Colton: Wordsmith Chronicles Book 2 (The Wordsmith Chronicles)

by Christopher Harlan

  I reach out to her with a single hand, the anticipation of what’s about to happen almost too much to bear. . .

  2

  Colton

  Present Day

  “Gentleman,” I begin as we hand our menus back to the waiter after ordering. “It’s time for that most existential of all questions—that inquiry we must all ask ourselves at some point in our lives to truly consider ourselves to be men—tits or ass?”

  I let my question linger in the air as I take in a deep breath of all the scents of food surrounding me. There’s nothing like a New York diner for breakfast on a weekend morning. And Queens diners are some of the best around. Right now we’re in Flushing at the Blue Bay diner, ordering massive quantities of those things that you order at diners—pancakes, bacon, sausage, and waffles. Those people who order anything else are nuts.

  “Jesus, Colton. People can hear you, and it’s ten in the morning on a Saturday, there are kids around.”

  “Please, Mike,” I say. “Who are you worried about offending? Those high school kids over there? It’s a table of seventeen-year-old boys. Trust me, they’d love in on this action. And if they read even a few pages of the great Michael Knight, they’d turn red with embarrassment.”

  “Fuck, lower your voice,” Gray says, harmonizing with Knight. “Mike’s right, you’re super loud right now.”

  Commands like that make me turn into a version of myself I like to call ‘Defiant Colt’—that’s when I do the opposite of what I’m told to do just to make a point or be a dick. In this case it’s going to be fun. I turn to face the table of four boys, all upperclassmen in high school by the looks of the poorly grown goatees and airs of unformed manhood about them. They’re only a few feet away from our booth but they’ve been giving us the eye since we sat down—they’re probably not used to all the tattoos and loudness. “Hey, boys!” I yell, grabbing their attention.

  They turn around and look at me at once, stopping in mid fork-lift like their teacher just yelled at them to put their cell phones away in class. “Settle a bet for me and my friends, will ya? You all look like you’ve been laid here or there. Well, not you, kid.” I point to the nerdy looking one who was giving me the stink eye and giggling with his friends earlier. I knew guys like him in school. He was the one who wanted to be cool—the one with no identity of his own who’d latch on to the cool kids and do anything for their acceptance. I take a cheap shot ‘cause it’s there, then turn back to the other kids. “If you all had to choose a girl with no tits and a great ass, or vice versa, which would you go with?”

  “Colton, fuck. Are you serious right now?” Mike questions, hitting me on the shoulder. “Stop.”

  “What?” I ask. “Tell me that kid right there doesn’t think about tits and ass all the time? He probably has porn open on his phone right now, he knows what’s up.”

  “Sorry, kids,” Gray says, jumping in like he’s really embarrassed. “You know when your parents and teachers tell you to stay away from drugs? Well, now you know why. You might end up like this one.”

  “Alright, fine, go back to talking about whatever. But think about it, it’s something we all have to ask ourselves as men.” I start laughing and turn around. The kids go back to their eggs, looking like they have no idea what just happened, and the part of me that’s still seventeen is cracking up. But it’s an honest question. I really don’t see the problem.

  “People can hear you, man.” Mike’s gotten soft in his success.

  “So?” I ask, just to mess with him. Gray smiles because he knows what I’m doing, but he jumps in to back Mike up anyhow. I feel bullied.

  “Dude, the old people in that booth over there who just came from church probably haven’t heard about tits and ass since Eisenhower was in office.”

  “And for good reason,” Gray adds. “They look like they were around to see the last of the dinosaurs. Our filthy conversation may kill them. You may be okay with that but, personally, I don’t want to be responsible for the deaths of a bunch of grey haired folks.”

  “Death by filth,” I repeat. “Sounds like it should be the title of a book.” We all laugh. Romance books are my passion, they’re what I do, but they have some stupid ass titles. Romance books are kind of like bands—some of the best ones have the stupidest names. In fact, it’s almost a requirement to have a shitty name. Death by Filth would be a New York Times bestseller—I’ll have to keep that in the back of my mind as a standalone, once I’m done with my MMA series. “Fine,” I say to Mike. “I’ll lower my voice, but you still didn’t answer me.”

  “About that stupid question?”

  “Yes, Mike, stop avoiding it. What would you rather talk about? Editing books? What kind of font we all prefer in our Word documents? Our favorite way to describe an orgasm?”

  “Ass, obviously,” Gray says, ignoring my last remarks. I look over and see Mike nodding in agreement, and I open my eyes at both of them in total amazement.

  “Really?” I say, a little shocked. “Wow. You’re both fucking crazier than I thought. I’m glad we’re having this talk, after all, I need to set you all straight.”

  “What are you talking about?” Gray asks. “There’s no competition. There’s nothing in this world like a nice, round ass.”

  “Except a beautiful pair of tits!” I say forcefully. I can’t believe we’re arguing this point. I thought when I asked we’d all be on the same tits-and-ass page, but I’m appalled at their taste in female anatomy. “Seriously, there’s no creation that nature has yet produced to match it. . .or them, I mean.”

  “Agree to disagree.” Gray does this. He likes to be the middle of the road guy so that Mike and I don’t go at each other’s throats like brothers. All it does is make me want to argue my points even harder.

  “Fuck that noise,” Gray says, looking right at me. “I disagree about agreeing to disagree. I need you boys to see the error of your ways here.”

  “Fine, if that’s how we’re doing this then I need to ask you a question.”

  “Shoot,” I tell him.

  “Why is it an either/or thing? There are plenty of women with an all-around great body. I’d prefer one of those, while we’re speaking hypothetically. So why do I have to choose?”

  This is such a Gray question. I roll my eyes. “You’re missing the point, as usual, my friend. First of all, it’s just a fun topic to argue about. We’re not on the Harvard debate team here, loosen up a little. And secondly. . .actually, there is no secondly, I’m just bored waiting for our food so I figured I’d start some shit.” And that last part is typical me. I’m a shit-starter, a wise ass. I’m that kid the teachers hated in high school because I always had something smart to say, and I was usually right. More than anything I just like to stir the pot now and again. It keeps things interesting in an otherwise boring world.

  “Okay, then,” Gray concedes. “I see. Then I guess in the fake I-have-to-choose-between-tits-and-ass world that none of us actually live in, I choose ass. Personal preference, there’s not much more to it.”

  “Ah, see, that’s where I disagree. Actually, I disagree with all of it, but you’re wrong about the last part.”

  “Why is that?” Gray asks.

  “There are reasons for everything, it’s not just a random taste thing. It’s not like tits are cilantro, and they either taste good or not, there are reasons for our choices.”

  “Oh I see,” he jokes back. “I didn’t realize that you were a sort-of-successful romance author AND an armchair psychologist in your spare time. My bad. So, tell me, what are my reasons?”

  “You tell me. Both of you. Why a woman’s ass? Let me pose the same thought experiment I just did to those kids, only it’ll be less inappropriate this time. If you met two of the identical girl, but one had a great ass and no tits, and the other had great tits and no ass, why would you go with fictitious girl number one?”

  I see the two of them start to think. They’re literally looking up at the ceiling as if I just gave th
em some calculus problem to solve. Gray speaks first. “Okay, it’s a sex thing for me.”

  “How?” I ask.

  “I don’t care about grabbing tits, I don’t care about seeing them flap around. But when I’m fucking a girl from behind and I can grab onto her hips and see that fat ass slamming against me. That’s what’s up!”

  “Yeah, ditto,” Mike says. “Gray captured it perfectly. But for me it’s visual, also. A girl with a flat chest is still sexy. A girl with a flat ass looks weird to me. Much less attractive.”

  “Those are both fair points, gentleman, and I’m willing to concede that they make more than a little bit of sense. However. . .”

  “However, what?” Mike asks.

  “Think, if you will, of an absolutely perfect pair of breasts on a woman. Round, symmetrical, firm yet bouncy—not too big, not too small. Are you with me, boys?” They nod in unison. I can see that I have their attention. “Okay, so here’s my argument as to why tits are better. A woman’s breasts, unlike her ass, has a dual satisfaction to them.”

  “A dual satisfaction?” Mike asks. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I’m getting there, Mike, don’t worry. But I am glad that you asked. What I mean is, a woman’s ass is purely sexual, right? At least in terms of our little debate.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, let’s go back to those breasts I just described. Now I can be turned on from them, as they’re flying around because I’m fucking her so hard that gravity just takes over.”

  “You’re such a poet, Colt.”

  “Eh, don’t interrupt, Gray. Anyhow, before I was so rudely interrupted, I was saying—breasts can turn me on during sex, but they can also be the most comforting thing in the world. You can lay your head on them and they can completely calm you down. They can also just be a beautiful thing to look at, even if you don’t want to have sex.”

  “Dude, when have you ever looked at a naked woman and not wanted to have sex?”

  “Not the point, Gray,” I say, jokingly. “The point is that they are multifaceted, and asses are sadly one dimensional. They’re unitaskers. End of debate. Drop the mic.”

  “You should have gone into politics,” Mike jokes. “You have a gift for persuasion. But I don’t think they’d let you run for office with a record.”

  “Oh, shit.” Gray looks at me to see if I’m going to take Mike’s jab as a jab, or if I’m going to take it in the same spirit I take all of our ribbing of one another. Even though I’m worried about my court date for assaulting KL, it’s definitely the latter. I smile so that Gray understands I’m not about to freak out.

  “Shots fired, my friend. Shots fired.”

  That’s the good part about being like brothers—we can fuck around with each other like brothers and not ever have it go too far. I’m enjoying this breakfast, despite everything unenjoyable that’s going on in my life otherwise. And we are brothers.

  Friends.

  Brothers.

  Wordsmiths.

  The great thing about debates among guys—they never have to end, and they’re better if you disagree. I have all sorts of those: waffles vs. pancakes, who’s the hottest female celebrity, best comedy from the 1980’s. A million debates and no answers. They go well with a cold beer on a summer night when everyone’s just hanging out and having a good time.

  That kind of light-heartedness seems far away, though. I’m joking around largely to avoid the anxiety I’m really feeling, and even though Mike didn’t mean to, he kind of triggered all those negative thoughts again. My sentencing in the assault case is coming up, and the truth is that I’m scared shitless. I know, me of all people acting scared, right? I talk a good game, so I should be tough. I should look that judge straight in the eye and tell him to go ahead and give me his worst. I can take whatever he doles out, no matter how long I have to rot behind bars.

  Bullshit.

  I’m fucking scared, and I have every right to be. I’m a hard man—toughened from years of dysfunctional family life, and experiences that would have broken most other guys. But prison is a different sort of thing. It’s not an adventure and it’s not a fight—it’s the complete absence of any sort of freedom, and I think that kind of thing would break me mentally. Even that night I spent in the local jail before Harley bailed me out was difficult to deal with. I can’t imagine having my freedom, my life, and my career taken from me on the scale of years. It’s unfathomable, but it’s a real possibility that could be coming my way in the next few days.

  The crime I committed was reckless, and it can carry a three-year-minimum sentence if the judge chooses to make me an example. I hope it doesn’t come to that. I have so many things to do. I don’t want to think of all that right now. All I want to do is enjoy the plates of food that I see the waiter carrying like a circus performer. “No matter how long I live, I’ll never quite figure out how they carry all those plates on their arms without dropping them.”

  “It’s not that hard,” Gray says. “I worked as a waiter in high school. It just takes some practice. And trust me, they do fall sometimes.”

  Spiros is the man. His dad owns the place, and we’ve been coming to this diner on and off for a while now. “Here you go, my friends. For the Wordsmiths!”

  I feel famous when he calls us by that title. It’s strange, even though no one else knows what the hell he’s saying. We told him about Michael’s success with his last book and about our writing group. Ever since, whenever we walk in the doors it’s all ‘Hey, it’s the Wordsmiths’ like The Beatles just walked through the door or something.

  “Fucking amazing, Spiros, as always.” I take a huge deep breath of the smell of my decadent breakfast. A short stack of chocolate chip pancakes, a side of extra crispy bacon, a large cup of coffee on its third refill, and two sunny-side up eggs with runny yolks.

  “You’re a pig, man,” Gray says. “There are starving children in India, you know, and you’re eating enough to feed Napoleon’s army.”

  There’s another typical Gray thing to say. “I’d gladly share my short stack with any of those starving Indian children,” I say. “But, as it stands, I don’t think it’ll survive the plane ride without going bad. So I’ll eat it in solidarity of all those who I might have shared this with.”

  “You’re a savage, Colt.”

  That’s what everyone thinks of me. Colton’s crazy. Colton’s a savage. Colton’s out of control. The bad boy of romance, as one reader dubbed me in a review. I’m not going to lie, that all has some truth to it, but like any classification it’s a little limited in describing all of who I am. Right now I’m a hard nosed, sarcastic asshole who’s eating too much food and joking around, but inside I’m as anxious as I’ve ever been with thoughts of my sentencing playing over and over again in my mind.

  I stuff my face, and it feels great at first. Then I feel the weight in my stomach, and my anxiety comes flooding to the surface. I try to hide it as best I can, but I’m legitimately concerned about what my future holds. Gray’s an intuitive guy, and he reads it on my face in a way that Mike misses. He’s sitting on the same side of our booth as me, and he leans his head into my ear to whisper. “It’s okay, bro. We’re here for you, no matter what happens. But you’ll be fine. Breathe.”

  He pulls back and I smile. Just like that, I feel better. It’s hard for me to talk myself out of my feelings sometimes, especially when I’m angry, but Gray’s a calming voice. Mike must have heard what Gray was trying to whisper, because he drops his fork like there’s an emergency and looks me right in the eye. “You know what I’m looking forward to, Colt?”

  “What’s that, Mike?”

  “The future. When all this bullshit is said and done, and just a story we can put in the foreword of a book, and we’re all bestselling authors, living the life we always dreamed of. I can’t wait for that, and I see it on the horizon for us. All of us.” Mike’s words make my comfort complete. These guys are truly my brothers, and I start to feel hopeful about the future
. “Now, finish that last pancake you fat bastard. Starving kids in India and all that.”

  “Will do. Will do.”

  I take my last forkful, followed by a deep breath.

  So many things to do.

  I have so many things to do.

  3

  Colton

  A Week Later

  I feel like Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting.

  Not the genius parts where he’s doing complex math in the hallways of MIT. Hell no! Right now I feel like him in that scene right after he and his friends get arrested after getting into that brawl on the streets of South Boston. That was how it went down for me also, minus the friends and the schoolyard. Truthfully, it wasn’t a fight at all. I assaulted a guy—punched him in the gut in a restaurant bathroom, but he fucking deserved it. Anyhow, that’s old news. The update is that I got arrested. And now I’m sitting in this court room with a cheap suit on and my court-appointed public defender, who looks like he got out of law school about five minutes ago, is sitting next to me, looking as nervous as I am. I’m going to address the judge before he hands down my sentence. My lawyer told me I have the right to do that. Hopefully he knows what the fuck he’s talking about.

  I’m a writer, so I’m good with using my words to manipulate emotions. I don’t always speak as well as I write, but using language to my benefit is like a super power I can turn on and off at will. Right now I need to turn it the fuck on. Everyone in the room rises as the judge makes his entrance into the courtroom. “Stand up, Colt,” my lawyer instructs me as the judge makes his way behind the bench. This whole thing is weird—why does one guy have the power over my freedom? I guess I can ponder that while I get ready to convince him to let me go.

  A month ago I beat the shit out of another author—KL Steiner—in a restaurant bathroom while I was out celebrating a cover reveal for my best friend, Michael Knight. It was the wrong thing to do, there’s no getting around that. I threw the first and second punches without any provocation except for him being a dick. I should have controlled myself, but I didn’t. I gave KL what was coming to him, and I really didn’t think anything was going to come of it. Wishful thinking, I guess. A few days passed with nothing, and then the cops showed up at my doorstep and took me to jail.