Chapter 17 #2
“Buttoned up?” he supplied, sending me a pointed look.
I cringed. Right. I had called him that yesterday, hadn’t I? “I almost thought you just didn’t experience the full range of human emotion.” I bumped my shoulder against his. “You don’t have any wires and circuits under your skin, right? I’ve considered checking.”
“That hurts, Lex. Right in my cold, dead, robot heart.”
I snorted a laugh. No snide remark about how unoriginal my cyborg jokes were? Apparently, he was full of surprises today. “If you are a robot, you’ve got a great sense of humor. Which is something I hated about you.”
He held up a hand. “Hold on. You hated that I had a sense of humor? How does that make sense?”
Okay, yeah, putting it like that sounded pretty mental.
“It was just one more thing that was perfect about you, okay? With the way you’re everything I’m not, it would’ve been much easier to hate you if you had the comedic sense of a paperclip. So, the fact that you’re funny— maybe even funnier than me—made me hate you more just to compensate.”
He didn’t respond at first. In the silence permeating the room, I internally kicked myself for showing so much of my hand. I hadn’t meant to divulge so much. It just… came out.
Before I could backpedal and tell him to forget I said anything, he spoke. “You thought I was perfect?”
This time, there wasn’t any smugness. None of the haughtiness he usually wore, or the holier than thou attitude. Only contemplation. Maybe a dash of disbelief. Which, with how much I harped on him about his quirks and habits, wasn’t unwarranted.
Shame and embarrassment burned through me, and I covered my face with my hands.
“Practically perfect, yeah. Everything I struggle with, you excel at. Everyone likes you at work, you’re never, ever late, you apparently date supermodels, and you don’t have any vices.
Literally. It’s impossible for you to even have coffee breath because you don’t drink coffee.
It’s infuriating.” I shrugged and squeezed my eyes shut so I couldn’t peek at him through the slats of my fingers.
“You had a perfect, orderly life until I showed up and became a thorn in your side. Who wouldn’t be jealous of that? ”
Everything in his life—papers, folders, shoes, cups, neckties, you name it—had its proper place.
And I was still trying to find my place in the squad.
In the world. It was easier to hate him than to admit that he was everything I should be, so I dug my heels in to prove that I was fine the way I was and he was the one who needed to change.
And—stubborn ox that I was—I didn’t want to stop.
Hating him was safe. Our rivalry was safe . Because if I didn’t have it as my smokescreen, what might remain when the last of the fumes dissipated terrified me.
“I don’t have the perfect life, Lex.”
I let my hands drop, though I didn’t open my eyes. “Just because you’re single now doesn’t mean you’ll always be. You’ve got women lining up to date you. For all I know, you probably have a spreadsheet or reservation system to keep them all organized.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.” He sighed, stretching the silence between us thin as paper. “My… home life as a teen was pretty… messed up.”
I opened my eyes so I could study him as he gathered his thoughts.
Classic Colt. Always thinking. This time, though, I found it didn’t bother me at all. It was like we were balancing on a trapeze. One wrong move could send us plummeting, and one right one could send us soaring. So, I took a page out of his book and waited.
“When I was in middle school, my mom injured her back and needed surgery. After the procedure, she was given opioids to cope.”
My stomach sank as I pictured where this was going. I had my reasons for joining the Drug-Related Crimes squad, after all, so he must, too.
“The problem was,” he continued, “she became addicted. At first, she could still function pretty normal while popping pills, but eventually everything took the backseat to her addiction. Me, her marriage, her job. Everything. Dad tried to help out, but he could only do so much when she wasn’t willing to get the help she needed. ”
I nodded. That was a feeling Dekker and I understood too well. Helplessness. Frustration. Desperation. A potent mix if ever I’ve experienced one.
“The courts still wanted me to have time with my mom, so I’d alternate between her place and Dad’s. With the divorce and her addiction, I never knew what to expect. Sometimes I’d bring boxes of macaroni and cheese from my dad’s just so I could have a guaranteed meal while I visited her.”
I wasn’t sure what possessed me to do it.
Maybe it was the fact that I knew to some extent exactly what he’d been through seeing a loved one lose themselves to addiction.
Maybe it was because he needed the comfort.
Or I did. But I placed my hand over his.
And instead of pulling away, he gently squeezed mine back.
“It continued like that for several years until I graduated high school.” He shrugged a shoulder, staring blankly at the wall.
“Maybe it was the realization she’d missed so many years of her only child’s life, or maybe it was something entirely different.
But, she finally accepted she needed help and was willing to do something about it. ”
I held my breath, a silent plea at the forefront of my thoughts. Please don’t let her have a fatal relapse like Dominick. Anything but that.
Colt offered a small smile. “She’ll be nine years sober this fall.”
I couldn’t stop my grin, even if I wanted to. My family didn’t get that same happy ending, but at least his did. “That’s fantastic, Colt.”
“It sure is. She’s the reason I wanted to join the FBI in the first place, probably much like your brother inspired you.”
Huh. Guess we had some things in common outside of our job titles after all.
My mind spun through all he’d told me, paired with my own observations.
His predictability, his routine, his need for control.
Even his comment at dinner about the fries at HopCat.
He didn’t drink coffee, let alone alcohol.
Much of his childhood was chaotic and unpredictable, and he’d suffered for it.
It would only make sense that he’d avoid that same fate now in whatever ways he could.
As if he could retroactively change the past by controlling everything about his present.
I bit my lip, debating whether to ask him if any of my conclusions held any merit. He’d been in a sharing mood thus far, and I wouldn’t risk anything by taking advantage of that.
“Is that the real reason you drink apple juice instead of coffee? To avoid anything addicting?”
He huffed softly, the corner of his mouth tipping upward. “Should’ve known you’d figure it out eventually.”
“Yeah, it only took me two months and a newly discovered hatred for apple juice to do it,” I teased. “Guess I should’ve paid more attention in my psych classes in college.”
“Ugh, I’m glad you didn’t. The fact you razzed me about my eccentricities without psychoanalyzing me to my face was oddly refreshing.”
“In that case, you’re welcome.”
He arched a brow. “Don’t misunderstand, that was not a request for more.”
“Aw, come on. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“Were you listening to anything I said?”
I bit back a smile at his exasperated look and squeezed his hand. “I was, I promise. And I’m really glad you shared it with me.”
And that was the truth.
Colt had finally pulled back the curtain on his life, and it changed everything .
I’d thought he was an uptight stick in the mud because his only love in life was the rule book.
Because he thought his habits and discipline made him better than everyone else, and he relished the superiority.
But it was more than that— he was more than that.
Understanding what makes someone tick changes how you perceive them. This whole week, my perception of Colt had slowly been tilting on its axis. Now, it flipped a complete one-eighty.
He considered me for a moment, his dark eyes flicking over my face and his full lips pursed. “I’m glad I did, too.”
Warmth spread through my chest. Goodbye, trapeze. Hello, clouds. As far as I was concerned, our truce was back in effect. And maybe I was more relieved about that than I cared to admit.
He reluctantly freed his hand from mine, his fingers trailing a path of fire down mine as he stood. I tried not to stare as he stretched, his shirt pulling tight across his lithe form.
Okay, maybe I didn’t try very hard. So, sue me. A girl could admire beautiful things every now and then.
He offered a hand to help me up, which I accepted. I’d had enough blueberry girl floundering for the month, thank you very much. The contact, innocent as it was, sent a thrill dancing up my arm and into my heart until it skipped a beat. Huh.
As he pulled me up and held me by the upper arms, searching my eyes with his infinite ones, my stomach flipped and dropped. Every inch he touched buzzed with awareness. Goosebumps erupted over my skin, and my mouth went conspicuously dry.
“Are you alright now?” he asked, tipping my chin up to examine my puffy and pink face. “Because I believe I have some business to attend to concerning Liam.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but nothing came out. I nodded dumbly instead as my world came crashing down around me.
Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no . This couldn’t be happening. The butterflies. The goosebumps. The loss of all intelligent thought.
I squeaked out a thanks and practically jumped away from him like his touch lit my nerve endings on fire. Because it did. And I didn’t like what that meant. At. All.
I flashed a nervous smile and rushed from the room, mumbling something about getting ready for bed. I didn’t know what he had in mind for Liam, but knowing him, it wouldn’t be anything brash or illegal. It would be premeditated, thought-out, and devastating. Exactly what Liam deserved.
As much as I wanted to stay and find out, I wanted even more to put some space between us. Anything to get away from him and clear my head. The same head that practically spun with its latest realization.
I threw myself into the shower, scrubbing off my ruined makeup and the day’s humidity. Even the shower couldn’t drown out the thudding of my pulse or the racing of my thoughts.
Something had shifted between us. Knowing why he was the way he was, being mutually vulnerable with each other for possibly the first time ever, had given my head permission to accept what my body had been telling it this whole time.
The smokescreen of our rivalry was gone.
Poof.
And what remained was the hard truth that my strong, visceral reaction to him wasn’t hatred. It likely never was. Being near him flipped my stomach. Touching him burned my skin. Seeing him altered the course of my day. But I didn’t hate him.
Oh, no. It was much worse.
I had feelings for him.