by K. Bromberg
My mind jogs back to the past week. Things Colton has said about racing. Actions that contradict the words he’s saying, and I begin to realize that Beckett is right.
“But what about my fear?” I can’t help the desperation that laces through my voice.
“You think I’m not scared? That it’s going to be easy for me too?” The bite in Becks’ voice has me turning to look at him. “You think I’m not going to relive those seconds over and over in my mind every time I buckle him in the car? Every time he flies down the chute? Fuck, Ry, I almost lost him too. Don’t think this is going to be easy for me because it’s not. It’s going to be fucking brutal but it’s what is best for Colton.” He shoves up from the his seat and walks over to the railing, hands spread out supporting himself as he leans into them. “Until you came along it was the only thing he cared about. The only thing that kept him fucking sane.” He blows out a biting breath. “It’s the only thing he knows.” He turns back around to face me, eyes hidden behind aviators. “So yes, he needs to get his ass on the track and I’ll be his biggest fucking cheerleader, but don’t let that fool you into thinking my heart’s not going to be racing every goddamn minute he’s out there.”
My eyes follow him as he paces to one end of the patio to let his agitation abate and then back toward me before grabbing his bottle and turning the end up, downing the remainder of his beer.
“Racing’s about eighty percent mental and twenty percent skill, Rylee. We’ve got to get his head back in the game, thinking he’s ready, then he’ll be ready.”
I see the logic behind his reasoning, but it doesn’t mean I’m not scared to death.
I lift my face up to catch the last rays of sun before they dissipate and sink into the horizon. I hum along to Collide playing softly on the outdoor speakers as my mind wanders to Beckett and our conversation, to how I’m going to feel watching Colton get behind the wheel again and if he’ll fear it as much as I do.
“Hey, what are you doing out here all by yourself?” Colton’s rasp pulls at me on every level, and I open my eyes to find him looking down at me from my comfortable spot on the chaise. Warmth spreads through me when I see the pillow crease in the side of his cheek, and I can’t help but wonder what he was like as a little boy.
“Did you have a good nap?” I scoot over as he sits down beside me, but I purposefully don’t move too far so I can snuggle up closer to him.
He wraps his arms around me and pulls me in. “Yeah, I was out.” He laughs pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “But no more headache so all is good.
“I can’t imagine why you’d have any type of pain with the amount of beer you two put away.”
“Smart ass.”
“I’d rather be a smart ass than a dumb ass.”
“Aren’t we feisty tonight?” he says as he tickles my rib cage. “You know what feisty does to me, baby, and I sure as fuck could use it right now.”
I squirm out of his grasp. “Nice try, but we most likely only have a couple more days and then I’ll be any kind of feisty you want me to be,” I say with a raise of my eyebrows as his fingers ease up and smooth down my back.
“Don’t promise shit like that to a man as desperate as I am, if you’re not going to deliver, sweetheart.”
“Oh, no worries, Ace,” I say, snuggling back into him, “I’ll deliver truckloads of feisty as long as I know you’ll be okay.”
Colton doesn’t say anything, rather he makes a non-committal sound in response. We settle into a comfortable silence for a while, and I welcome it because this is the first time in the past few days where there isn’t that inexplicable tension vibrating between us. As the sun sinks and the ocean waves sigh into the oncoming night, my mind begins to wander back to my conversation with Becks. And being me, I have to ask, have to know Colton’s thoughts about racing again.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Mmm-hmm,” he murmurs into the crown of my head.
I hesitate at first, not wanting to bring up any thoughts if they’re not there already, but ask anyway. “Are you scared to get back on the track? To race again?” The words rush out and I wonder if he can hear the underlying trepidation in my tone.
His hand pauses momentarily on its trek up my spine before it continues, and I know I’ve touched on something he’s not completely comfortable talking about or admitting to. He sighs out into the silence I’ve given him. “It’s hard for me to explain,” he says before shifting so that we’re side by side, our eyes meeting. He shakes his head subtly and continues. “It’s like I fear it and I need it all at the same time. That’s the only way I can put it.”
I can sense his unease so I do what I do best, I try to soothe him. “You’ve figured it out with me.”
Confusion flickers in his eyes. “What do you mean?”
I had no intention of taking the conversation here, making him feel uncomfortable in talking about the “us” that was there before the crash. The “us” he raced and doesn’t remember. I reach out and rest my hand on the side of his stubbled jaw and make sure I have his attention before I speak. “You feared and yet needed me …” My voice fades.
He draws in a breath as emotions flicker through his eyes. His lips purse momentarily. The silence mixed with the intensity in his eyes unnerves me. I can hear the hitch of his breath, the sound of the ocean, the pound of my heart in my ears, and yet silence from him. He looks away and I prepare myself, for what I’m not sure. But when he looks back at me, a slow, shy smile curls up one corner of his mouth, and he nods his head in acceptance. “You’re right, I do need you.”
Parts way down deep sag in relief that he’s finally acknowledging our connection. Accepting it. And I don’t care that he isn’t telling me he races me, because this, the fact that he needs me, is more than I could ever have hoped for.
He brings a hand up gently to cup the side of my face and brushes his thumb over my bottom lip. He leans in and whispers his lips over mine tenderly before kissing the top of my nose. When he pulls back I see the wicked grin on his face. “Now it’s my turn.”
“Your turn?” I ask as his fingers play over the buttons of my top.
“Yep. It’s question and answer time, Ryles, and it’s your turn in the hot seat.”
“I’d like a turn in your hot seat,” I say back to him, earning the lightning fast grin that pulls on every hormone in my body like a magnet.
“Watch it, sweetheart, because I’m a walking case of blue balls that wants nothing more then to be buried in that finish line between your thighs.” As he speaks, he leans forward, close enough to kiss but doesn’t grant me one. Talk about sweet torture. When he speaks next, his breath feathers over my lips. “It’s best not to test my restraint.”
Every part of my body angles into him—wanting, needing, daring him—but he proves he still has control when he chuckles out a pained laugh. “My turn. Why haven’t you seen the boys yet?”
Of all of the questions he could have asked me, I had not expected this one. I must look a little shell-shocked because he’s right. I do desperately want to see the boys, but I don’t know how to see them without bringing the circus with me. The circus that their already fragile lives don’t need and can’t handle.
“You need me more right now,” I tell him, not wanting to give him the exact reason, so that he doesn’t have something besides recovering to worry about.
“That’s bullshit, Ry. I’m a big boy. I can be left alone for the night. Nothing is going to happen to me.”
But what if it does? What if you need me and no one is here and something horrible happens? “Yeah … I just,” I trail off, needing to say it and at the same time not wanting to offend him. “I don’t want your world to collide with theirs. They don’t need cameras in their faces telling everyone they’re orphans—that no one wanted them—or any of the fallout I’m sure would come with it.”
“Ry, look at me,” he says as he lifts my chin up to meet his eyes. “You and me? I don’t ever want
it—me, the craziness around my life, the press, whatever—to come between you and the boys. They are what’s important, and I understand that more than most.”
Between telling me he needs me and then this declaration, I swear I could have just won the lottery and it wouldn’t matter because those two things just made me the richest person in the world. He really gets me. Gets that my boys make me who I am and that in order to be with me, he needs to love them. Beckett says I’m Colton’s lifeline, but I think he just proved it goes both ways.
I swallow back the lump of tears in my throat as he continues staring at me, to make sure I hear what he’s saying. I murmur in agreement, my voice robbed of emotion. “I’ll figure something out,” he says, leaning in to brush a kiss to my lips. “I’ll make sure you get to see the boys soon without interference, okay?”
I nod my head and then curl myself into him as my mind whirls with numerous questions when one jumps out at me. “My turn,” I say, wanting and fearing the answer to the question.
“Mmm-hmm.”
“That first night,” I pause, undecided about how to ask the question. I decide to dive in head first and hope I’m in the deep end. “What were you doing with Bailey in the alcove before you found me?”
Colton barks a laugh followed by a curse, and I think he’s a little surprised by my question. “You really want to know?”
Do I? Now I’m not so sure. I nod my head and close my eyes in preparation for the explanation to come.
“I walked backstage to take a call from Becks.” He laughs. “Shit, the minute I hung up she was on me like a pit viper. She had my jacket stripped, the front of her dress unzipped, and her mouth on mine faster than …” He fades off as I try not to react to the words, but I know he feels my body tense because he presses a kiss into the top of my head in reassurance. “Believe me, Rylee, it was not what it sounds like.”
“Really? Since when does the infamous ladies’ man, Colton Donavan, turn down a willing woman?” I can’t hide the sarcasm in my voice. Even though I asked the question, it still hurts to hear the answer. “Besides, I thought you like women taking control.”
He laughs again. “There’s no need to be jealous, sweetheart … even though it’s kind of hot that you are.” I poke him with my finger, content that he’s trying to soften the blow of the truth, and instead of pulling away, he just holds on to me tighter. “And I’ve only ever let one woman take control because she’s the only one that’s ever mattered.”
I scrunch up my nose as my heart sighs at the comment, but my head questions whether he is just trying to exercise self-preservation. Cynicism wins. “Hmpf.” I puff out. “I do believe I heard sweet Jesus come out of your mouth and not get off me.”
I feel Colton’s body shudder as he laughs in that full bodied way I love. “Think of it more like being eaten alive by a piranha with dull teeth.” I can’t help the laugh that bubbles up from his comment, and I just shake my head. “No seriously,” he says. “The minute I was able to come up for air, that was the first thing that came out of my mouth because the woman kisses like a fucking bulldog.” I can’t stop laughing now, my jealousy easing toward relief. “And the funniest part was at that moment my mom called to see how things were going and unknowingly rescued me from her claws.”
“You mean from her voodoo pussy?”
“Fuck no,” he chuckles. “You, baby—you’re my voodoo pussy. Bailey? She’s more like a piranha pussy.”
We laugh a bit more as his analogies get funnier and funnier and then he says, “Okay, so...” he trails a finger down the bare skin of my arm leaving tiny sparks of electricity in its wake “...Ace?”
I was waiting for the question, and I just pull back from him and shake my head. “You’re going to waste your next question on that? You’re going to be so disappointed.” I twist my lips and look at him. “Don’t you want to know something else?”
“Quit stalling, Thomas!” His fingers dig into my ribs, and I squirm trying to evade them.
“Stop,” I tell him as I keep wriggling. “Okay, okay!” I put my hands up and he stops right before I shove his shoulders. “Tyrant!” He tickles me one more time for good measure and then grunts as I try to explain. “Haddie tends to have a ridiculous penchant for rebellious bad boys.” I stop mid-sentence as he raises his eyebrows at me.
“Talk about the pot calling the kettle black, huh?” I can see him trying to keep the smile off of his face.
“I told you that night at the carnival that I don’t do bad boys.”
“Oh, baby, you most definitely did me.”
I don’t even fight the laugh that comes out because the cocky, mischievous grin is back on his face, lighting up his eyes, and solidifying the theft of my heart. “I sure did, but you were most definitely the exception to the rule,” I tell him with a smirk.
“As you were mine,” he says, and I think back to how easy it seems for him to say these things now when a month ago I never thought it would be a possibility. He leans forward and brushes his lips against mine, his tongue delving between them to taste and tantalize. I groan, unsatisfied, when he pulls away. “Now give me answers, woman. Ace?” he says with the raise of his eyebrows.
“Okay, okay,” I relent, although I’m still very distracted by how close Colton’s lips are to mine and how much I crave just one more taste even though my lips are still warm from his. “Like I said, Haddie goes for tattooed men destined to break her heart. Some are good for her, most are not. Max and I used to always laugh at the revolving door of rebels that surrounded her. In college she dated this guy named Stone.” I just nod when Colton shakes his head, making sure he heard me correctly.
“Yes, Stone was in fact his name. Anyway, the guy was a jerk but Haddie was madly in lust with him. One night he stood her up for his boys, and as we sat with a bottle of tequila and a bag of Hershey kisses, I told her he was a “real ace in the hole” she’d picked this time. One thing led to another shot, and then another shot.” I laugh at the memory from all those years ago. “And the more we drank, we decided to make ace stand for something … we thought we were hilarious with our guesses and once we decided on the perfect one for Stone, we couldn’t stop giggling. Later that night after he’d been out on the town with his buddies, he showed up at the door and when Haddie answered it, she said “Hey, Ace!” and the nickname stuck. He thought she was telling him he was an ace in the sack when she was really telling him he was an arrogant, conceited egomaniac.” Colton’s eyes meet mine when I finally give him what he wants to know. “And from there on out, every time she dated a guy who was like Stone, we called him Ace.”
He just stares at me for a second before nodding his head subtly. “Hmpf,” is all he says after a beat, his expression stoic and unexpressive. I worry my bottom lip between my teeth as I wait, and then a slow, lazy grin curls up one corner of his mouth. “It’s still a chance encounter to me, but I guess I earned that title the first night we met.”
I snort. “Umm, yeah, you can say that again.”
“Don’t kick an injured man when he’s down.” He pouts in mock sadness, and I lean in and brush my lips against his.
“You poor thing,” I croon.
“Yep, and just because you feel sorry for me, you’re going to let me ask another question. What other memory am I forgetting that you’re not telling me?”
I swear my heart skips and lodges in my throat. I try to not falter. Try not to show the break in my figurative stride, which would most definitely let him know that I know something he doesn’t. “Nice try, Ace,” I tease, swallowing hard and figuring distraction is key at this point.
I lower my lips and kiss little pecks down his neck and chest and then instantly know my next question. I probably shouldn’t ask it—know it’s a no-go area and I really intend to ask about the knock four times on the hood of the car thing—but the question is out of my mouth before I can stop it. “What do your tattoos mean?” I feel his chest hitch momentarily as I look up and meet his eyes.
“I mean, I know what the symbols represent … but what is their meaning to you?”
He stares at me, tumult in his eyes and uncertainty in his grimace. “Ry … ” My name is an exhale on his lips as he tries to find the words to express the warring emotions dancing at a rapid pace through his irises.
“Why’d you get them?” I ask, thinking maybe I’ll switch gears, anything to get rid of the fear flickering in them.
“I figured I was scarred permanently on the inside—live with it every day, a constant reminder that never goes away—I might as well scar myself on the outside too.” He shifts his eyes away from mine with a deep breath and looks out toward the ocean. “Show everyone that sometimes what you think is a perfect package is filled with nothing but damaged goods, scarred and irreparable.” His voice breaks on the last word and with it so does a little piece of my heart. His words are like acid eating at my soul.
I can’t stand the sadness that overtakes him so I take the reins. I want him to see that whatever the tattoos represent, it doesn’t matter. Show him that only he could take what he deems an invisible disfigurement and make it visibly, beautiful art. Explain to him that the scars inside and out are meaningless because it’s the man that wears them—owns them—who is important. Is the man I’ve fallen in love with.
And I’m not sure how to show him this, so I move on instinct, touching his arm so he raises it up. I very slowly lean forward and press my lips to the uppermost one, the Celtic symbol representing adversity. I feel his chest vibrate beneath my lips as he tries to control the rush of emotion swamping him when I move ever so slowly down to the next one: acceptance.
The notion that anyone should ever have to scar themselves permanently to accept horrors I can’t even fathom hits me hard. I leave my lips pressed against the artistic reminder and close my eyes so he doesn’t see the tears pooling in them. So he doesn’t mistake them for pity. But then I realize I want him to see them. I want him to know that his pain is my pain. His shame is my shame. His adversity is my adversity. His struggle is my struggle.
