For You

by Kristen Ashley

  When she won her struggle against her humor, she declared, “I take her on, then you’ll owe me.”

  “I’ll pay.”

  She shook her head before she tipped it to his beer. “Ready for another?”

  “When Shanghai gets here.”

  “All right, babe,” she said and turned away and again Colt watched her ass when she did.

  * * * * *

  It was after they shared their food while sitting in the office and shooting the shit during Feb’s break, all of which lasted less than twenty minutes.

  It was after the crush hit the red zone, everyone in town buzzing and wanting to be out. Spring was there, weather was turning warmer, days were longer and dead bodies were being found. It was time, if you were alive, to be alive and get your ass to J&J’s, have a drink, see your friends and neighbors and have a good time.

  It was when Colt was feeling a fatigue he hadn’t felt in a long time, with stress and broken sleep, all through riding an emotional roller coaster. He just wanted to go home and go to bed with Feb and, yes, with her damned cat draped on their feet.

  It was when he thought this that he saw Feb slide through the crowd toward the jukebox. She found her song, put in a coin and pressed buttons. He’d seen her do that on occasion in the last two years. She did it more before, when she would be home visiting and wasn’t working.

  It was when she turned and headed toward a table where they were calling her name, Colt decided he could stay awhile. If Feb was in the mood for some of her music then Colt wasn’t too tired to sit on a stool, drink his beer and watch her enjoy it.

  It took five songs for Feb’s to come on. She was behind the bar at the other end but Colt still knew it was hers. It wasn’t what he was expecting or anyone would expect. The music came loud because the box was set loud, but it wasn’t rowdy Friday night bar music by a long shot.

  The minute he heard the guitar his eyes went to her to see hers come to him. Then she dipped her chin, looking away while she tucked her hair behind her ear, bashful at showing her emotion.

  And that’s when Colt knew it wasn’t Feb’s song. It was the song Feb chose for him, or the song she chose to say the things she couldn’t say.

  A lump hit his throat, he looked down at his hand wrapped around his beer which was sitting on the bar and he paid attention to the lyrics to a song he’d heard time and again, lyrics he knew and could likely recite if asked. Lyrics he’d never paid any real attention to in his life.

  Staring at his beer, his hand tightening on the bottle, fighting that lump in his throat, he listened to Stevie Nicks singing “Landslide”.

  Colt’d always liked it, it was a great song. Listening to it then he thought it was the most beautiful fucking song he’d ever heard in his whole fucking life.

  He saw her hand wrap around his wrist the second Stevie quit singing and his head came up.

  She leaned in close and whispered, “Go home, baby, get to bed. Someone’ll drop me home later.”

  She didn’t want to make a big deal of it, what she’d just given him, but her face was soft, her eyes especially, her lips tipped up at the ends, just slightly but it was all there, nothing held back, everything she felt for him showing clear on her face.

  He wanted to go home, he definitely wanted to go home, but only if he was taking Feb home.

  But that wasn’t the way she wanted to play it and she just handed him everything, he could give her this.

  “Whoever brings you home walks you in,” he ordered, she nodded and he said, “all the way in, Feb.”

  “Gotcha.”

  He lifted his beer and her hand fell away. He took one last pull and put it on the bar before he tagged her around the back of her head, leaned in and brought her mouth to his.

  “Later, baby,” he said against her mouth when he finished giving her his kiss.

  “Later, Alec.”

  He pulled away but his hand slid through her hair to her cheek, taking hair with it but he didn’t care and neither did she. She pressed her cheek into his hand as he ran his thumb along her cheekbone. Then his hand dropped away and he turned away before he did something asinine like carry her out of the bar over his shoulder.

  Calling his good-byes to a dozen people as he went, Colt exited J&J’s, walked to the Station, got in his truck and went home.

  He saw Melanie’s car parked out front as he turned into his street. He drew in an annoyed breath and decided his first order of business the next morning was putting in for vacation time. He’d just had time off but he didn’t give a fuck, he’d take it unpaid if he had to.

  He parked the truck in the drive and by the time he slid out of it she was walking across the yard toward him.

  “Melly, it’s then thirty at night,” he said when she was four feet away.

  “Gotta talk, Colt.”

  Fucking hell.

  “Mel, I’m wiped. Seriously.”

  She glanced at the house then to him and asked, “Feb livin’ here?”

  Fucking, fucking hell.

  He looked into the night then at his ex-wife. Melanie was everything Feb wasn’t, dark-haired, quiet, thoughtful, patient. She didn’t dance because she was worried people were watching and more worried about what they’d think. It took her weeks to come to a decision about anything, no matter how large or small because she didn’t take risks, she treaded cautiously. He’d liked all that about her when he fell in love with her, he thought it was cute and it was. Until she took her time making the decision about leaving him, pulling away the whole time she took to make it. Then it wasn’t fucking cute.

  “Come into the house,” he said. He didn’t want to but he also didn’t want to have this conversation at ten thirty at night in his yard.

  He led the way, hearing Melanie’s feet hit the turf as she walked beside him and partly behind him something else she’d always done and something he never understood, why she’d never walk right beside him.

  He unlocked the door and went to the security panel.

  When he made the beeping stop, he walked to the lamp by the couch as she asked, “You have an alarm?”

  “Yeah,” he said, turning on the lamp.

  In the light, she took him in, saying, “You’re in a suit.”

  “Funeral today.”

  They both heard the meow and their eyes went to Wilson who Colt could swear was standing in the doorway to the hall staring at Melanie with indictment in his eyes.

  “You have a cat?” Melanie asked.

  “Mel –”

  She cut him off. “You hate cats.”

  Colt expelled a breath and Melanie’s face crumpled as understanding dawned.

  “It’s her cat,” she whispered.

  He did not need this now. Actually, he didn’t need this at all but particularly not now.

  With less patience than he would normally use with her, he reminded her, “You left me, Mel.”

  She closed her eyes and shook her head, small shakes, like she couldn’t even commit to the decision to show that emotion. Then her eyes opened and she looked around the space, trying to find hints of Feb, evidence of a betrayal it wasn’t hers to claim. They’d bought that house together, intending to use it to build a life and she’d left him behind in it to live alone.

  “You’re here to say something,” Colt prompted, “so say it.”

  Her eyes shot to his and he saw the sting his words caused. He’d always been tolerant with the quirks in her personality mostly because, in the beginning, he thought they were sweet. After that, he did it out of habit. She’d been gone a good while and he was out of the habit.

  “She told everyone to stop talkin’ about us,” Melanie said.

  “What?”

  “Feb,” she explained, “when people heard about… when I called… you know how people talk.”

  “I do.”

  “Well, she… Feb, told them to quit talkin’ about us.”

  “You mean you,” Colt said honestly and Melanie sucked in her ch
eeks. “Feb told folks to stop talkin’ about you.”

  She’d do that, Feb would. She might not tell folks to stop talking about her, or her and Colt, but she wouldn’t stand and listen to folks talking about Melanie.

  “I should have never said anything to Marla,” Melanie stated quietly.

  Marla Webster was Melanie’s best friend and a pain in the ass. She had a big mouth, for one. For another, her mouth was loud, always nearly shouting even in a one-on-one conversation like she was talking to someone mostly deaf. Unfortunately, since she talked so damned much, you could never get a word in to tell her to quit yelling. One thing Colt didn’t miss when Melanie left was Marla.

  “I kept telling you, Melly, Marla’s a pain in the ass.”

  Pain flashed through her face at the reminder of a time when Colt told her anything and the little patience Colt had left, he was losing.

  She’d left him, he didn’t ask her to leave, didn’t fucking want her to leave, but she left. That decision was on her. What happened after was not her business. He couldn’t say what would go down if this was happening and Melanie was in his life. The pull of Feb was so strong, he might have buckled and been drawn in by her. Then again, he’d loved his wife so he might not. But, all this shit was going down when he luckily didn’t have a wife. And it was luck that he’d been free, he knew it in his bones and that might not say good things about him but he didn’t give a shit.

  Melanie’s eyes came to his and he could see the tears threatening there.

  “Is she living here?” she asked.

  Colt told her the truth. “She’s been stayin’ here and, yeah, she’s movin’ in.”

  “So, if I asked –”

  Colt shook his head. “Don’t ask.”

  “But –”

  “Don’t ask, Mel.”

  And he knew it, he knew it then. He knew she’d been thinking about this since Feb came home, trying to make the decision of whether she should approach for reconciliation. Fretting over it for years and timing it too late.

  But even if she’d come to him earlier, with Feb home he knew what his answer would have been even thinking he was finished with Feb. He knew it and Melanie knew it. She stayed strong and true to him, there would have been no problem. But she hadn’t and with Feb in town he wouldn’t have taken her back to live under the cloud she brought. Those glances she always threw Feb’s way, the times they’d all be together and he’d catch her studying him as if trying to read a hidden infidelity written on his soul. Why she was making this play now, he didn’t have a clue and he didn’t like it. It wasn’t sweet, it wasn’t cute. It was straight out selfish.

  She nodded and looked to the floor, taking in a breath that hitched before she lifted her eyes to his again.

  “Tell me one thing.”

  And he knew where she was going so he stopped her. “Don’t ask that either.”

  “Colt –”

  “We split and we did it amicably. You ask that shit, it’ll piss me off.”

  She leaned forward and her voice went higher when she said, “I have to know.”

  Colt crossed his arms on his chest and leaned back, asking, “You think I’d fuck around on you?”

  “She’s Feb.”

  “We’re not talkin’ ‘bout Feb now, we’re talkin’ about me and you think I’d fuck around on you?”

  She threw her arm out. “She’s back in town and then,” she snapped her fingers, “she’s livin’ in my house.”

  Okay, now he was pissed off.

  “It’s my house, Melanie, been my house and my house alone now for years.”

  “We bought it together.”

  “I remember, I also remember you leavin’ me in it alone.”

  She hid her hurt behind burgeoning anger. “Well, it’s a good thing for you now Feb’s back I did that.”

  “You act like she drove into town yesterday. Feb’s been back years.”

  “Yeah, you’re right, so I guess I’m surprised it took this long.”

  “I’m not surprised, Mel. At this point, I’m kickin’ myself in the ass for waitin’ that long.”

  She reared back and clamped her mouth shut so hard, he could hear her teeth crash together.

  “This what you came to do?” Colt asked. “Piss me off?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Well, that’s what you did.”

  She shook her head again and started, “I just…” then stopped, still shaking her head.

  Colt turned, walking to the table, pulling off his suit jacket and hooking it on the back of a dining table chair then he turned back to her.

  “Mel, there’s been a string of homicides, two of ‘em to be exact. A robbery last night. I been awake and on the go since before five and I’m fuckin’ dog tired.”

  She looked at him and her face went from upset to gentle with memories. “That used to happen a lot.”

  Colt didn’t feel like reminiscing so when he spoke his words were short and clipped. “Still does. Never stopped.”

  She sucked in her cheeks again before she nodded. “I shouldn’t have come.”

  No, she fucking shouldn’t have.

  “We done?” he asked and he’d used the wrong words. They stung too; he watched her flinch with the sudden, acute pain. It wasn’t that he didn’t care it just wasn’t his place to care anymore, he’d gotten used to that, he’d gotten over it and he’d moved on. She obviously hadn’t. He had enough problems. He wasn’t going to add hers to them.

  “We’re done,” she said softly.

  He walked to the door, opened it and held it for her.

  She stopped and tilted her head back to look at him before she whispered, “It was nice of her… to try and stop people from talkin’.”

  “That’s Feb,” he said because it was.

  She nodded again and said, “Take care, Colt. Sorry about…” she trailed off and made a gesture with her hand.

  “You got a long drive, Melanie,” he replied, “be safe doin’ it.”

  She watched his face a moment before she dropped her head and walked out the door. He stood in its frame and waited until she made her way across the yard, got in her car, started it up and drove away.

  Then he closed and locked the door, went to his suit jacket, pulled out his phone, flipped it opened and called Feb. He didn’t know if Tina Blackstone or anyone on his street was watching and he wasn’t having that shit hit Feb’s ears before he explained it.

  “Hello?” she answered, the bar noise loud in the background.

  “Baby, you got two minutes?”

  “Everything okay?” The noises were changing behind her and he knew she was on the move.

  “In the grand scheme of things, yeah. Just wanted you to know that Melanie was sittin’ outside in her car when I got home. She wanted a few words, I gave them to her and she just left.”

  There was no response and then the bar noise significantly muted. She was in the office.

  Then, she asked, “Melanie?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She okay?”

  “My guess? No.”

  Again no response before she asked, “You okay?”

  “Be better around three when you crawl in bed with me.”

  His name was soft and sweet when she said it. “Colt.”

  He wanted to explore that soft and sweet but she couldn’t and he didn’t want to fall asleep halfway through doing it.

  “I gotta hit it, honey, practically asleep on my feet.”

  “Okay.”

  “Later, baby.”

  “Later, Colt.”

  He flipped his phone shut, armed the alarm for windows and doors, took his gun and phone to the bedroom, got ready for bed and he fell asleep about five seconds after her cat, laying on his chest with Colt’s hand scratching his ruff, started purring.

  * * * * *

  The alarm beeps jarred Colt awake and he laid in the dark listening to them, instantly alert, his hand moving toward his gun on the nightstand, tr
ying to hear anything that came with the beeps, something that wasn’t supposed to.

  Then he heard, “Jesus, Feb, shut it off.”

  Morrie.

  Then the alarm beeps came faster and louder.

  “Fucking shit,” Feb whispered loudly, “I got it wrong.”

  “Do it again,” Morrie advised.

  There was more beeping and then it stopped.

  Colt’s hand dropped and Wilson, who woke up too, got up from where he was curled into Colt’s hip and jumped off the bed.

  “You good?” Morrie asked.

  “Yeah, thanks for walkin’ me in,” Feb whispered again.

  “Gotta make certain my baby sister is safe,” Morrie replied, Colt listened to silence for awhile, the front door closing and then he heard more beeps, Feb pressing the buttons on the panel to re-arm the alarm.

  There was more silence then he heard Feb whispering yet again, “Whose belly is that? Is it Mr. Purrsie Purrs’s belly?”

  Christ, she was petting Wilson and calling him that idiotic nickname again. Poor fucking cat.

  Colt smiled into the dark.

  She hit the room and Colt heard the cat’s purrs when she did. He didn’t move as she dropped her cat, walked to the nightstand and he heard the soft thud of her cell hitting it then she went to the bureau and stopped. He heard her jewelry clinking as she placed it on the top and then he heard clothing rustle, more soft thuds as her boots hit the floor, all the while he watched her shadow moving and hopping around.

  She nabbed something off the end of the bed and went to the bathroom not turning on the light until the door was firmly closed. He heard the sink go on and off, on and off, washing her face, brushing her teeth. The light went off before she opened the door.

  She moved the covers, pulling them back before her knee hit the bed. He was about to turn to her when he saw her shadow didn’t move to lie down, she was on all fours, crawling in a direct line toward him.

  Her hand went to the covers at his stomach then down then her mouth was on his stomach then that went down too.

  “Feb –” he started.

  “Hush,” she whispered against his skin.

  He heard her necklaces clink together as she wrapped her hand around his cock and he felt her tongue rolling around the tip.

  Jesus, her sweet, wet tongue felt fucking great.