Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
Rowan
My eyes blink open and I realize I have no idea where I am. Buttery yellow sunlight streams in through a window, illuminating a room with abstract art pieces hung on the walls, framed with thick black metal, and small sculptures are littered across the top of the dresser.
The smell of vetiver and sandalwood hits my nose, drifting off of the bedding. That’s right, Colt brought us to his house last night. Am I in his bed?
When I move to climb out of the bed, I realize that there are pillows under my feet, keeping them elevated, and my heart swells in my chest. Did he do that?
The hall seems like it’s miles long, decorated in art similar to the pieces in his bedroom, and once I’m down the stairs, I see little tables set out against the walls to hold framed photos, plants and more small sculptures.
I stop at one of the tables and pick up a framed photo. Colt must be twenty, twenty-one in this. He looks the same, just missing the grey flecks in his hair and the little wrinkles at the corners of his eyes that show up especially when he smiles really wide.
He’s dressed a lot more casually than he usually is these days, wearing a pair of jeans that look well-worn and a t-shirt that hugs what I can see of his arms. Sitting on his knee is a sweet little boy who I can only assume is Emmett, laughing his tiny little head off.
I find myself wishing I knew the story here just so I could share in the joy they had in the moment this was captured.
Macie’s laughter tears me away from the picture and I carefully set it back in its place to follow the sound, using it to navigate through the massive house, until I find my way to the dining room.
Macie and Colt sit next to each other at a long mahogany table, smiles on their faces as Colt cracks open a jar of rainbow-colored sprinkles.
“Say when,” he tells her, and starts to dump them onto the heaping tower of whipped cream on top of her stack of pancakes.
My sister just watches with an evil grin on her face, saying nothing as he empties what has to be half of the jar onto her plate.
“Say when! Mercy!” The two of them burst into another bout of laughter at his dramatics as I approach.
Colt meets my eyes and mouths ‘she’s okay,’ and I pull up a seat on the opposite side of them.
“Look at that mess on your plate!” I say, pointing to Macie’s horrifying cavity-causing breakfast.
She gives me a big, wide grin, her two front teeth missing, and says “Mr. Colt made pancakes!” Though mister sounds more like mither through the empty space in her smile that she has yet to master speaking with.
“Did you sleep?” Colt asks and grabs a plate to stack some pancakes onto, then slides it toward me.
“Yeah. Thank you,” I tell him. I hope he knows everything I’m thanking him for with those two small words; I don’t think they could ever actually hold the weight of everything I’ve stuffed into them.
Colt’s eyes stay glued to me as I add my own selection of toppings – just the classic butter and syrup combination, and even as I eat, I feel those eyes on me.
Even when I’m finished and we all work to clear the table of the mess we made, which is a glaring contrast to the immaculate cleanliness in the rest of the house.
It’s honestly a little hard to look at, and I feel like we blew in here like a tornado and turned his pristine, fancy house upside down literally overnight.
In the kitchen, Colt leans against the dishwasher after closing it and crosses his arms over his chest.
“You know, you two can stay here. As long as you need.”
“Oh. Thank you,” I tell him, “but we have that apartment waiting. All our boxes are there.”
The veins on his arms flex. “Yeah, the place in Ridge Park?” I nod and he shakes his head in response. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean,” he shoves off of the dishwasher and crosses the kitchen to get a glass, “that’s a shitty part of town, Rowan.”
My turn to cross my arms. “And I worked hard to get it.”
“I’m not discrediting that,” he agrees, “but you shouldn’t be out there. You could stay here. Or in another one of my places, if you’re not comfortable here.”
“Rent is eight hundred for two bedrooms and utilities there,” I scoff. “In one of your places, it must be—”
“Nothing,” he says, cutting me off. “They’re not rental properties, and I bought them with cash. I wouldn’t charge you rent.”
“We’re already practically moved in,” I tell him. “First, last, security. I signed a lease, Colt.”
“I’ll handle it.” He takes a drink and sets his glass down on the counter. “You’re not moving in there.”
“Is that final?” I challenge.
He takes a long stride toward me until my chest practically touches him, and he looks down at me to say, “It’s final.”
“In that case, can I use your shower?”
The hard, commanding look he’d plastered to his face cracks as a surprised laugh slips out of him. I’m sure he expected me to put up more of a fight, but the truth is, I’m glad he offered – insisted.
If he hadn’t shown up last night, if he hadn’t come when I called…
I don’t want to think about it. I feel better when he’s around.
Like someone is there who will drop everything to protect me, and by extension, my sister.
Even after everything I said to him and the distance I put between us, he still showed up.
That doesn’t just count for something, it counts for everything.
“Of course you can,” he says. “There’s one attached to my bedroom, or you can use one of the others. They’re straight down that hall, and there’s another upstairs.”
He gestures in the general direction and I chuckle, shaking my head. One of the bathrooms. My house had one. There was no choosing which shower spoke to your soul on that particular morning. You either got in when it was available and got clean, or you were SOL.
I make the long trek back to his bedroom, smiling as the faint smell of his cologne meets my nose again when I open the door. There are two other doors on either side of the room, I assume one of which is his closet and the other his bathroom.
I make a lucky guess, opening the first door to find a massive bathroom, a bathtub buried into the ground which is covered in cream-colored mosaic tiling, and a shower separated from the room only by panes of glass that reach from floor to ceiling.
The lighting makes me feel like I walked into a museum, as if the room itself is a work of art to be appreciated.
I start to lift the big baggy shirt I’m wearing over my head just before Colt’s deep voice carries past me into the bathroom.
“You told me he didn’t hit you.”
I jump, pulling the shirt back over my chest and look at my arm, where his eyes are burning through my skin at the angry purple blemishes making their way to the surface. “Because he didn’t hit me.”
“Rowan.” His voice is practically a growl.
“I swear.”
“Then what happened? Whole story, right now.”
I heave a sigh. “I got most of the boxes moved over to the apartment while he was out drinking. I just had to do a last load of laundry and pack it up – hence, duffel bag – and next thing I know, I hear a screech, a loud crunch, and the house shakes. Macie goes hysterical because she thinks it’s an earthquake or something, then Dad comes in screaming his head off.
He knew about the judgment.” I chew at the inside of my bottom lip as I continue.
It takes every effort to stuff down the pain piercing into my chest as I go through the events of last night.
“He starts throwing things, screaming about how much he…hates me, he destroys my chair, asks me how could I do this to him after the life he gave me,” I scoff.
“So I call you and tell Macie to run, that you’re on your way. Because—”
“Because if you didn’t get out, at least you knew that she would.” His body slackens as the words come out.
I nod, my breath hitching in my chest. “I knew you would get her somewhere safe if I couldn’t. I told him if doesn’t get sober, he’ll never see either of us again. I started to run, and he grabbed my arm and yanked me back. I kicked him in the leg and, well, that’s about when you got there.”
“Rowan,” he says, his voice the softest I’ve ever heard it, “you don’t have to be okay after something like that. You can let yourself cry.”
I shake my head. “No I can’t. Not yet.”
“Okay,” he says, brushing a thumb over my cheek. “Then just start with a shower.”
Once he’s gone, I head toward the shower and fiddle with the knobs to try and make it work – just a basic, hot water shower – which proves to be a lot harder in a billionaire’s house.
There are five different knobs, one of which seems to make water rain from the ceiling. After way too much fussing with them, I finally get the combination to the puzzle right and get a steady flow of water.
I sit on the floor of the shower as I wash myself. It’s no chair, but it’s better than being on my feet and passing out naked and cracking my skull open in this massive glass box like some museum display of gore.
Nearly an hour later, I step out of the bathroom and dig through the duffel bag to find a suitable outfit to throw on.
I probably used all of his hot water, and I should probably feel bad about that, but all I can think about is the way that his soap smells on my skin, and that the same bar that got me clean has touched his body in places I can only dream of seeing.
I find Colt in his living room, sitting next to Macie on the couch, with cartoons playing on his massive TV. I plop down next to him and hold out my hand.
“Okay, we’ll stay. But if it gets weird, we leave.”
He laughs as he takes my hand in a firm shake. “Deal.”