by Linda Kage
My mouth fell open. “Excuse me?”
He would’ve said more—his lips were parting to say more—but he darted a look over my shoulder and immediately shut down. I glanced around to find Colton joining us.
My poor boy was utterly spent of all energy. I was afraid he’d pass out any second as he closed his eyes and leaned into me to rest his forehead on my shoulder. “The cop just released us,” he reported. “I want to go home now.”
He was so drained, he slurred his words. I pulled back, instantly worried. “Are you sure you’re okay? You weren’t this tired a few minutes ago.”
Opening half-lidded eyes, he mumbled, “I’m fine. I just want to go home.”
The asshole paramedic who was still standing there holding Colton’s ice pack had been the one to initially check him. I narrowed my eyes on him now. “Are you sure he doesn’t have a concussion? I mean, you checked, right?”
Or maybe he just hadn’t been all that concerned about the white guy who was dating the black girl.
When I gave him a death glare, letting him know he’d better double check my man or he was going to suffer, he sighed and pulled a pen flashlight from his front pocket.
But Colton winced and held up a hand, shaking his head. “I’m fine. Really. Just crashing after the adrenaline rush.”
His gaze turned beseechingly to me, so I nodded.
“Okay, we’ll go,” I said softly. Wrapping my arm around his waist, I sent the paramedic one last defiant glare and then led Colton away.
Once we were away from the hoopla of emergency vehicles with their flashing lights, he sighed and leaned more heavily against me. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to take you out to eat.”
“Oh, stop,” I chided. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You defended me and that kind of makes you my hero right now.”
“I don’t think he broke my nose.” He reached up to dab tenderly at the side of it. “But it hurts like a motherfucker. I’m going to down about half a bottle of painkillers when I get home.”
I looked up at him, worried anew. “Are you sure you don’t have a concussion?”
“I’m fine, baby doll.” He kissed my temple. “Just ready to go home.” Pausing, he sent me an uneasy glance. “Would I be a total dick if I went home now?”
My apartment building had just come into view and I could see where he’d parked his truck from here. My instinctive answer was to clutch him tighter and beg him to stay. I didn’t want him to leave…ever. Plus, I wanted to keep watch over him in case he really did have a concussion.
But I nodded and said, “Go home, baby. Get some sleep.”
He nodded, looking like he might fall asleep before he made it there. “I’ll see you to your door.”
But I resisted. “No. Your truck is right here. You don’t have to walk me all the way back inside and out again.”
“But—”
“Colton.” My voice was stern. “You’re in pain. Go home.”
After a reluctant sigh, he nodded and closed his eyes briefly. “I’ll text when I get home to make sure you made it safely inside.”
I smiled and rolled my eyes, but said, “Okay, thank you,” because I wanted to make sure he made it home all right, too.
We paused at his driver’s side door and he hugged me, resting his cheek on the top of my head. “I know this probably won’t make you feel any better, but I don’t think everyone is like that drunk douche or those gossipy bitches at the restaurant. Most people weren’t bothered at all by us being together.”
I sighed and stroked his arm. “I know,” I answered, but yeah, it didn’t really make me feel any better. Not tonight anyway.
“I think putting up with a couple assholes is worth it, though,” he said quietly enough that I could barely hear him. “Because this is going somewhere,” he added before pulling away and opening his door.
I lifted my head and gaped at him as he climbed into his truck and started the engine. He finally glanced at me through the window and blew me a kiss. Then he backed out of his parking spot and drove off.
Still in a daze over his admission, I walked blindly to my apartment. After I unlocked my door and went inside, I touched my lips as if he’d physically kissed me goodbye with those words and I could still feel the impact of them on my mouth.
It was more than just sex for him too.
Oh my God, it was more than just sex for him too!
Even after the crappiness we’d experienced tonight, I wanted to laugh and dance and share my news with the world. Colton liked me for more than just sex.
Muffled voices came from the kitchen, so I started that way without thought. I wanted to celebrate with my besties.
Tyla was asking, “Where’s JuJu?” when I reached the opening.
“Probably with Colton again,” Sasha answered, just as Theo snorted.
“Are you fucking kidding me? She’s still seeing that white douchebag?”
I had opened my mouth to call a greeting, but closed it at his question, not wanting to deal with any more of that tonight. The two couples were gathered around the counter where three boxes of pizza from the corner store lay spread open as they hovered and ate.
Feeling extra and unneeded and not wanting to listen to Theo make any more cracks about Colton, I began to back away.
But Theo snorted. “Guess this proves white guys are resistant to the cold.”
I paused, frowning. Huh?
“Why’s that?” Chad asked, his mouth full of pepperoni and cheese.
Theo shrugged. “I mean, he’s gotta be. That or he’s fine with freezing his nuts off every time he sticks his dick in her ice cold, igloo pussy.”
As a part of me shut down to avoid feeling any kind of pain, Tyla gasped and walloped him on the arm. “Theodore Jamal Richmond! What the fucking hell?”
“Well, it’s true!” Theo cried, ducking and lifting his arm when Tyla went for his face next.
“That is not true at all.”
“Oh, shit.” Chad had finally noticed me in the doorway, his next bite of pizza frozen halfway to his mouth.
Sasha glanced over and gasped, slapping her hands over her mouth.
When Tyla saw me, she immediately began to shake her head. “No.” She stepped toward me. “JuJu—”
But I retreated a foot, and she slowed to a stop.
“I was just letting you guys know I was home,” I said quietly. When I swung my gaze toward Theo, he actually had the decency to look contrite. “And I’d appreciate it if you would stop calling him that white douchebag. His name is Colton.”
Then I turned away and walked stiffly to my room. When I reached it, I closed the door without any fuss and moved immediately to my closet to pull out a suitcase. I had no idea where I was going as I filled it. I just didn’t want to be here.
Outside Sasha and Ty, I wasn’t really friends with anyone else in town, not friendly enough to ask to stay with them, anyway. And bothering Colton was out of the question. His family didn’t know about us for a completely different reason. Besides, he was miserable and in pain right now. He needed a break.
Maybe Pick could help me out. I’d heard of some pretty awesome things he’d done for a couple of my coworkers, even though bothering my boss when he was probably at home with his family right now seemed all kinds of wrong.
I’d just stuffed a handful of underwear, all plain cotton but with vibrant colors, into the suitcase when a soft knock came at my door.
Tyla pushed it open, hesitantly peeking inside. Sasha crept in right behind her.
“He’s gone,” Ty told me, her eyes full of apology. “I kicked him out.”
“Chad left too,” Sasha reported.
I sighed and dropped my armful of socks onto my mattress. “You guys, you didn’t have to do that. I can go.”
“What? You’re not going anywhere,” Sasha stated firmly. “This is your home. And why is there blood smeared on your shirt?”
I glanced down and blinked at the rusty smear covering my
right breast. Colton had broken open his knuckles and scraped his arm in the fight. That must’ve been where this had come from.
I didn’t know why, but seeing his blood on me broke me. I sat down on top of the sock pile, buried my face in my hands and proceeded to cry.
“Oh, honey.” Sasha sat next to me, and Tyla took my other side. Their arms wrapped around me and held me close as they rocked me back and forth.
“What did that bastard do to you?” Tyla demanded.
I shook my head and wiped at my tears. “No. Colton didn’t do anything wrong. He’s perfect. He’s so fucking amazing; he’s the best man I’ve ever known. And I’m just so scared because it wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be fun and done, get it out of our system and never talk to each other again. But he was just so amazing. And then he brought me candy when I was on my period and told me his secrets and listened to mine and got into a fight with some jackass who tried to grab my breasts, and I just…I don’t know. I’ve never felt anything this big for a guy before, except I’m not supposed to. He didn’t want his brother to know, I didn’t want my dad to find out. But then he made it sound like he wanted more tonight, and I want more too. I kind of want everyone to know he’s mine, and if they have a problem with it, they can just go fuck themselves.”
I exhaled a big long breath after unloading all that, my chest heaving and eyes still sprouting tears. I was pretty much a disaster, and both my roommates were staring at me as if I’d lost my mind, which I think I had.
Finally, Sasha lifted her eyebrows and blew out a breath. “Okay, maybe you should start from the beginning. Whose blood is on you?”
My shoulders fell. “I think I need to start a lot further back than that.”
“That’s fine.” Tyla nodded encouragingly. “How far back are we talking?”
“About a year,” I confessed. “Pretty much a week or two after I started working at the bar. Brandt was my trainer, and I thought he was cool.” I shrugged. “He is cool. The guy has every quality a girl would want in a man, so I thought, why not. He fit the mold I had set in my brain for the perfect guy. But the very night I was going to ask him out, his brother stopped by.”
“And it was like destiny,” Sasha tried to fill in for me, as she pressed her hands to her chest dramatically.
I blinked at her before saying, “No. He annoyed the hell out of me. He was loud and obnoxious and so arrogantly inappropriate, I pretty much wanted to smack him. But then he left, and I found myself sending glances toward the door as if I was looking for him to return or something. It was freaky, so freaky that I went ahead and asked Brandt out because, I don’t know...nothing was freaky or scarily intense with Brandt. But then that bombed, and I have to say, I wasn’t really that disappointed. I was just sad, sad because he’d finally settled with his soul mate, and you’d started seeing Theo.”
I pointed to Tyla before glancing at Sasha. “And you’ve always had Chad. I just felt so alone. The only time I ever felt truly alive was when Colton stopped by to see Brandt at the bar. I think he got a kick out of pissing me off because the more I reacted the more he flirted. After a while, I realized I was getting a kick out of his visits too. We had this bizarre game of him pursuing me relentlessly while I told him to fuck off. But nothing ever came of it. Not until the night of Brandt’s wedding.”
Tyla gasped and waved her hands excitedly. “What, girl, what? You’ve been holding out on us. I knew it! What happened at that wedding? This is going to be juicy, isn’t it? Ooh, this better be fucking juicy as hell.”
Oh, it was juicy all right.
“I was extra depressed,” I admitted. “And bitter because I felt so alone. I was reflecting on how things could’ve ended up if Brandt and I had actually worked out when the best man sat down at my table.”
“Colton was the best man?” Sasha guessed, grinning wide. “Mmm, are you telling us you made it with the best man at your crush’s wedding, and he also happened to be the groom’s brother? Holy shit, you naughty woman. I am so impressed.”
When she hugged me, I burst out laughing. “It felt really, really wrong. We were this close to having sex.” I put a centimeter of space between my thumb and index finger. “And I mean this close. But then I blurted out something about loving Brandt, and he took off and—”
“You did what?” Tyla exploded. “Why would you do that?”
“I don’t know!” I wailed. “I was drunk and still moody and depressed from not having anyone. I think I’d been trying to convince myself all day that I still liked him. So when I hooked up with Colton, it just came out. It felt like he was pissed at me forever over that, too.”
I continued to tell them about everything that had happened since then.
Meanwhile, Tyla found the stash of candy Colton had bought me the night before—dear Jesus, had that only been the night before?—and the three of us tore into it while I spilled everything, and I mean everything.
When I got to the part about the bitchy gossipy girls at the restaurant, the drunk asshole who’d harassed us, and the condescending paramedic, Tyla clutched her face in her hands and moaned, “Then you came home to Theo and his big, stupid fat mouth. JuJu, I am so sorry. Will you please forgive me?”
I shook my head. “There’s nothing to forgive. You weren’t the one who said anything.”
“I know, but…he’s my boyfriend. My responsibility. I should’ve…I…” Her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t think he and I are going to make it.”
“What?” Sasha screeched. She seemed more startled to hear this than I did.
“He always flirts with other girls,” Tyla said. “Like right in front of me, usually when I’m trying to tell him about my day. He never pays attention when I talk to him, and some of the cracks he’s said about my friends or things I like are really starting to bother me.”
“What’s he said about me?” Sasha had to know.
Tyla seemed to wilt under our gazes. “You don’t even want to know.”
Sasha’s mouth dropped open with a gasp. A second later, she said, “Okay, you can dump his worthless ass.”
Tyla laughed, only to sob out a hiccup and wipe her wet face. “I just don’t know if I can. I’m afraid to be alone.” Her gaze shifted to me. “You were so brave when you dropped Shaun flat after he slapped you. You weren’t afraid to be alone, or stand up to him, or…any of that. And I just know I never would’ve been able to do that. I would’ve given him another chance and another and another. I’m just…I’m not that strong.”
“This is so insane,” Sasha uttered, shaking her head. “I thought you and Theo were happy together.”
“Well, I had to make you think that. You and Chad are the perfect couple. It’s sickening. And I wanted to be like that.”
“Oh my God.” Sasha snorted out a laugh. “And here, I’d been depressed because it felt as if he and I were the boring old practically married couple that never did anything new.”
“Hey, you guys skipped class and had sex all afternoon last week,” I offered helpfully. “That’s not so boring.”
Sasha and Tyla burst out laughing until tears ran down their cheeks.
“We need to do this more often,” Tyla announced as she popped a Starburst into her mouth. “This is nice.”
“I know,” Sasha said, reaching out to squeeze both our thighs. “I miss just talking to you guys.”
Feeling a little too chatty, I blurted, “I sometimes don’t feel like I can talk to you because you two are, you know, so close, and I know I’m the pathetic third wheel.”
They blinked and stared at me before saying, “Really?” as if that idea had never occurred to them.
A moment later, Sasha reached for my hand. “Oh, honey. I never meant to make you feel that way. You two are equally important to me, I swear.” Then she blushed ruefully and ducked her head. “Though I guess I should confess, you kind of intimidate the hell out of me sometimes.”
“I do? What? Why?”
“Well.” She shrugged and shared a glance with Tyla, who nodded in agreement. “It’s just…you’re so perfect. I mean…” She waved a hand over me. “Nothing is ever out of place—aside from the blood tonight, which just looks so strange on you, by the way—and you’re always…you just have everything under control. So I guess I do defer to telling my problems to Tyla more because she’s just so…”
“Messy,” Tyla supplied cheerfully. “I’m a fucking mess, and she can relate.”
“I’m a mess too,” I cried, pressing my hands to my chest. “I’m always doubting myself and worrying about shit and feeling out of control.”
Holy hell, I’d thought the guise I put on to appear as perfect as possible always failed, sure everyone could see straight through me. And yet…it’d faked out my two best friends, of all people.
“You sure know how to cover it up well, then, honey,” Sasha said kindly. “Because, damn…”
“Yeah, you need to work on that,” Tyla told me. “It makes us mortals feel better when we see you at your low point too…kind of like tonight. In fact, you get an A for unloading all that on us tonight.”
I smiled and nodded. “Okay, I’ll work on that.”
I guess maybe I had been the one pushing them away then, not the other way around. Realizing what kind of mess I really was, I started to apologize to them for not sharing any of my issues when my phone rang.
Seeing Colton’s name, I gasped. “Oh, shit. He’s probably been texting me all night. He said he was going to text when he got home to make sure I made it inside okay. I bet he’s worried as hell.” Holding up a finger to my girls, I answered with a breathless, “Hey, sorry. I had my text messages on vibrate only.”
“Holy shit,” he exploded into my ear. “I put my shoes back on and had my wallet in hand, ready to go back over there and check on you when I realized I hadn’t actually tried calling yet. You gave me fucking heart failure, baby doll. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” I assured him. I glanced at Sasha and Tyla. “I’m actually doing great. I had a little best friend therapy and got carried away girl-talking. I totally forgot you were going to text. So, yeah, everything is fine. I didn’t mean to worry you. I guess you got home okay, too?”
