Chapter 20
Twenty
Colt
It’s a dick move. I know it, and anyone I tell this story to will know it—but there’s no way in hell I’m going to watch my woman kiss another man. Technically, she can kiss anyone she wants. I’m well aware of that. I simply can’t let it happen.
So, I wave to West with as friendly a smile as I can muster up. Watch as Briar says something to him that makes him laugh. Watch her kiss him—right on the lips—and then storm past me into the house.
She has every right to be mad but that’s too bad.
“What the fuck was that?” she snaps, whirling on me the second I lock the door behind us.
“What was what?” I ask innocently. “I heard a car in the driveway.”
“Don’t fucking bullshit me!” She’s really mad—eyes blazing, chest heaving, hands on her hips.
The problem is that it’s hot. In fact, there’s nothing hotter than Briar when she’s furious. Her eyes turn a color I can’t even name, consisting of swirls of green and gold and yellow. It’s so fucking beautiful I can’t resist pressing my lips to hers.
But I’m only able to enjoy a tiny taste because…she’s really mad.
“Knock it off!” She shoves me back. “I’m with West—I told you that! I’d never cheat on anyone. Certainly not with you!”
Ouch.
That little barb stings.
I can’t let it deter me, though. She’s the only woman for me, so giving up is not an option. No matter how mad she gets.
“I waited until it was too late last time,” I reply simply. “I’m not doing that again.”
Another blindingly furious glare. “Waited for what, exactly? Your turn? Because you’re not even in the running this time, buddy!” She heads for the stairs, but I grab her arm, pulling her back to me.
“When they were torturing me, it was your face, your touch—the memories of our night together—that gave me the strength to keep going. To keep fighting so I would get another chance.”
Her eyes fill with tears, but she takes a step back, slowly shaking her head. “I can't do this with you again, Colt. I’m sorry.” She stomps off into the kitchen and I let her go this time.
It isn’t supposed to be this complicated. In my head, she waited for me. I know that’s unrealistic—I was dead—but I didn’t know that until a couple of weeks ago. For four years I envisioned a tearful, joyful, reunion.
Instead, my girl has a pro hockey player boyfriend, my closest friend in the world hates me, and I spend as much time trying to win over my four-year-old as I do my girl. Frankly, it’s exhausting. If just one thing could be easy, it would be great.
I hear the sliding glass door lock disengage, slide open, and then close again.
She always goes outside when she needs to think, so I give her a few minutes as I grab a beer and attempt to clear my head.
This is going to be an uphill battle. I know that now. But I’ve weathered much tougher storms than Thorny Briar. So, I need to pull up those figurative big-boy pants and go talk her off the ledge.
When she was a teenager, they called me the Briar Whisperer because I was the only one who could reason with her.
Dash was too blunt for a hormonal sixteen-year-old, and she walked all over Banks.
Royal didn’t have the patience, and Atlas kept her at a distance in the beginning, unsure how to interact with a girl her age.
So, I would be the one to ask about the boy she liked or the teacher who was giving her a hard time. Whether it was in person or on the phone, I could always make her laugh. Even back then, when I still looked at her like a kid, we could talk about everything.
Maybe my best move at this point is to go back to the beginning.
“Hey.” I join her outside and sit across from her. “Want to talk?”
She fixes a fiery look of annoyance in my direction. “What could we possibly have to talk about at this point?”
I pause.
She has a point.
‘Want to fuck?’ probably isn’t the right direction to go.
But conversation was never an issue for us.
“Watch any good TV lately?” I ask, like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
She’s quiet for a beat, studying my face. I watch the annoyance turn to weariness and weariness turn to…mischief.
“Welp, you’ve got five seasons of Law & Order: SVU to catch up on.”
“That’s still going? Jesus. Captain Benson in charge these days?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“She was always a badass.”
“She still is. She has a kid now. I don’t know if she got him before you left?”
“Yeah… he was the baby of a hooker or something, right?”
“Yeah. Now he’s about thirteen. They aged him up.”
“I guess I have a lot to catch up on.”
“And Dancing with the Stars is still going.”
That was our secret guilty pleasure—the guys would have castrated me if they knew I not only watched it but enjoyed it.
“Is it still good?”
She tells me about the new professional dancers on the show, which have been her favorite performances, and then she looks up a few on her phone, showing them to me. Before long, I’ve slid onto the little love seat next to her. Our heads are close together, her left side pressed against my right.
Briar and me.
Me and Briar.
Sitting together essentially watching TV—just like we used to. Before I was deployed, I would sit in my room in my apartment—her in her dorm room—and we’d watch things together on nights neither of us had anything to do.
Fuck, I’ve missed this.
Her laugh.
The way she puts her hand on my thigh without realizing she’s done it.
And I don’t move, don’t touch her, don’t say or do anything to break the spell.
“Want another beer?” she asks.
I hate that she’s moving but I nod. “Sure.”
She goes back into the house, and I breathe deeply. I’m so hungry for her touch it’s driving me insane, but I have to take one baby step at a time. Both with her and with Frankie.
Tonight was the first time I gave Frankie a bath. Briar told me to play it by ear when it came to bath time. Banks, Royal and Atlas have all stopped doing it now that she’s a little older and the girls are happy to step in. Dash still does if he has to, but he’s started to back off too.
“You’re her father,” Briar explained quietly.
“If she’s uncomfortable, that’s one thing, but if you’d been here all along, you would have been doing everything I do.
Just like I would still be bathing a four-year-old boy, if we’d had one.
She can do most of it, but I don’t leave her alone more than a minute, like if I have to grab something, and then I have to wash and rinse her hair because she doesn’t get all the soap out… ”
So, when it came time for her bath, I kept things simple. “Is it okay if I help with your bath tonight?” I’d asked.
She stared at me for a long beat and then shrugged. “I guess so. But I want bubbles.”
Briar had warned me that bubbles always turned into a huge ordeal, and to proceed with caution, but for my first time I figured it might make things better for both of us.
And it had gone without a hitch. A messy hitch—bubbles fucking everywhere—but it turned into a bonding moment, where I was almost as wet as she was by the end.
I look up when Briar comes back out, taking the proffered beer. “Thanks.”
“Sure.” She sinks down next to me again without hesitation, but now she’s staring up at the night sky. “Remember Tijuana?” she whispers.
I chuckle. “I do.”
She’d begged to come with us one Christmas when we’d come home from college.
The plan was to go party but we had to behave if we brought Briar.
Eventually, we relented and she was completely mesmerized by it all, both the good and the bad.
The street vendors. Restaurant employees standing outside the bars offering two-dollar-shots of tequila.
“First time I ever got so drunk I puked.”
“Dash was pissed.”
“I know.” She giggles. “It was hilarious watching him glare at every single person who dared to look at me. But I had a blast.”
“I did too.”
“Because of you,” she whispers after a moment.
“You kept Dash from ruining my night, and whenever you were worried we might be in a dangerous spot, you’d put your hand at the small of my back, like we were together.
So, I pretended we were, and that it was a date, instead of a night out with my brothers. ”
“I wasn’t there yet,” I admit. “Not then. But that’s around the time I started to realize you weren’t a kid anymore.”
“You knew, you just weren’t ready to admit it to yourself yet. Otherwise, you would have just put me in the middle of the five of you. Instead, you found a way to touch me that wouldn’t alert the others to your feelings.”
If that was the case, I don’t remember it that way, but she’s probably right. She usually is.
“Remember the Frozen Four Championship in Buffalo?” I take a pull of my beer as she throws her head back and laughs.
“The one time my parents made an effort to show interest in Dash and hockey.” She shakes her head. “We got that freak March blizzard, and they couldn’t leave town for two days and they were soooo mad.”
“Meanwhile, bad influence that I am, I was sneaking you shots of Goldschlager.”
She laughs. “While sledding down that hill at two in the morning!”
I grin. “Fucking epic.”
“Atlas wiped out, and he had to walk all the way up the hill again.”
“He was so pissed…”
She rests her head on the cushion, so she’s looking up at the sky. “We had so much fun. Sometimes I miss those days. Before life got complicated.”
“Same.” I lie back so we’re in the same position, staring up at the stars.
“You cold, Briar?”
“A little.”
I slide my arm around her, and she doesn’t protest, merely nestles against my side and continues to look up at the stars.
“I missed you,” she whispers in a tiny voice.
“I missed you too, baby.”