Whit #2
“So I’ve been told.” The corner of his lip pulls between his teeth. “Okay, okay. I’ll play nice today since you’re already going through it.”
Removing all but the first three words, he straightens back up and a forced exhale blows from his nose. It feels a lot like a confession. Confirms what I think I know about the way he looks at me, and the pull I feel whenever he’s around.
“I’m not sure either is true, especially right now….” I look down at my sweatpants and oversized shirt. “But thank you.”
“It’s the truth.” His Adam’s apple bobs, and on a wisp of a breath, I swear I hear him utter, “So fuckin’ pretty.”
His words fracture through me. Rocking back on my heels, I grab the counter to steady myself. Thankfully, the soup’s reached a low simmer, so I have something to distract my hands and my mind and, in a moment, my mouth. Which is great news because I might end up kissing him otherwise.
Each carrying a bowl of his mom’s famous soup, we settle onto opposite ends of the couch. With bated breath, Colt waits for my reaction, phone in hand so he can let his mom know my thoughts. Which doesn’t add pressure to the situation at all.
The moment the hot metal spoon hits my tongue, depositing so many flavors I don’t know where to begin naming them, I understand why the soup made Colt’s dad fall in love. I swallow in increments, only one bite in and already desperate to savor every morsel of this.
“Oh my God.” I sink deeper into the couch, stretching out my legs across the vacant middle cushion. “Tell your mom I want to marry her, too.”
He brings a spoonful to his mouth, already more than half done with his bowl, and taps quickly at his phone screen.
“Told her you’ve considered this her formal proposal of marriage, but she regrets to inform you she isn’t single or into women.”
“Well, damn it.” Somehow the second spoonful might be even better than the first. “That’s a real bummer. I could get used to eating this at least once a week for the rest of my life.”
His empty ceramic bowl clunks down on the coffee table, and when he settles back into his spot, his hand falls naturally to hold my foot. I think I might be delirious from lack of sleep, because I make no move to retreat.
“You’re in luck,” he says. “Consider me your official soup dealer. I also have an in for sourdough bread, chicken cutlets, and apple pie.”
“I’ll take all of it, please. My mom was a teacher, and each fall she led an apple pie fundraiser for the elementary school. A whole group of students and parents would spend an entire weekend making an insane number of pies.”
I lose my mom over and over, day after day. I lose her when I least expect it—like now, with the sudden realization that we won’t have pie this fall. I’m in a state of constant, perpetual mourning for a person who is still very much alive.
Colt’s thumb presses firm, yet comforting, against the ball of my foot. “You’d think you’d be sick of apple pies by now.”
“Oh, I definitely went through a period of hating them when I was part of the team that had to peel hundreds of apples.” The reminiscence flutters in my chest. If one good thing has come from Mom’s diagnosis, it’s that I cherish the rarely recalled memories.
One day they’ll be the first to go. “But now…it’s a fond memory. ”
He nods with a knowing expression, scraping his palm across his short beard. “I’m really sorry about your mom, by the way.”
“Thanks,” I whisper. “It’s…hard.”
My mom and I might not be incredibly close.
We did more than simply butt heads when I was a teenager, and as an adult I haven’t always loved that she gives her unsolicited opinions on every choice I make.
I also might’ve been jealous of the way she loved my older sister.
But that doesn’t make losing her any easier.
So I bottle up my feelings. Push them aside to make the most of the time we have left. Keep them at the forefront of my mind with every parenting decision I make, because I never want Jonas to feel unloved or unworthy or unable to express how he feels with me.
I’ve been failing at all of it, admittedly.
“I bet. I can’t…yeah, wow, I can’t imagine what losing your mom that way feels like,” Colt says.
He stretches his legs out across the couch and lifts my feet to let them rest in his lap.
There’s no disingenuous massaging or flirtatiousness.
It’s a simple connection—one I’ve apparently gone too long without, because the caress of his hands on my skin instantly drains all tension from my muscles.
Aside from the periodic clinking of metal against ceramic, the room is silent while I finish my soup. And if he weren’t watching me so intently, I’d lick the bowl clean.
“So why aren’t you at the ranch?” I spot a sliver of bare skin between the hem of his jeans and the top of his sock and glide a hand around his ankle. The hair’s soft under my palm, skin surprisingly hot.
“I was…Started work at three a.m.” He settles into my touch, looking almost as relaxed as I feel. “Got off early because the tractor broke down, which is fine by me. I know I’m a ranch hand, which means doing whatever Austin tells me to do, but I hate spending all damn day in a tractor.”
“What do you like doing instead?”
“Anything on horseback. I love the days where it’s Betty and me—and Jonas—out checking on the herd or cruising the fence line.”
“I still can’t believe you have Jonas riding a horse…working on a ranch, in general.” I gesture around the room. “It’s a struggle to get him to help me with the most basic chores around here. He’s going to be lost when he goes back to school in a few weeks.”
“He can always come out on weekends. I’m gonna miss having my sidekick. I’ll have to open gates for myself. Tried teaching Betty, but she just squeezes her chunky ass through the rails and leaves me behind.”
“Speaking of Betty…where is she?”
His bottom lip juts out and he looks around. “Bett—”
My fingers rap against his ankle and I shush him. “No shouting. Jonas is asleep.”
“It’s like ten o’clock…are we sure he’s okay? Should we check on him?” Colt twists to look toward the stairs.
“I checked on him right before you got here,” I reassure him with a smile. “He was up puking most of the night. He needs this sleep.”
“Okay.” He doesn’t seem convinced. “But I should locate Betty, in case she’s up to something.”
Giving my feet a tender squeeze, like a warm hug, he moves them off his lap, and we both pull ourselves from the well-worn cushions. The house is small, and we’d know if there was a thirty-pound dog anywhere on the open concept main floor, so Colt and I tread softly up the stairs.
Finding Jonas’s door ajar, I gingerly step toward it and poke my head inside. The room’s filled with the sound of gentle snores from both the kid and the dog. Jonas is on his side, blankets kicked off—making me a tad worried he has a fever—and his arm is slung around Betty’s furry barrel chest.
“Found her,” I whisper, turning to find Colt.
Without warning, he steps in behind me to see what I’m seeing. He’s a furnace, heating my entire body with his, and his hand falls to my waist with the sear of a branding iron.
“They look really comfy.” His breath twists through my hair and fans over my cheek.
When I glance back at him, the breadth of space between our lips creates a warm glow inside me. It’s intimate and comforting, as if we’re two concerned parents checking in on our sleeping boy, whispering things like look how cute he looks when he’s sleeping or can you believe he’s all ours?
I’ve spent more than my fair share of time watching Jonas sleep, always carrying a melancholic heaviness that, on a particularly lonely night, turns to deep-seated resentment.
It’s never felt like this. Serene. But even if I allow myself to imagine a future with Colt, we won’t ever get these moments with our own baby.
“Let’s leave them for a bit,” I say.
Taking no more than half a step back, I find myself firmly pressed against Colt.
And his hand is still on my waist.
When I spin, his fingers dance around my torso. When I stop, he bunches a fistful of shirt fabric, holding me in place. Our faces are so close, I’m convinced he’s going to kiss me.
More frightening than that, I know I’ll let him.
My heart and my lips and my vagina scream yes. A resounding fucking yes. Thirty exclamation points, yes. But my brain tips the scales with the tiniest no.
And when Colt clocks my negligible headshake, he winces, dropping me from his clutches with such haste it seems he never wanted to touch me in the first place.
To my surprise, his callused hands move to grab either side of my head, instead.
Whether it’s the intense pressure of his fingers on my skull, or the speed with which he dropped me only to pick me up again, or I’ve caught Jonas’s sickness, I’m not sure.
But my vision blurs and the ground figuratively lurches beneath me.
Colt’s lips press to my forehead in a kiss so forceful, my skull would crash into the wall if it weren’t for his fingers wrapped around the back of it.
He steps back with a frustrated huff, leaving me stupefied, with flushed cheeks and a racing heart.
“I should head out. Told Mom I’d hit up some thrift stores with her today. You uh…if you need anything else, let me know.” He reaches for Jonas’s doorknob.
I hesitate, then say, “If you want to leave Betty here while you’re out, you can.” I do my best to sound casual, like I’m only thinking of Jonas, and not looking for a reason for him to come back.
His hand falls to his side. “I think they’d both like that.”
“Looks like I might have to get Jonas a dog.”
“Betty would be real butt hurt if you went and replaced her like that.”
I huff a soft laugh, but the truth sits heavy beneath it. Betty’s not ours. Just like you’re not ours.
And when he finds out the truth—that Jonas is the only kid I’ll ever have—he likely won’t ever want to be. The urge to tell him lodges itself in my throat, but I swallow it down. No point in saying something that might not even matter. No point in making it real before I have to.