Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
Swayze
The adrenaline still hummed through my veins as I made my way off the stage, cheeks flushed and breath coming faster than I cared to admit.
I’d forgotten how good it felt. Not the performance itself exactly, but the energy exchange.
Giving something and getting a response back, all that warmth and appreciation flowing toward you in waves.
For a solid month, I’d been dreading public attention. Dreading being recognized, being called out, being reminded of how spectacularly I’d failed. But this? This was different. These people didn’t know about any of that. They only saw someone singing a song at a Christmas party.
It felt like breathing after being underwater too long.
JP caught me in a one-armed hug as I passed him, pressing a kiss to my temple. “There’s my girl.”
“You’re still the worst,” I muttered, but squeezed him back.
“Yeah, but you love me anyway.”
I settled back into my seat between Paisley and Mom, accepting the glass of wine my brother-in-law pressed into my hand.
My sister bumped my shoulder affectionately. “Didn’t know you still had that in you.”
“Neither did I.”
Miss Glory was back at the microphone, scanning the crowd with predatory interest. “Alright, who else is feeling brave tonight?”
I took a sip of wine, letting myself relax into the cushioned seat, content to watch whatever came next. The room buzzed with conversation, people debating who should go up, others calling out suggestions. Someone shouted for the mayor, which got a laugh.
Movement caught my eye from across the room. Colter had stood up, gesturing to his younger brothers. All four of them were huddled together now, having some kind of intense discussion that involved a lot of head shaking from Colter and insistent gesturing from the others.
Dean said something that made Colter’s jaw tighten, and Gunner chimed in, grinning like he’d been handed Christmas morning on a platter.
What were they up to?
Colter ran a hand through his hair—a gesture I’d come to recognize as frustration mixed with resignation. Then Fletcher clapped him on the shoulder, and all four of them started making their way toward the stage.
Oh.
Oh.
My pulse kicked up again, but for an entirely different reason this time.
The Gibson brothers lined up on stage like they’d done this before.
Colter stood front and center, looking like he wanted the floor to open up and swallow him whole.
Dean flanked his right, wearing a grin that could only be described as shit-eating.
Fletcher and Gunner bookended the group, already swaying in unison.
Someone hit play on a backing track.
The opening piano riff punched through the speakers, and recognition slammed into me before the first note even dropped.
“Oh my God,” Paisley breathed beside me.
The crowd turned absolutely feral.
“You are my fire,” they started, and holy shit, they actually had harmonies. Real, honest-to-God, tight harmonies that shouldn’t have been possible without rehearsal.
Then the choreography started.
Gunner spun first, hitting a turn that was somehow both completely ridiculous and perfectly executed. Dean followed with a step-touch combo that belonged in a teen magazine circa 1999. Fletcher threw in a hip roll that earned a whistle from somewhere in the back.
And Colter—Colter looked like he was actively praying for divine intervention while still hitting every single move.
“Tell me why,” they belted out, and four fingers pointed directly at me.
My face went nuclear.
“Oh, this is beautiful,” JP said from the other side of Mom, and I could hear the grin in his voice.
“Ain’t nothin’ but a heartache.”
More pointing. So much pointing. Colter’s eyes locked on mine across the room, and even through the obvious mortification, there was something else there. Something warm and intent and completely focused.
My stomach did a full gymnastics routine.
They hit the chorus and the entire room sang along, which only seemed to embolden them.
Dean dropped into a knee slide that was frankly impressive for a man his size.
Fletcher executed some kind of spin-and-point combination.
Gunner was fully committed now, throwing in ad-libs between verses like he’d been born for this exact moment.
And through it all, Colter kept singing. Kept moving. Kept looking at me like I was the only person in the room.
“I never wanna hear you say—”
They all turned in perfect unison.
“I want it that way.”
The final pose involved more pointing, some synchronized head tilts, and Gunner dropping into an actual split that made half the audience gasp.
The room exploded.
People were on their feet, cheering and whistling and absolutely losing their minds. Miss Glory was clutching her chest like she’d just witnessed the Second Coming. Elsie beamed from her seat of honor, clearly delighted by her grandsons’ display.
My cheeks ached from smiling this huge, ridiculous grin because this man had embraced full public spectacle for me.
The brothers broke formation, laughing and shoving each other good-naturedly as they descended from the stage. Dean made exaggerated bowing gestures. Fletcher high-fived someone in the crowd. Gunner was immediately swarmed by admirers demanding to know where he’d learned to move like that.
Colter wove through the crowd, declining backslaps and congratulations, making a straight line toward me.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I slid out of my seat and into the aisle to meet him. I didn’t know what I was going to say, but that performance definitely deserved a response of some kind.
Colter met me halfway, eyes on mine, a sheepish grin on his face, and I simply couldn’t stop myself. I grabbed his lapel and pulled him in for the kiss I’d wanted for weeks.
The roar of the crowd barely registered.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I catalogued whistles, cheers, someone’s delighted shriek that might have been Paisley—but all of it faded to white noise, distant and muffled, like someone had wrapped the entire theater in cotton batting.
The only thing that existed was the absolute sensation of Colter’s mouth on mine.
Holy hell.
His lips were warm and sure and perfect as they moved against mine with deliberate intent, and every nerve ending I possessed stood up and took notice like they’d been waiting their entire lives for this exact moment.
This wasn’t some tentative first kiss, some careful exploration of boundaries and preferences.
This was a claim, pure and simple, confident and thorough, and my body responded like it had been waiting for exactly this—like some part of me had known all along that when Colter Gibson finally kissed me, it would rearrange my entire understanding of what a kiss could be.
His fingers threaded into my hair, careful and steady, cradling the back of my head with a gentleness that spoke of control and restraint.
The deliberate tenderness of that gesture contrasted so sharply with the intensity of the kiss itself—with the heat and hunger rolling off him in waves—that something in my chest cracked wide open.
My hands fisted in his jacket, gripping the fabric hard enough to wrinkle, pulling him closer because closer wasn’t nearly close enough.
I wanted to crawl inside this moment and live there, set up permanent residence in the space where his breath mixed with mine.
He tasted like cinnamon and something darker, richer—whiskey maybe, or just him, the essential flavor of Colter that I’d been wondering about for weeks.
Sparks raced down my spine, lighting up nerve pathways I’d forgotten I had.
When he tilted his head to deepen the kiss, changing the angle in a way that somehow made everything more intense, I made some embarrassing sound that got swallowed between us, and his responding groan vibrated through his chest where it pressed against mine.
I’d kissed people before. Plenty of people. Some of them had even been good at it—technically proficient, enthusiastic, attractive enough that I’d had no complaints at the time.
This wasn’t that.
This was drowning in the best possible way.
This was forgetting every single reason I’d convinced myself to keep distance between us, all those careful arguments about complications and timing and the wisdom of not getting involved with someone in the middle of my self-imposed exile from public life.
This was my brain short-circuiting and my body taking over completely, arching into him like maybe if I got close enough we could merge into one person, and I’d never have to deal with the cold shock of separation.
His thumb stroked along my jaw, feather-light and achingly gentle, a counterpoint to the fierce possession of his mouth, and God, I was going to combust right here in the middle of his family’s Christmas party.
Someone whistled again, sharp and piercing, and reality crashed back in around us.
Colter pulled back first, just far enough that I could see his face. Those blue eyes had gone dark, pupils blown wide, and his breathing came as ragged as mine. Those fingers in my hair flexed once, like he was physically restraining himself from diving back in.
“Hi.” His voice came out a rough rumble.
I huffed out something between a laugh and a gasp. “Hi yourself.”
The noise around us crystallized back into focus.
Applause, laughter, catcalls from what sounded like all of his brothers.
Someone—Dean, definitely Dean—shouted something about “getting a room” that earned him a smack from what I assumed was Grandma Elsie, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to let go of Colter’s jacket.
His hands had slid down to cup my face, thumbs brushing along my cheekbones, and he was looking at me like I’d handed him the world wrapped in a bow.
The full weight of what I’d done crashed over me like a tidal wave.
I’d launched myself at Colter in front of approximately a hundred people—including his grandmother, his daughter, his brothers and sisters, what felt like half the town, and my entire family—and proceeded to kiss him like we were the only two people in the room.
Heat flooded my face, neck, and chest. I was probably glowing bright enough to guide ships to harbor.
“You thought I was with Lisa.”
Colter’s thumbs were still doing that maddening stroke along my cheekbones, and coherent thought required a whole lot of actual effort. “Yeah.”
“I’m not.”
“I finally got that.”
The corner of his mouth kicked up. “Good. I should’ve mentioned before.”
“Yeah, that would’ve been helpful.”
He stroked my cheeks again, and despite every mortified instinct screaming at me to bolt, I leaned into the touch instead. Because it turned out I was weak for this man and his calloused firefighter hands and the way he looked at me like I was something precious.
“Are we on the same page now?” he murmured.
Something settled in my chest. “Yeah. I think we are.”
His grin flashed full and bright, transforming his whole face, and oh—that was dangerous. That was the kind of smile that could convince a girl to do truly reckless things. Like uproot her entire life and move to a tiny town in the mountains. Like believe in fresh starts and second chances.
Like fall.
“I think we’ve found our leads!”
The declaration rang out across the room in Miss Glory’s unmistakable alto, amplified by the microphone. Both Colter and I turned toward the stage where the entire Sasspatch Society had assembled, looking like cats who’d discovered an unguarded fishbowl.
“Wait, what?” I asked.
Colter’s hands slid from my face to my shoulders, steadying. “Uh-oh.”
Miss Glory beamed at us. “That chemistry! That passion! Darlings, you’ll be perfect for our production.”
Uncle Dee nodded enthusiastically beside her. “We were thinking Anything Goes, but after that display—”
“We’re doing a romantic lead,” Miss Bea finished, voice brooking no argument. “Haven’t decided which show yet, but you two just auditioned whether you meant to or not.”
The crowd erupted into applause and enthusiastic agreement.
I looked at Colter.
He looked at me.
“Did we just get voluntold into community theater?” I asked.
“I think we did.”