Chapter 5
5
“If you’re trying to embarrass me, you can’t,” I assure him, light defiance in my voice. “My embarrassment over this particular topic is all used up.”
I’m talking, of course, about my long-ago crush—not the infamous lessons he keeps going on about, a joke he somehow still thinks is funny.
The man is a nightmare. A distractingly hot nightmare who just managed to casually drop into the middle of our argument at least three of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. Between the hangover, the late night and the stress of recent weeks—not to mention the dazzlingly sexy and exasperating chauffeur—my head is spinning.
Colton glances over at me, taking note of the blush on my cheeks. His grin lingers before he turns back to the road. “If you say so, Sunshine. ”
But then he finally leaves it alone for a while and I thank my stars for small mercies.
Even after our bickering—or maybe because of it—the silence between us is surprisingly comfortable. He’s playing some old school country music and it reminds me that I’m excited about where we’re going. I’m finally going to Nashville , a place I’ve wanted to go for as long as I can remember. And I can admit it’s nice to not be going there alone.
It’s also nice not to have to worry about… anything, at least in this moment. I realize how heavy all the decision-making and trying-so-hard-24/7 has been lately. For an entire year, I’ve barely looked up.
For now, I don’t have to think about which exit to take or what motel might be the safest option that won’t break the bank. I don’t have to be in charge of everything. I don’t have to be scared.
Because I have been scared. For a long time. I work until I’m exhausted so I don’t have to think too much about how alone in this world I really am.
Sure, I have Jessie and she’s always been a rock to me, but she also has her mom and six cousins and the busy, hectic schedule of a person who has a family who are involved in her life. And now she’ll have a husband. And a baby . There’s Sloane, but it’s not the kind of friendship where you’d call each other up out of the blue and talk about how worried you are about maybe not being able to cope with all the stuff you have to cope with .
I find myself taking a deep breath and exhaling it in that way you do when you’re sort of overwhelmed with relief.
I hardly know Colton Maddox, but he already feels like a buffer against the harder edges of reality. Which is crazy.
I don’t analyze it and I know it’s very short-term, but right now it feels ridiculously good to just be…cared for, if it could be called that.
Watching him as he drives, humming along to a Waylon Jennings oldie, his forearms are muscular and hair-dusted as he grips the steering wheel. I can’t help but notice that he’s incredibly… masculine . Big and well-built. His hands are tan and strong-looking. His thighs, in his jeans, are sculpted and solid, filling them out like…well, sort of ideally. Like he’s a living, breathing work of art.
His profile is somehow romantic against the backdrop of the colorful fall landscape. His jaw is square and his neck is corded. His thick hair?—
“Damn, girl. You’re checking me out like you want your first lesson now.”
Here we go again with the smug smirk.
The man sure knows exactly how to push my buttons. “You can stop with the ‘lessons’. There aren’t going to be any lessons.”
“Too late to back out, Bailey. We shook on it.”
“You obviously rate your own sense of humor very highly, Maddox. You could get a side hustle as a stand-up comedian if the stock market ever crashes. But hopefully it won’t because you might find you’re not as funny as you think.”
Colton bites back another smile. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for the tip, gorgeous.”
“Anytime.”
Even though he’s clearly trying to ruffle every single one of my feathers—and I’m not entirely sure why—there’s something almost comforting about squabbling with Colton Maddox. He’s incredibly easy to be with. There’s no awkwardness in our teasing banter, even though there probably should be.
It doesn’t make sense at all, but I already feel like I know him better than most people I’ve known for years. I can’t help feeling that we click in a way that’s rare—even if he is without a doubt the most maddening man I’ve ever met.
“So, do you have business meetings in L.A.?” I ask him, reclining my seat. “You still haven’t told me why you decided on this spur of the moment drive across the country.”
He stares at my painted toes for a few seconds, until I almost remind him to keep his eyes on the road.
Colton ignores my question, concentrating on passing a slower car.
“Colton?”
“Yeah?”
“You have meetings in L.A.?” I ask again, in case he didn’t hear me over the music and the acceleration of the motor .
“Affirmative.”
It’s a joke that doesn’t seem to get old and we both laugh, but something about the way he dodged my question makes me wonder if he’s lying. And why he would.
“So,” Colton says, pulling his sunglasses down over his eyes. “Since we’ve got all the time in the world, I want to hear the entire life story of Lila Bailey. Make it juicy.”
“I already told you all the juicy parts last night. Sadly, that’s as juicy as it gets.”
“Are your parents still in Venice?”
I open one of the bottles of water already propped in the cup holders and hand it to him. Then I open the other one and take a long sip. “So we’re getting real now, are we?”
“We’ve been real all along. Answer the question, please.”
He’s right about that. We have been real the whole time. We can’t seem to help ourselves. “I never knew my dad. He and my mom had, like, a two-week relationship that ended before my mom even found out she was pregnant with me. I never met him.”
“Really?” This is clearly shocking to him.
“Really.”
“Do you know his name?”
“Yes. But he died a long time ago. There wasn’t a lot to google. He was a drifter from west Texas. My mom said he had trouble written all over him but that he was so good-looking she went with it anyway. She said she fell head over heels in love with him but she knew from the very first minute that there was no way he’d stick around. And she was right. He stayed for a few weeks, then one morning he told her she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever met but that it was time for him to go. He walked out and she never saw him again.”
“What?” An incredulous chuckle. “This story sounds made up.”
“I wish it was.”
“So your mother just…never heard from him again?”
“Nope. When she found out about me, she tried to contact him, but she had no phone number and no address. It was like he disappeared into thin air. And then one day I googled him like I used to do from time to time and there was a death notice. It was sort of a coincidence because he’d only died a few days before I googled him.” I’ve never actually told this story to anyone in this much detail. But this is what I seem to do when I’m with Colton Maddox. So I keep going. “He was riding a motorcycle somewhere north of Kansas City and got hit by a sixteen-wheeler. The cops actually found a photo of my mom in his wallet with her name written on the back of it. So they called her up and asked her if she wanted his ashes. She told them to sprinkle them into the wind. It was where he was happiest.”
Colton gives me a sympathetic but sideways glance. “That’s unbelievable.”
“Yeah. It is.”
“And your mother? Is she still in Venice?”
“She died around two and a half years ago. Of a brain aneurysm. She was totally fine one minute and then suddenly she was gone.”
“Jesus. I’m sorry, Lila.”
“I actually think it’s a good way to go.” It’s something I’ve thought about a lot. “You’re just living your life like you always have and then, bang, you’re dead. The doctors told me she probably didn’t even feel it.”
Colton reaches for my hand and gives it a squeeze. “That’s fucking rough, honey. I’m sorry.”
I shrug, easing my hand from his, ignoring the flurry of butterflies that just took flight in my stomach at the contact. “What about your mother? Are you close with her?”
“She died when I was five.”
I watch his face for a second. I wasn’t expecting that. “I’m sorry, Colton.”
“After she died, my father went into full-throttle asshole mode. I’m sure part of it was grief. He really loved her and she must have loved him too, fuck knows why. My brothers have said that all the good parts of him died when she died.”
“Wow. That’s…awful.”
“Nothing was ever the same.” Colton’s voice has gone huskier at the memories. He’s almost completely lost the roguish playfulness that’s usually so much a part of his personality. “We had a brigade of nannies for a few years but my father decided to send us to boarding school when I was seven. To keep us in line.”
“You went to boarding school when you were seven ? ”
“Yeah. It felt like a prison. My brothers handled it better than I did.”
I can see for the first time that Colton Maddox isn’t only a happy-go-lucky playboy. Under that cocky exterior, he’s got some deep emotional scars. No wonder he’s afraid of commitment. Maybe his sense of abandonment still haunts him.
“Is your father still alive?”
“Nope, he had a massive heart attack a few years ago. We grieved for what could have been more than what was.”
“Sometimes that’s even harder.”
He glances over at me and it’s connective. “Yeah. It is.”
“But you have your brothers.”
“Yeah, I have my brothers. They’re a pain in my ass but they’re also my best friends.”
“You’re so lucky to have them.” I don’t say it, but what I’m thinking is, you’re so lucky you’re not alone.
Colton reads my thoughts easily. “You’re not alone now, Sunshine.”
His nickname for me lightens the tone of our suddenly-very-heavy conversation. “True. For the next five days I get to bask in the fabulous company of the Terminator—and please, don’t say it again.”
But he does anyway. “Affirmative. And damn straight I’m fabulous company. I plan on showing you the time of your life, baby girl. You’ll see.”
Baby girl. There’s something almost heartbreaking about the endearment. Because as gorgeous and fun as he is, even if he does have emotional layers I’m just beginning to learn about, he’s still Colton Maddox . I’ve already outlined the long list of reasons why there will never be anything between us beyond banter and a road trip.
I recline my seat a little further. “God knows I need ‘a time of my life’. I’ve been drowning in a sea of chiffon and Botox for an entire year. That’s when I’m not waitressing and getting my ass pinched by old bankers who are so rich they don’t have to worry about getting canceled.”
His reply is surly. “That won’t be happening anymore.”
I’m bemused by the low tones of fury in his reply. “Yeah, that’s because I’ll be getting my ass pinched by old bankers in L.A. instead.”
“I think we can probably come up with a better plan.” Before I can ask him what exactly this ‘plan’ might entail, he asks, “How long have you been in New York?”
“A year, almost exactly. New York Fashion Week is what everyone aspires to—even if some people in L.A. won’t admit it. So, after I graduated, I thought I’d see if I could make it happen for myself.” I don’t really want to lay out my whole sob story, especially since I already did that last night. So I keep it brief. “It hasn’t really worked out the way I’d hoped.”
“Why not?”
I contemplate him for a minute, in all his billionaire glory. The shirt that most likely cost more than I make in a month. The glinting Rolex. The gold chain that’s no doubt 24 carat. The suntan he probably got from sitting out on his Fifth Avenue penthouse roof garden overlooking Central Park. Of course he wouldn’t understand. “It just hasn’t.”
We’re both quiet for a few seconds but then I hear his low laughter. “Nice try, sweetheart. Tell your friendly Terminator/therapist everything. I want detailed descriptions of every single one of your dreams. I want the whole vision. And give me some idea how you plan to get from A to B. I might be able to help you out. That’s what Daddy’s here for.”
I let my head fall back, groaning lightly. Once again he’s able to make me smile even though I’m actively trying not to give him the satisfaction. “You can be either the Terminator or Daddy. Not both.”
“I can be everything you want me to be, baby. You just wait until our first lesson tonight.”
“Oh my god, would you stop?” And now I’m all hot and bothered. That intimate, wet, tingling thing is happening again, at the thought of what those lessons he keeps talking about…might feel like.
“Spill,” he orders me with mock sternness.
Oh, what the hell. I know he’ll get it out of me eventually anyway because he seems to be very good at doing exactly that. “I don’t have a lot of time to work on my own stuff because I work two other jobs. And my boss in the boutique isn’t really looking for the kind of designs I make. They’re a little too young for her clientele.”
“Plenty of hip young women in the Hamptons,” he comments. I try not to think about how many of them Colton knows personally. “Maybe you should open your own store.”
“With the whopping three hundred dollars currently in my bank account? Sure.” I immediately wish I hadn’t said that. It must sound so pathetic to someone like him. “But yes, maybe I will, once I get a little more established. It’s not like I can’t promote myself on Instagram from L.A. I’ll just have to work harder.” The mere thought of it exhausts me.
“Where do you see yourself in, say, three years?”
I think about his question. “I don’t know.”
“Come on, you can do better than that,” he insists. “What would be your dream scenario?”
“My own label, I guess. And maybe someone to help me with the marketing side of things, since it’s so time-consuming and what I really want to be doing is designing clothes.”
“Then we’ll just have to make that happen,” he says, like it’s that easy.
“Sure we will.” Just to humor him. As well-meaning as his questions are, he doesn’t quite get that I don’t live in his universe, where things magically fall into place because you have unlimited amounts of cash to throw at them.
“Who’s your favorite designer?” he asks. “Your dream company to work for, as you build your own brand?”
“Ralph Lauren.” I don’t even have to think about it. “I watch all the shows of all my favorite designers and theirs are always the best. There’s never anything I don’t like in their lines. Their clothes all have that cowboy edge but the way they put the outfits together is so sophisticated. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to work there. Maybe in my next life.”
When I glance over at him he’s grinning slyly at me.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he says innocently, his eyes back on the road.
This reclining chair is so comfortable, I curl onto my side so I can watch him. The music is soothing and the hum of the engine is hypnotic. My eyelids feel so heavy.
Colton winks at me and there’s genuine feeling behind it that I don’t like the look of. He’s too gorgeous—and off-limits—to look at me like that. “Sleep for a while, co-pilot. I’ll make sure we get to where we’re going.”
“Are you sure?”
“Affirmative.”
I exhale a weary laugh. I’m bone tired, if I’m being honest.
“I’ve got you, Sunshine.” The assurance makes my eyes sting for some reason. He’s got me. And the comfort of him feels so damn good, I can’t stop myself from drifting into a peaceful sleep.