Instead, I had to figure out how to care for the broken piece of this fallen woman.
“Baby, please don’t cry. We’ll figure something out. I promise.”
She remained quiet until the sobs no longer racked her body and her eyes had dried. Colbie was tough, but I didn’t want her to have to be strong, not about this. I shouldn’t be grateful that she’d been able to salvage her workouts because they only aided in her weight loss; however, they were the excuse she used to see me outside of school. Yet if I had to pick which I wanted for her, I would have waited until graduation—as much as that would have killed me—so she could have continued with piano. Knowing Caleb and Chasity, they had likely rallied in her corner for exercise and the mental and physical benefits it offered. I was just surprised her parents had so easily scrapped piano. They were both bright, educated people who should have known the benefits of music were just as valuable as physical activity, which led me to wonder how much they’d actually considered Colbie’s wellbeing versus just doing what Caleb and Chasity suggested.
As much as I didn’t want to admit it, her parents’ response was just further proof of how far removed they were from Colbie’s life and needs.
“Is that it?”
She pulled back, although I didn’t let her go far. “Is that it? Did you hear what I said?”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just need to know if those are the only restrictions they placed on you, or if we have other things to work around.”
Her forehead wrinkled as her dark brows drew in. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. Did they take your car?”
She laughed, but it wasn’t formed from humor. “Are you kidding? That would mean they’d have to drive me to school and pick me up. No, there was no mention of my car.”
“How are they tracking how far you run?”
“My watch. Why?” Colbie hadn’t thought about what that might mean because she wasn’t a manipulative teen, nor did she do things she’d get in trouble for—at least not before me.
I already knew she used the workout app and that GPS tracked her whereabouts. “You might want to stop tracking your runs.”
She dropped her hands from my waist to her side, leaving cold spots where her body heat had been. “Why?”
“Because they might figure out that they start and stop at my house.”
Colbie covered her mouth when she gasped. Clearly, she hadn’t considered their ability to actually follow her. Her innocence shone through in the glimmer of her eyes.
I captured her jaw, and she dropped her hand. Once I was certain I had her attention, I made her a promise. “We will figure this out.” Or I would. Either way, I wouldn’t let them steal anything from her. “But, Cole?”
She stared up at me with wonder. “Yeah?”
“That means you’re going to have to start talking to me about what’s going on up here.” I tapped her head. “And you’ve got to stop losing weight.”
That hit a nerve. Her expression went from hopeful naïveté to resentment in one breath. “What’s that supposed to mean?” She folded her arms and cocked her hip to the side. The woman who’d arrived on my back porch this morning had returned.
I hated doing this. I didn’t want to. But Colbie wanted me to talk to her and not her family, so this was me doing just that. “You’ve lost a lot of weight since we first met. Weight you didn’t have to lose.”
Colbie’s crimson-tinged lips pursed, and her eyes narrowed to a fierce angle.
“I’ve contributed to that by running as many miles as you wanted because I was selfish and that was the only way I could spend time with you.” I had to push forward when she stepped back and out of my reach. “But baby, your clothes hang on your thin frame, and I can’t help but wonder if the dark circles under your eyes are from lack of sleep or malnourishment—”
“So Chasity blasts me for how much I eat, and you’re telling me I don’t eat enough? Seriously, people wonder why girls have eating disorders. Do you hear yourself? Why does anyone care what I do or don’t put into my mouth?”
I didn’t attempt to close the distance between us; Colbie had her guard up. I had to bring it down. “I don’t know about Chasity, but I care because I love you. And I need the healthiest version of you for us.” We hadn’t talked about the future beyond graduation, but just because we hadn’t discussed it didn’t mean I hadn’t thought about it. I hoped it wasn’t too much for her to handle with everything else that had been thrown at her in the last twelve hours. “At some point, I want you to take my last name. And after you finish school and get your practice set up, I hope that you’d want to carry our children. I want to see the world with you, I want to see you on stage again, I want to see you do everything your heart desires. But you can’t do any of those things if you’re sick.”
“You’re being melodramatic, Eli.” Her words said one thing while her body language said another. Even the roll of her eyes didn’t deter me, nor did her dismissal of my heartfelt confession regarding our future.
I took the chance and stepped forward. Thankfully, Colbie didn’t push me away, even if she hadn’t reciprocated my touch. I was okay with that as long as she knew I wasn’t going anywhere. “Baby, I’m not asking you to make any drastic changes. I just want you to keep letting me in. Talking to me about what you want, what you need, what makes you happy or sad.”
“I already do that,” she whined. And she did to some extent.
“I’m greedy. I want it all. The good, the bad, the ugly and everything in between. You’re mine to love and care for, to protect.” I tucked her hair behind her ear, and she leaned into my palm and placed a kiss there. “I have to know where the demons are to battle them. I can’t bring light to darkness if I can’t find the switches. I’ll go to the ends of the earth for you, but I have to have a map to get there, Cole.”
A tear slipped past the corner of her eye, and she nodded just enough for me to know she heard my sentiment and not just the words I had said. Colbie never had anyone fighting for her, but I’d come out of the corner with guns blazing if she’d just give me the ammunition.
“I’m scared.” That was a start.
I took her hand and led her back to the sofa. My erection had long since gone soft, but I still stood in front of her with nothing on. I slid my boxers to my waist and sat next to her. “About what?”
Colbie couldn’t look me in the eye, and I didn’t try to encourage it. If she needed to get something out and was more comfortable doing it while staring at her fingers, then I’d take what I could get. “That my dragons will be too big for you to slay. And my darkness too deep for you to penetrate.”
“Then we’ll learn how to ride the dragons and carry a flashlight. I don’t care what it means. I just need you to know I see you. I want you. Every perfection and every flaw. I love all of you equally.”
She still refused to take her focus from her lap. “You wouldn’t if you knew what they were.”
“Try me.”
That got her attention, and she lifted her chin. “What?”
I leaned back and relaxed as if this were an everyday conversation. “Tell me one of your flaws. One you think will turn me away.”
Colbie stood abruptly and put her ass in my face. She grabbed the sides of her butt where saddlebags would be if she had any. “This.” Her hands jiggled up and down, shaking her money maker. “I’m afraid of being so fat that you won’t want me anymore.”
While I wished she were joking, it had become painfully obvious in the last day between Jess’s comments and Chasity’s that Colbie’s weight was more than a fad diet gone terribly right. I grabbed her ass and pulled her onto my lap. “I happen to love that ass. And I’d like it even more with more meat on it.”
She unclasped my hands that I’d just secured on her abdomen. “Yeah? You like for your girl to have a pooch before she’s even had kids? I bet that’s a huge turn on.”
There was no pooch. I grabbed the spot she referred to. �
��Baby, that is nothing more than skin from sitting down.” I shifted her in my lap. “Look, I have it, too. Does it turn you off?”
“It’s not the same. Guys aren’t held to the same standard women are.” Her fingertips played with the smattering of hair under my navel.
I bounced her on my knees to get her attention. “Does that mean you’d love me less if I gained a few pounds.”
“Of course not.” The echo in the room was more prominent with the rest of the house silent, and she jumped a bit at the force behind her voice. “I don’t care what you look like.”
“Yet you think I’m so shallow that I want you to waste away to nothing?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I hated not being able to hold her and see her at the same time. While I wanted to reassure her with my touch, I needed her to see the sincerity in my eyes. “Colbie, I am not going to lie to you and tell you that I don’t think you’re gorgeous. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on, hands down.”
“But?”
I snickered when she rolled her eyes and waited for what was to come. “But… I didn’t fall in love with the way you fill your jeans or how many ribs I can count on your back when you don’t have a shirt on. I don’t give a shit about the size of your bra or your panties. I fell in love with your mind, your wit, your determination and drive.” I shook my head and grinned like a jackass. “The day we met and you put me in my place, I’d never been more turned on in my life. But for the life of me, I can’t tell you a single thing you had on or how you looked. I can, however, tell you exactly what you said that put the first chink in my armor.”
Colbie raised one brow. She didn’t have to tell me she thought I was full of shit. It was written all over her expression.
“Don’t believe me?” I asked, excited to burst her fucking bubble.
“Nope.”
I cleared my throat and licked my lips. My impression of Colbie might not be spot on but the words were. “‘With all due respect, sir, your relationship with Caleb isn’t my concern and holds little interest in my life. I don’t make a habit of arriving late, but even more so, I don’t slide in anything academic. Where my brothers want to be star quarterbacks, I’m aiming for valedictorian, and I didn’t get there by resting on my laurels or my brother’s friendships. Vanderbilt doesn’t give a shit who Caleb Chapman is.’”
Her jaw dropped, and I had to force back a laugh. I sucked at throwing my voice, but I got my point across.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve jacked off to your voice in my head, saying those very words. And that had nothing to do with your weight or appearance. It had everything to do with the way you challenged me. That was the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen, not a Playboy model or some Barbie in porn. You.”
Her fingers slid up my stomach and then moved to my hair. “I want to be perfect for you.” Her tone was soft and moved through the air like a spring breeze.
“You already are simply because you’re you.”
Colbie leaned her side under my shoulder and rested her head in the crook of my neck. This all went much deeper than her desire to please me. It started with her desire to please her parents. And that might be a goal she would never accomplish. What Colbie had to realize was that was on them, not her. She couldn’t force them to see her or love her differently. Colbie had to learn to love herself as she was.
And it had just become my mission to help her fall for herself the way she had for me.
* * *
I’d been right. The Monday after Thanksgiving break, Colbie came racing into my classroom at lunch. She had been on the verge of tears, but I knew she wouldn’t let a single one fall at school.
I closed the door behind her, although I kept my hand on the knob in case anyone tried to enter. It also kept me in sight through the glass in the door if anyone wanted to peer inside. No one would catch me with my hand on her in school—ever. “Take a deep breath, and tell me what’s wrong.”
She followed my directions, and when her chest rose with her inhalation, my thoughts returned to the memory of her naked in my lap the Saturday before. Her frustration today kept me from grinning. “Caleb!”
I needed more than that to go on. “What did he do?”
“I can’t play in the practice rooms.” The vein on her neck bulged, and I worried her blood pressure had skyrocketed to an unsafe level as red as her face and chest were. “He got to Mr. Bledsoe and explained the restrictions my parents had put on me.” She stomped her foot and clenched her fists. “This has gone too far. Why can’t he just leave me alone?”
Colbie plopped down on the edge of my desk in defeat. Jesus, I wanted to go to her, comfort her, kiss her. But there were cameras in every room. And while I doubted the school monitored them all around the clock, neither of us ever needed that indiscretion uncovered. So I held firm at my post.
She looked up expectantly. “He’s never given a crap, Eli. Never. Why now?” Her color was no longer the crimson color it had been when she’d stormed in, and while I could still see the pulse in her neck, the vein had calmed substantially. “Caleb has nothing to gain from this.”
“I don’t know, Colbie. If Kendra”—I corrected myself—"Mrs. Cross told him the things she did me, he may be scared.”
“You didn’t tell me she said anything to you.” Her spine straightened, and her brow dipped.
I’d managed to jumble this up because thinking straight took far more effort with her in my classroom alone. “Not about you. She had another student a few years ago, Michael somebody.”
“Martin.”
I pointed at her. “Yes! Michael Martin. Anyway, she saw a decline in his performance and other warning signs that she regretted not addressing.” I shouldn’t be discussing any of this with another student. I prayed to God no one listened on the other end of that camera. “Mrs. Cross believes she might have been able to help him had she reached out to his parents or made anyone aware of what she saw.”
“Michael Martin killed himself, Eli. I’m not going to put a gun to my head.” This was where her short life worked against her. Colbie didn’t have the wisdom to go along with the intelligence that simply living brought.
“She didn’t think Michael would, either.”
“Fine, then why not call my parents instead of my brother?”
That I didn’t have a positive answer for. “I can only assume that since Kendra and Caleb grew up together and are now colleagues that she believed he would know how to best handle her concern.”
She hopped off the desk and adjusted her backpack that had slid off her shoulder. “Great. My fate rests in the hands of Rudy and Gidget. Lucky me.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised by Colbie’s references, although she probably meant the movies and not the novel. Either way, it was funny. Caleb saw himself as inspirational as Rudy Ruettiger, and Chasity embodied the personality of the boy-crazy surfer girl. “This won’t last forever.” My level of reassurance sucked. In a high schooler’s world, six months was forever. And that was how long her parents and her brother could make her life painful.
“Good talk, Coach.”
If we were home, I’d spank that sarcasm right out of her tone. “Colbie, I will find a way to get you in front of a piano.”
Her defenses fell and hope brightened the blue in her eyes. “Okay.”
“Now, get to class before we both get in trouble.” I flicked my stare up to the camera, and her focus followed. “I’ll see you tonight.”
She nodded and pulled her lips between her teeth. I couldn’t swear she did it on purpose, but I had a hard time believing she wasn’t aware of the effect she had on me. And that little gesture had me adjusting my slacks when I opened the door.
I glanced at the clock, noting I had about twelve minutes before the next bell. I’d spent my planning period trying to find a used piano online, and while I wanted more than anything to surprise her with one that she could play at my house anytime he
r heart desired, they were so far out of my price range that they might as well have been mythical creatures—in my world, they didn’t exist.
There was only one other thing I might be able to work out, and even that was a long shot. I grabbed my cell from my bag and the card I’d kept in my wallet since I’d received it.
“Hello?”
“May I speak with Dr. Chalmers?” I had no clue what I’d say if he answered. I just knew I didn’t have anywhere else to turn.
“This is he.”
I glanced out my classroom door and into the hall at the occasional student passing by. “Hey, this is Eli Paxton. I don’t know if you remember me—”
“Colbie’s boyfriend. Of course. What can I do for you, son?” Maybe her parents hadn’t cut this part off; he certainly didn’t sound like he’d lost his star pupil.
I didn’t really know where to start. “I, uh— Have you heard from the Chapmans?” I had to remember this man believed I was a high school student, college at best. He had no idea I was Colbie’s teacher. “I mean, I know it’s none of my business, but—”
“Stop right there. I’m glad you called. I heard from them this morning.”
There was no delicate way to approach any of this, so I dove in head first. “Did they end her lessons?”
“Umm, well, I guess that depends on how I interpret what her father said.” There was mischief in his tone, and I wondered what the old man had up his sleeve. “Mr. Chapman said they wouldn’t be paying for lessons for Colbie anymore.”
I let out a sigh of relief. This I could swing. I could work it into my budget. “Can you send me the invoices, Dr. Chalmers? I’ll take care of them.” I didn’t have a clue what he charged, but I doubted it came anywhere near the cost of a Steinway.
“Eli, I told you when we met that I love Colbie like a granddaughter. I also told you to call me if you needed anything. I won’t bill you for spending time with her.”
There was no doubt he believed I was a poor student who would scrounge around to put together the funds to cover his services. “Really, I want to pay you.”
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