Chapter 40
Chapter Forty
COLBY
Colby was halfway through his cereal when Chaos arrived outside the back door, glaring in like she was mortally offended not to have been invited to breakfast. He paused, spoon in hand, and stared back.
“Not feeding you,” he muttered.
Chaos didn’t blink. Just pressed her nose harder to the glass as if she was either starving or plotting. Possibly both.
Colby took another bite and tried to ignore her.
The kitchen was quiet this morning, just him, Matt, and a sleepy-eyed Jesse so far.
He’d woken up warm, in a bed that he wasn’t going to be yanked out of.
There’d been no threat, no orders, no punishment.
Just sun on the blankets, the sound of Tristan in the shower, and the smell of freshly ground coffee.
Colby poured himself a second bowl of cereal. Because he could.
Chaos bleated indignantly, and he looked up to see Karl opening the door, deftly barring her attempts to follow him through. He stepped inside without a word, nodded once at Matt, and helped himself to the pot. His hands were steady, his face unreadable.
Matt met Colby’s eyes across the table. “You don’t have to look over your shoulder anymore,” he said quietly. “He’s not coming back.”
His stomach swooped, like the ground had shifted under him. It was over, then. The threat that had breathed down his neck for so long, haunted his dreams—it had gone.
He didn’t know what he felt in that moment. A tangle of guilt, thankfulness, and disbelief.
He didn’t move. Just sat there with his spoon halfway to his mouth, blinking at the cereal as he realized that, for the first time in forever, he didn’t feel like prey.
Tristan padded in, hair damp and shirt buttoned unevenly. “Is there any coffee left, or has Matt had it all?” he asked, yawning in the middle of his question.
Colby pushed Tristan’s filled mug across the table. Tristan blinked at it. Then at him. “You’re up. And awake.”
Colby tried not to smile. He suspected he failed.
Chaos butted the door.
“Tristan,” Matt said tiredly. “Your goat.”
“Right,” Tristan muttered. “Better see to the demon before she eats through the glass. Though I’d like to know why they’re never my goats when Jason does something delicious with their cheese but only when they’re misbehaving.”
“Life sucks,” Jesse pointed out.
It didn’t, Colby thought. Not anymore. It really, really didn’t.
* * *
Tristan parked outside a diner with a faded red awning.
“Huh,” he said, looking around himself as he climbed out of the car. “I guess this is where it all started.” He drew in a sharp, shocked breath. “If Nico hadn’t been here that night, I’d never have met you,” he blurted, looking stunned by the realization.
Colby was still trying to work out how to answer that—hell, how he even felt about that—when Tristan spoke again.
“Come on,” he said. “I want to introduce you to Sam.”
Sam owned and ran the diner, and turned out to be a no-nonsense woman with auburn hair, somewhere in her forties, whose face lit up when Tristan walked in. Colby liked her for that alone.
“This,” Tristan said to her, with the air of a magician about to pull a rabbit out of his hat, “is Colby.” He paused, like the next words deserved their own spotlight. “He’s my mate.” The words rang out, clear and proud, and his eyes sparkled with joy.
Colby tried to smile, nervous because he knew Sam was important to Tristan.
“In that case, c’mere,” Sam said, and pulled Colby into a hug. “You’re family,” she told him.
Despite the fact she’d touched him, had taken him by surprise, he didn’t feel threatened. Maybe because she was about a foot shorter than him, or maybe because he wasn’t going to spend his entire life in fear anymore. He didn’t know. He just knew it felt good.
“Jason works in the kitchen and—oh, hey, Riley!” Tristan called as Riley appeared through a swing door.
Riley sketched a salute at them on his way to customers at the other end of the diner.
It felt good to come somewhere and have it full of people he knew. People who were actually pleased to see him.
* * *
The sidewalk outside the outfitters was cracked and sun-bleached. He stood with Tristan just outside the shop, hands in his pockets, watching the town go about its slow, easy business.
“So, I was thinking,” Tristan said, when he had a rare moment of not being hailed by passersby. “Maybe…” He hesitated so long that Colby wanted to reach for his hand but stopped himself, not sure how that would go down in town.
“Maybe?” he asked encouragingly.
Tristan’s eyes flicked up to his from the sidewalk. “Would you want to come and meet my mom? She’s not clean,” he added hastily. “So I don’t know… I never know how she’ll be.”
“I’d love to,” Colby said, and he meant it. He was in no place to judge anyone for choices they made or choices they’d had taken from them, and what mattered was that Tristan loved her.
Tristan smiled at him, his eyes glowing with happiness, before his attention was claimed by someone calling out to him from across the street. Something about a busted fence post and a bull.
As Tristan nodded enthusiastically at the lengthy story, Colby thought about his own parents, for the first time in a while.
They weren’t the closest family—he’d never really known his dad, who was almost always on deployment—but three years without contact was…
Well, even for them, it was a while. It was something he’d have to think about, but maybe not yet.
Like he’d said to Tristan, one step at a time.
A sheriff’s department cruiser pulled up across the street, and a familiar figure climbed out.
Colby blinked. “I didn’t know Bryce was a deputy,” he said, as Bryce crossed the street toward them.
Tristan looked at him, surprised. “Didn’t I tell you?”
Colby shook his head. He wasn’t bothered, just filing away the new information.
“Morning,” Bryce said to them both, before looking at Colby. “Boot mission?”
Colby panicked and nodded, rather than have to explain to Bryce that he was broke as broke could be. Not with Tristan watching. He didn’t want Bryce looking at Tristan like he’d chosen someone who couldn’t even buy his own boots.
“Good. You need ‘em. And I’ve got half an hour before I have to head back.” He glanced at Tristan. “You got something to do?”
Tristan blinked. “I was going to come with.”
“This is between me and your mate,” Bryce said.
Despite the ominous words, it didn’t sound like a threat. Or at least, Colby didn’t think so. He hoped he was right.
Tristan grinned. “Okay, I’ll grab a milkshake. You want one, Colb?”
“I’m good,” Colby said.
Tristan wandered off, humming softly, and Colby turned back to Bryce.
“All right,” Bryce said. “Let’s get you some boots that actually fit.”
The bell above the door gave a half-hearted jingle as they stepped inside. It was dark after the brightness of the day, but Colby could see shelves stacked with heavy-duty jeans and t-shirts, and work gloves dangling from hooks. A display of boots lined the wall at the far end.
Bryce made a beeline for it. “Size?”
“Fourteen,” Colby said, then screwed up his courage. “But I should probably say, I can’t really afford this.”
Bryce didn’t give any indication he’d heard. Instead, he scanned the shelves, pulled down three different pairs, and dropped them at Colby’s feet. “Try all of them. Walk around. If something pinches, say so.”
Not knowing what else to do, Colby crouched down to take off his boots and try the new ones.
Bryce wandered off to examine a rack of button-downs.
By the time Colby had tried all the boots and decided on the third pair, Bryce was back, holding two shirts, a hoodie, a sherpa-lined waterproof jacket and a couple pairs of jeans.
“Try these on,” he said, thrusting them at Colby.
Colby obediently took them, but he was confused as hell. “I thought we were here for boots.”
“We are,” Bryce said. “But you also need jeans that fit. Unless you’re happy with that whole Hulk look.”
Colby hesitated, then forced himself to say it. Maybe he hadn’t been clear enough before. “I can’t pay you back. Not for any of this.”
Bryce didn’t look surprised. He just tilted his head, like he was considering something. “You’ve got a bank account?”
“I mean—yeah. I used to.”
“All right. I’ll make a deposit.”
Colby stared at him, certain he couldn’t have heard that correctly. “Why?”
“It’s about making sure you’ve got options. No one gets to own you again, not even through kindness,” Bryce said, his eyes steady on Colby’s. “You pay me back whenever you want to. Or don’t. You protected my kid—as far as I’m concerned, you’re more than paid up.”
Colby opened his mouth, then shut it again when he realized he couldn’t find any words.
“Changing room’s back there,” Bryce added, with a nod toward the rear of the store. “Go make sure it all fits.”
Colby nodded slowly, still reeling, and headed toward the small curtained cubicle in the back. The curtain didn’t fully close, and the single bulb overhead flickered when he switched it on, but it was private enough.
He stripped down to his boxers and tried the jeans first. They were snug in the thighs but roomy enough to move in—cut for work, not show. The hoodie felt soft and was thicker than it looked. And when he tugged on the sherpa-lined jacket, warmth settled over his shoulders, grounding him.
He caught sight of himself in the narrow mirror and stilled. He looked normal. Like someone who lived here. Like someone who might have a job, a routine, a goddamn life.
He wasn’t sure yet who that man in the mirror was, but he didn’t look broken.
Bryce gave him a once-over when he emerged. “Fits?”
“Yeah.” His voice was quiet, but there was certainty in it. “It does.”
Before he’d even started to get his head around this, Bryce took the clothes back from him and tossed them down on the counter with a casual thump. “Pick a belt,” he said over his shoulder. “And grab another hoodie while you’re at it.”