldn’t say I’ve healed. I’d say I’m in the process of forgiveness.”

  Sky’s jaw tightens again, and this time when she opens her mouth, nothing comes out.

  Shit.

  “Um…” She’s found her voice now, but it comes out shaky as all hell. “That sounds…”

  By now, I’m up off the couch, trying to calculate how long it will take me to get to the studio.

  “That sounds like a very brave path to take,” Sky finishes, with a renewed strength in her words.

  Rosea leans in close to Sky, and looks at her like they’re kindred spirits when she says, “And the thing is, once I began the process of forgiving myself, everything fell into place for me. Personally and professionally.”

  “Really.” Sky’s face has gone so pale I’m worried she’s going to pass out, and her hands grip the armrests of her chair like her life depends on it.

  Rosea nods with confidence. “Really. I just had to make the decision that I was worth more than my past. My childhood doesn’t define me. Not the way I thought it did.”

  Sky ends the interview with a hug and another plug of Rosea’s newest book, and the show cuts to commercial.

  I’m in the car in less than five minutes.

  But I get stuck in traffic—worse than usual Los Angeles traffic.

  I try calling Sky twice, but both times it goes directly to her voicemail. I leave her a quick message to call me, not expecting to actually hear back.

  If she’s as traumatized as she looked, she’s not going to want to chat.

  And she doesn’t have to. I just want to be there for her.

  * * *

  Skylar

  I have never fucked up an on-air interview before. I blew it, completely blew it. I pride myself on researching the hell out of my guests. And for weeks, I researched Rosea. I knew her life story backwards and forwards. I knew her book titles, their blurbs, and I knew where she got her ideas. I’d read every interview she’d ever done.

  What I wasn’t prepared for was that she’d tell me something she’s never told anyone else. Ever. She surprised me, not the other way around.

  And I might have handled it more gracefully, if I hadn’t gotten that phone call from my mom this morning. My mother didn’t want to contact me so soon before an interview, but she was afraid I’d hear from someone else if she waited too long. Working in a television station worries her, because she thinks I find out all news faster than the speed of light. I’ve told her over and over that my little art department stays pretty isolated, but she called me anyway.

  Her unpleasant piece of news? My father’s on the move. For the last five years, he’s been stuck in North Carolina, unable to leave the state because of a minor felony that my brothers managed to drag out into a much longer sentence. No jail time, and no community service as long as he didn’t leave the state.

  His sentence wasn’t supposed to end for another year. But he was let off early on good behavior. He knows where my mom lives, generally speaking. He’s never showed up at her door, but I wouldn’t put it past him. I wouldn’t put anything past him.

  As Rosea and I are saying good-bye, she confesses that only her psychiatrist and her fiancé know what she just shared on national television.

  “There was just something about you,” she says to me. “Your eyes—they made me feel safe. I got the feeling you’d understand what I was about to say.”

  Oh, did I understand. Until you’ve had your physical safety threatened, you have a natural protective boundary around you. One that everyone deserves to have. But once that boundary is broken, a part of you breaks with it. A part of your soul shatters, and I don’t know if it’s possible to put the pieces back together and make yourself fully whole again.

  I manage to keep my shit together while I say good-bye to Rosea, and briefly go over the footage with Ted. I even hold my tears inside when my mom calls in total fear after she watched my near meltdown on TV. I assure her I’m fine. I assure my brothers I’m a-okay when they send successive texts of concern.

  The only person I don’t respond to is Colton. I send his calls to voicemail and don’t listen to his message. Because I don’t trust that I can stay calm if I talk to him. He’s already gotten inside and touched those torn, shattered parts of me. He’s maybe even started to heal them.

  But my reaction to Rosea today—it made me certain that there are some things Colton Wild won’t ever be able to help me fix, no matter how much he wants to.

  “Sky! Your hot lover is here!” Ted calls to me as I’m disappearing inside the elevator.

  I poke my head out and hold the door so it won’t close. “What?”

  He gestures behind him, where a gorgeous blond football player, hands in his jeans pockets and wearing a Cougars hoodie, is walking toward me.

  He came. He watched me flip out on television and he drove here. To check on me.

  I don’t think I’ve ever heard of something more romantic. But it’s so the opposite of what I can handle right now—I don’t know what to do.

  So I stand frozen like an idiot in the elevator, propping the door open with my hip as Colton walks straight up to me.

  “Sparky.” His eyes run the length of me, but not in a sexual way, more like he’s checking me for injuries.

  My wounds no longer show on the outside, though.

  “You saw.” Two words that nearly break me to say to him. “I didn’t want you to.”

  “I know.” His jaw clenches and he keeps his hands in his pockets, like he understands that touching me is off-limits. “I wanted to see you. I always want to see you, Sky.”

  “You shouldn’t want that, Colton.” I raise a shaking finger toward the exit. “You need to go. I can’t…”

  The elevator alarm sounds, and I jump away from the doors. Colton immediately steps inside the car with me. The doors close us inside, but I don’t press the button for my office floor. I keep my eyes fixed on the panel, though, like my answers lie inside the numbers.

  “I won’t stay,” he says. I can feel him staring at me, even as I refuse to turn toward him. “But are you sure you’re okay?”

  No. I’m not. But falling apart in Colton’s arms in the middle of my workplace is the last thing I can afford today.

  “I’m okay,” I manage. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  “We’ll skip the party,” he says.

  I whip my head over to face him. “No! The party’s fine. The party’s good. I’m good with the party.”

  His lips twitch. “You’ve never sounded so enthusiastic about a social gathering before.”

  I tap his sneaker with the toe of my high heels. “I’ve been saying all week I’m going to the party. Remember?”

  “I remember.”

  I cross my arms over my chest. “So, good then. I’ll see you tonight?”

  Colton steps forward like he’s going to press the open button for the doors. But at the last second, he turns so that his face is inches from mine. “Call me if you’re lost.”

  “I will.” I can barely get the words out without my voice cracking.

  Colton’s eyes narrow like he could tell. But all he says is, “See you tonight.”

  The doors open, and he’s gone. I immediately press the button for my floor, and as soon as the doors close again, giving me my first privacy since the interview, I sink to the ground. I wrap my arms around my legs and rock back and forth, willing myself to get it together by the time the elevator’s done moving.

  Chapter Ten

  Colton

  With my right hand wrapped around a beer bottle, I stand next to Dylan in our teammate Marcus’s living room. I’ve been nursing the same drink for over an hour, and my eyes are trained on the front door.

  I’ve never been less interested in a party scene than I am tonight. All I want is to be alone with Sky. Instead, I’m backed against a wall, trying to avoid the drunken scene playing out in front of me. Wh
at was supposed to be a group of about twelve turned into three times that, with more women than men. Wilkens invited his sister, who invited all her sorority friends, and here we are.

  I’ve fended off more than a few blondes pressing their breasts against me and purring. Yes, they actually purred while they asked me what position I play. In the past, I would have made a joke about being the tightest end on the team.

  But tonight, the only woman I want to see still hasn’t showed.

  I shift my attention to Dylan.

  “You’re quiet tonight,” I say to him.

  He jerks a hand through his dark head of hair, his first tell that he’s uncomfortable. “Not in the mood to meet anyone new. Marcus swore this thing would be small.”

  “I know. He definitely didn’t plan on this.”

  As I speak, a woman jumps onto Wilkens’ shoulders. He grabs her thighs to hold her steady, and starts parading around the room with her. She grabs a shot from one of her friends and downs it.

  “You’d think we were still in college,” Dylan mutters.

  Just as Wilkens passes by the foyer, the front door opens.

  This time my hopes aren’t dashed. Ted and Angie walk through the doorway first, followed by Sky.

  She widens her eyes as she takes in the scene. Wilkens stops to greet her, the woman still hanging off his shoulders. I hand Dylan my beer bottle and push through the crowd.

  When I reach Sky, I hesitate for a moment before leaning in to kiss her cheek.

  Her gorgeous red hair is pinned back, with light tendrils framing her face. Her skin, which had been so pale when I saw her earlier today, is pink and glowing. She’s dressed casually, in an off-the-shoulder green fitted top that shows off her emerald eyes, and faded blue jeans.

  She inclines her head at the chaos around us. “So much for a quiet gathering.”

  “My teammate’s sister thought she’d invite everyone she knows,” I say with a grimace. “I had no idea.”