My biggest fear when I wrote that stupid letter was that he wouldn’t feel the same. Never did I imagine he’d be too disgusted to have anything to do with me. So disgusted, in fact, that he’d shunned his own family.
In a moment of weakness, I pulled up his name in my messages, rolling my eyes at the one he’d sent a few months ago about licking some guy’s nipple, and then I broke the promise I’d made to myself.
Alex: Please come home for Thanksgiving. Your mom keeps begging me to talk to you. I promise I’ll make myself scarce. You’re breaking your mother’s heart.
COLTON
“GREAT GAME, FOWLS,” MY buddy Jason said, clapping me on the back of the shoulder on the way to his locker.
“Thanks, man, you too.” We’d just won our last game until after Thanksgiving, which was in just three days, and the reality of being away from my family was really sinking in as all of my teammates discussed their travel plans, most of them leaving tonight.
After reading Alex’s text last week, I’d really started to feel bad about the lie I told my parents. I couldn’t use school or ball as an excuse. At the time, it seemed the only way to get out of spending the holiday at the same table with Alex and Dean was to make other plans. As far as Mom and Dad knew, I was spending Thanksgiving with a girl I’d been dating named Madison at her parents’ house.
But there was no Madison, and I was really spending it home alone, which I was okay with, before that damn text. I knew Alex wouldn’t have messaged me if Mom wasn’t really having a hard time with this. She’d acted fine with it on the phone, but knowing that I was hurting her had me almost ready to hop on a plane. Almost.
You see, there was still the issue of Alex. It may have seemed petty, but I couldn’t go back and pretend that nothing had happened. That she hadn’t ripped my fucking heart out when she left my bed and went running back to his. I was in love with her to the point that it was making me crazy, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. So, I chose not to deal with it at all.
As I was shoving the last of my things into my duffle bag, my phone started to ring. When I saw the name that was lighting up the screen, my heart dropped to the floor.
Mr. Mack hadn’t called my phone since I was still living with my parents, and only ever to get in touch with Alex when we were out together. Something had to be wrong.
“Hello?”
“Long time no see, son.”
I cleared my throat. “Uh, yeah. How’s it going, Mr. Mack?”
“Not too great actually, but that’s nothing for you to be concerned with just yet.”
“Okay.” I laughed, nervously. “What can I do for you, sir?”
“You can stop making my baby cry, Colton, and get your stubborn ass on a plane in...uhhh, three hours.”
“Uh, I—” What the hell was he talking about?
“I know about you and Allie, Colton.”
“Shit.”
“Listen, I’m not calling to blame you for her broken heart. If you don’t love her...Well, then you don’t love her, but you will not treat Alexis or your mother this way, do you understand me?” Her broken heart?
“No, actually I—”
“A real man faces his problems head on, son. He doesn’t hide from them.”
“I’m not hiding.” I was absolutely hiding.
“Great! Well, since you’ve decided in the last five seconds to grow a pair, I’ll forward your itinerary to your email and see you at the airport at two a.m.”
“But—”
“What was that?” he asked, talking over me. “Did I hear, ‘See you at two, Mr. Mack’?”
“See you at two, Mr. Mack.”
He let out an exaggerated laugh. “Atta boy, Colt. We’re gonna make a man outta you yet. See you soon.”
What the hell had just happened? I didn’t understand half of what was just said, but apparently, I had a plane to catch.
I got to the baggage area a little after two, and sure enough, Alex’s dad was sitting on a bench, waiting to take me home. He’d never made me this nervous before. Something had changed between us. I guess a man finding out you’d had sex with his daughter shifted things.
Rubbing my sweaty palms against my shirt, I walked over to meet him.
“All set?” he asked, rising from his seat. It’d been just a few months since we’d last seen each other, but the change in him was noticeable. He’d aged. Maybe it was just the late hour, but he seemed stressed. He’d always struck me as a man without a care in the world.
“Yeah, I didn’t check any bags.”
“Great!” Mr. Mack offered me his hand, pulling me in for a hug when I reached back. “Welcome home, Colt.”
“Thanks, and, uh, thanks for the ticket too.” I had absolutely no clue why I’d just thanked him for a ticket I didn’t even want. Because as much as I looked forward to seeing my parents, I dreaded seeing Alex more. Way more. This was a disaster in the making.
When we pulled up to their house, I grabbed my bag and started in the direction of home.
“Colton,” Mr. Mack, whisper-shouted, waving me back. “They don’t know you’re here. You’ll crash on our couch since it’s so late and we’ll surprise everyone in the morning.” He nodded, all too pleased with himself, while I was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack.
“Nah,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m just gonna go—”
His hand hooked around my shoulders as he guided me to the back door. “Sleep on our couch?” he urged.
“Sleep on your couch,” I agreed, laughing to myself.
Mr. Mack grabbed a pillow and blanket from the hall closet, setting them on the coffee table before heading off to bed. I’d slept in this house almost as many times as my own growing up, and I’d never taken the couch. This was weird.
As if he could read my thoughts, Mr. Mack called back over his shoulder on the way to his room, “Alex’s room is always an option...But something tells me you’re safer out here.”
Mr. Mack had jokes.
“What the hell is he doing here?” Alexis was fuming.
“Surprise!” her dad chimed.
She snorted. “Surprises are supposed to be good, Dad,” Alex hissed.
“You’ve been upset for weeks that he was missing Thanksgiving. I thought bringing Colton here would make you happy.”
Alex sighed. “Him at his house...that would make me happy. Him...here, in this house? Not so much.” Ouch.
“Relax, Allie. He’s only here because we didn’t get back ’til nearly three. As soon as he wakes up, I’ll give him the boot.”
“Perfect. I’ll be in my room ’til then. Come get me when he’s gone.”
It took every ounce of restraint I possessed not to lift my head and have a look at her when I heard her footfalls on the stairs behind me. I was supposed to be avoiding her, and at the first sound of her voice, I was fighting the urge to chase after her. I guess old habits are hard to break. It felt like I’d been chasing Alex my entire life.
“You heard the boss, Colt. Get up. Let’s go make your mom’s day,” Mr. Mack announced as soon as her door slammed shut. That man never missed a beat.
“Mind if I use the bathroom first?” I sat up on the couch, rolling the stiffness from my neck.
His lips curled into a slow smile. “You sure you ready to take that on, son?”
“Guess we’ll see.”
“Good luck, Colt.”
On the way up to Alex’s room, I made a brief stop at the hall table to retrieve the pin. Without warning, I picked the lock, swinging her door open.
“Is he gone...” She trailed off when she spun around to find me standing just inside her room. “What do you want, Colton?” Her face was red and splotchy, wet with tears. Allie’s tears were my kryptonite.
“I’m not sure,” I answered, my heart racing as I shut the door before stepping further into her room.
“You should go,” she whispered, wiping at her cheeks.
“We need to talk.”
Her hand lifted to her chest. “It’s been three months,” she choked out. “Three months, Colton. And now you want to talk?”
“Yeah,” I rasped, taking another step toward her. “Yeah, Al, I wanna talk.” My chest was tight, my heart racing. All I could see was my beautiful, broken girl, and all I wanted was a chance to fix us.
“Talk,” she said, her jaw ticking, her arms crossed defensively on her chest.
“I miss you.” A million other words needed saying, but those felt most important. Because suddenly all of the other shit felt trivial.
She nodded, touching her fingers to her trembling lips. “Me too.”
“I need you, Al,” I choked out, emotion thick in my throat. “I need you in my life.”
“I can’t.” Her head shook rapidly. “It hurts too much, Colt.”
Closing the last few steps between us, I tucked my finger beneath her chin, bringing her eyes to mine. “Not like this. It never hurt like this.”
Her tiny frame began to shake with sobs as she fell into my chest, fisting her hands into the front of my shirt. Wrapping my arms around her brought an inexplicable peace. We had a lot of shit to work out. But this girl was my life, and this felt like the first step to getting it back.
“Shhh,” I whispered, burying my face in her hair and inhaling the scent of her flowery shampoo. “We can fix this, babe.”
“H-h-how?” she sniveled.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “But this feels like a good place to start.”
ALEXIS
“AH, THERE YOU ARE. I was about to go up there to make sure you were both still alive,” Dad teased, beaming from ear to ear as Colt and I descended the stairs.
Colton chuckled behind me.
“We’re gonna go next door,” I said, lifting onto my toes to plant a kiss on Daddy’s cheek.
“Sounds good...You two sort everything out?” he asked, a hopeful glint in his eye.
“We’re workin’ on it.”
Colton and I held hands while crossing the yard to his parents’ house in silence. There was so much to say, but neither of us were ready to open that door. My insides were a mess. I wished we could start over right there and pretend that the past few months hadn’t happened, but they had. And the pain of his rejection wasn’t something I could bury and forget about. But I knew that we had to find a way to fix things because loving Colton might hurt, but losing him was unbearable.
“Oh my God!” Mrs. Fowler mumbled, covering her mouth with her hands as we walked through the front door. She was shaking with excitement.
“Surprise!” Colt shouted, releasing my hand to embrace his emotional mother.
“Alexis, did you do this?” she asked when the two of them finally separated.
“No,” I said, clearing my throat. “It was my dad.”
I laughed when her face twisted in confusion. “Really?” she asked, looking to Colton.
His broad shoulders shrugged as he scrubbed at his chin, dipping his head in confirmation.
“How? When? Just yesterday you still had plans to go to Madison’s parent’s house.”
Oh God. Who was Madison? My heart lodged in my throat, and I felt the urge to run. This was never going to work.
Colton went white as a sheet, his eyes holding mine as he answered his mother. “There’s no Madison,” he rushed out. “I made her up so I wouldn’t have to come.” He was answering her but talking to me.
“Why would you do that? Are we so horrible, Colton?”
Colt’s hands fisted into his hair, tugging in frustration. He didn’t want to call me out. He didn’t want to hurt her. He was stuck.
“It wasn’t you. Colton didn’t want to come home because he didn’t want to have to see me,” I spoke up, tired of walking on eggshells.
Mrs. Fowler quit her pacing, her face fraught with confusion. “What?”
It was time to rip off the band-aid. I was so tired of hiding. “Colton and I haven’t spoken since I returned from California.”
“Well, that doesn’t make any sense. You went on and on about how great of a time you two had when you got back.”
Colton stood there, watching our exchange with a look of bewilderment.
“I did, but stuff happened after that.”
Mrs. Fowler advanced on her son, finger pointed. “What. Did. You. Do?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you,” she shrieked. “I wondered if maybe...but then I thought...There’s no way it had anything to do with you because you are the one person who would never hurt her.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She has been a fucking mess, Colton,” she shouted like I wasn’t standing right next to her on the verge of full-blown hysteria. “Look at her.” She waved a hand in my direction, putting me on display. “She doesn’t leave the house, barely eats. She’s failing all her classes. Her mother has been sick with worry...and you’ve been ignoring her all this time?”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Colt muttered, his chest heaving. “Allie left me,” he rasped. The emotion on his face made it clear that he believed what he was saying. “I went to practice that morning with her asleep in my bed and came home to an empty house. She was gone without a word. All of her shit...gone.”
“I left a note.”
“I didn’t get any damn note!” he shouted. “I figured it out on my own that you’d gone back home when I realized you’d taken all of your things, so I called mom to make sure that you were safe and she said you were with him.” Colton’s whole face tightened with anger. “You went running back to him.”
“No,” I cried. “Dean called that morning. His dad was in an accident, and they didn’t think he would make it. So, I...I packed my things and tried to call you, but you’d forgotten your phone, so I left a note.”
“You two,” Mrs. Fowler said, face red and flustered, “better figure this shit out.” She eyed each of us individually. “I’m going next door. My heart can’t handle this.”
The door shut behind her and Colt, and I stood in silence, piecing together the mess that had just unfolded around us. That fucking letter had been the source of so much pain, and he’d never even read it. “I wrote you a letter,” I repeated. “I put it on the nightstand underneath your phone so you’d see it.”
His head moved in a slow nod. “Come here, Allie,” he whispered, beckoning me with his hands.
But I was caught up in my feelings, and there was still one more thing I needed to address. “I called you that night.” My heart raced at the memory. “Lyla answered your phone. You were in the shower.” My voice cracked. “I wasn’t even gone a day, Colton...You didn’t even wait a day.”
“I never found my phone,” he muttered, thinking out loud. “Finn went back to the house to pick it up and let you know we had to stay late, but you weren’t at home. I tried calling and it went to voicemail, so I put it on the bleachers, thinking you must’ve been out with Gertie and your phone had died. When I went back to grab it after practice to try calling you again, my phone was gone. I never found it.”
“I don’t understand what that has to do with you hooking up with Lyla the day I left.”
“I didn’t hook up with Lyla, Alex. I haven’t been with anyone since you,” he said, setting me straight before continuing his story. “Lyla was there, at the gym. She offered to help look for you,” he sneered.
“She took your phone.”
He nodded.
“That fucking bitch.”
Colton and I spent the rest of the day lounging on my parents’ couch, watching old movies. After such a long separation, it felt amazing to relax in the comfort of his arms. Plus, it was a good excuse not to have to talk, and after all the talking we’d done that morning, it was a welcome reprieve.
Occasionally, Colt would place a kiss on the top of my head, but beyond that, we’d done nothing more than cuddle. There was an awkwardness that came with being apart for so long, with being angry for so long, even if that a
nger was completely misplaced.
“Well, look who decided to show his face,” Mr. Fowler announced, walking into the room.
He eyed the two of us cozied up on the couch together, and his face lit up. “Glad to see the two of you worked things out.”
I whipped my head around, eyes narrowed. “You told your dad?”
“What?” he asked, running a hand through his curls. “You told your dad!” he laughed. “And you told him everything. I only told mine we weren’t getting along.”
My mom came in from the kitchen, having just returned home from work. “What’d I miss?”
“Nothing,” we answered in unison.
“Oh, come on,” she said, “I’m curious about that everything.”
“Me too,” Colt’s mom said, coming up behind her husband. “Does everything entail the four of us becoming grandparents someday?” she asked, brows waggling.
“Hey!” my dad yelled from the kitchen, peeking his head out. “That’s my daughter!”
I buried my face in Colton’s chest, my body shaking from the vibration of his laughter.
Embarrassing and dysfunctional as they may be, those four nut jobs were ours.
COLTON
THE BREAK WAS FLYING by. I’d spent nearly every minute with Alex, and it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. I was at my parents’ house getting ready for our annual Thanksgiving dinner, stressing the fact that I had to leave in the morning—more specifically that I had to leave Allie.
Our adult relationship felt like a pendulum, always swinging, highs and lows. We’d never found an even keel.
“Ready, son?” my dad called, tapping his knuckle on the door.
I gave myself a final once-over before opening the door and returning with them to Alex’s house.
The Macks always went all out for Thanksgiving dinner. I could smell the food cooking from the porch, and my stomach rumbled.
Breakaway: A friends to lovers romance Page 17
