Chapter 19
COLTON
The air conditioning hummed at exactly sixty-eight degrees.
Colton sat on the leather couch—Italian, expensive, chosen by a decorator he’d met once—and scrolled through his phone while the rain streaked down the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Forty-two floors below, Manhattan went about its business, yellow cabs crawling through wet streets, pedestrians hunched under umbrellas, wearing coats as summer had turned to fall.
September. A time he’d always thought was perfect for new beginnings.
His thumb stopped on a photo from June as he shamelessly stalked her on social media.
Ally in her greenhouse, honey-colored light slanting through the glass, her dark hair escaping from its braid as she leaned over a frame of honeycomb.
She wasn’t looking at the camera, but it was the concentration on her face, the careful way she held the frame, the absolute certainty of someone doing exactly what they were meant to do that hit him in the gut.
He hadn’t felt that kind of certainty in a long time, not since he’d played professional baseball.
Coming to New York, jumping back in the celebrity lifestyle, he’d loved it at first, but the novelty had quickly worn off and he found himself missing a tiny mountain town, and the woman who called it home.
Colton swiped to the next photo. The lake at sunset, with the mountains behind it already starting to show hints of orange and gold at their peaks.
He’d taken this one from the dock at Tara’s cottage before he’d left, the wood warm under his bare feet, the air smelling like pine and clean water and something he couldn’t name but recognized as the opposite of everything in this apartment.
Another swipe and he was on the page for The Blueberry Inn.
The view from the inn’s front porch, still under construction in this shot, sawhorses and power tools scattered across the floor.
He rubbed his wrist. The injury was a result of a skiing accident that shattered his elbow and wrist. This incident occurred during a promotional event where he was participating as a professional athlete.
The injury had required multiple surgeries, and his arm, often referred to in the press as the “Golden Arm,” would never be the same.
His arm had been a mess of pins and screws.
The injury was so severe that it ended his career as a Major League Baseball star.
His elbow ached now, the way it always did when the weather changed, as if his body remembered what it had lost, and it reminded him every time the barometric pressure dropped.
The sound of a key in the lock had him quickly closing the app.
He set his phone face-down on the coffee table—glass and chrome, cold to the touch—and stood as Marco emerged from the elevator looking like he’d stepped out of a magazine spread.
Expensive and understated, he was dressed in dark jeans and a cashmere sweater the color of storm clouds, his hair perfectly tousled in a way that took twenty minutes and three products to achieve.
“Are you moping?” Marco strode into the kitchen, getting a bottle of sparkling water.
Colton flipped him off. “You should talk. How many women have you dated this month?”
His friend ignored him. This incredible apartment with a view of Central Park was Marco’s. Colton and an actor named Liam all lived together, all busy, passing each other as they went about their lives. But it helped to keep the loneliness at bay, having all three of them sharing the same space.
Marco sat down and picked up Colton’s phone.
“Give me that.”
“You’ve been looking at pictures of her.” Marco didn’t hand it over. He was scrolling now, his expression shifting from amusement to something more thoughtful. “Lots of pictures. The mountains, the lake, that little town. And her, over and over. Ally.”
Colton snatched the phone back. “Mind your own business.”
“You are my business. You’re also the only friend I have who actually tells me when I’m being an idiot, which means I get to return the favor.” Marco drank half of the bottle and settled onto the couch. “Why are you here?”
“I live here.”
“Do you? When’s the last time you cooked in the kitchen? When’s the last time you did anything in this apartment besides sit on this couch and look at pictures of a woman who’s hundreds of miles away?”
Colton didn’t answer. He reached for his bourbon and let it burn down his throat.
“I’ve known you for what, six years?” Marco continued.
“I’ve never seen you like this. Not after the injury, not after the surgery, not after any of the disasters you’ve survived.
You go to the gym, you do your endorsement deals, you show up where you’re supposed to show up.
But you’re just going through the motions. ”
“Aren’t we all?”
Marco was quiet for a moment. Then he laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Fair point.”
“I went to three parties last week.” Colton set his glass down. “Same people at every one. Same conversations, same champagne, same models posing for the same photos. I could write the guest list before I walk through the door.”
“The Hendricks thing on Tuesday, the gallery opening, the rooftop at The Standard.” Marco ticked them off on his fingers.
“I was at all three. Talked to the same actresses I talked to last month. Smiled for the same photographers. Went home alone and stared at the ceiling wondering what the point of it all was.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“It’s exhausting.” Marco stood and walked to the windows, looking out at the rain-blurred city.
“The same circuit, over and over. The same women who know exactly who I am before I open my mouth. Everyone wants something—money, connections, their photo taken with a Castellano. I can’t remember the last real conversation I had.
” He paused, a look on his face that Colton had never seen before.
“We’re having a real conversation now.”
“You know what I mean.” Marco’s reflection in the glass looked tired. “I met someone, you know. Last October. At a party at some new nightclub in Miami.”
Something in his tone made Colton pay attention. “Yeah?”
“She didn’t know who I was. Didn’t want to know.
We spent one night together—no names, no life stories, just..
. being present in the moment. And I haven’t stopped thinking about her since.
” Marco took a long drink of water. “I don’t even know her name.
I’ve dated models and actresses and heiresses, and the one woman I can’t forget is someone I met and spent one incredible night with and will probably never see again. ”
“That’s rough.”
“It’s pathetic. But at least I have an excuse—I can’t find her, and trust me, I’ve looked.” He turned from the window. “You know exactly where Ally is. You have her phone number, her address. And you’re sitting in this place scrolling through pictures instead of doing something about it.”
Colton picked up his phone. The photo of the inn was still on the screen.
“What is that place?” Marco crossed back to the couch and sat down, leaning over to look. “That porch with the lake and mountains behind it?”
“The Blueberry Inn. It’s opening in less than two weeks—September eighteenth. Tara’s been working on it for months.”
“The mother? The one who makes the clothes?”
“That’s her.” Colton swiped to another photo—the lake at sunset, the mountains reflected in still water. “This is the view from her cottage.”
Marco took the phone, studying the image. “Tell me more about this place. This little mountain town.”
“Blueberry Hill. Population maybe two thousand. There’s a general store, a bakery, and a bookshop. People actually know each other’s names. They have potluck dinners and community events where everybody shows up.”
“No paparazzi?”
“No paparazzi. No photographers camping outside restaurants. No one trying to get a piece of you.” Colton watched Marco scroll through more photos. “When I was there, nobody cared that I used to pitch for the Tornadoes. I was just some guy.”
“No one knowing your name.” Marco’s voice had gone quiet. “No one wanting anything from you.”
“Pretty much.”
Marco swiped to another photo—Colton and Will standing in Colton’s barn, both covered in sawdust, grinning like idiots.
“You look different in these pictures.”
“I felt different.”
The rain had intensified, drumming against the windows.
Colton thought about Blueberry Hill in September—the leaves just starting to turn, the mornings crisp and chilly enough for a jacket, the light changing earlier each evening.
Ally had mentioned an orchard that let you pick your own apples, said she wanted to try making honey-apple butter this year, and was planting her own orchard after the fire.
“She hasn’t called,” he said finally. “Not once since I left, and I texted her.”
“But have you called her?”
Colton was quiet.
“That’s what I thought.” Marco handed the phone back. “We’re quite a pair, aren’t we? Two grown men who can’t figure out how to talk to women.”
“You talk to women constantly. That’s literally your brand.”
“I talk at women. I charm them, I flatter them, I take them to expensive restaurants and say all the right things. But talk to them? Actually say something real?” Marco shook his head.
“I’m tired, Colton. Genuinely tired. Same clubs, same faces, same empty conversations.
I keep thinking there has to be more than this. ”
Colton looked around the room and out the windows. “I’d make Blueberry Hill home. See my dog, horses, look out over the lake.” He shifted. “Spend every day telling Ally what an idiot I am. I could fly in to the city a few times a year, do the shoots and go back.”
“A place where no one would bother us.” Marco was staring at the photo of the inn on Colton’s phone. “Where I could just be some guy drinking coffee on a porch, watching the mountains.”
“You’d hate the coffee. It’s not Italian.”
“I’d survive.” Marco looked up. “You’re going? To this opening?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Stop thinking.” Marco’s voice sharpened. “You spent your whole life being told what to do. Coaches, managers, agents, trainers—everyone had a plan for Colton Matthews. Now no one’s telling you what to do, and you’ve forgotten you get to decide for yourself.”
Colton reached for his bourbon. “Come with me.”
Marco’s eyebrows rose. “To Blueberry Hill?”
“Why not? You said yourself you need to get out of your head. Come see the mountains. Breathe some actual air. Meet people who don’t know or care who the Castellanos are.”
Something flickered across Marco’s face—interest, or the ghost of it. “I have meetings. Obligations.”
“When has that ever stopped you? You have people who can handle your meetings.”
Marco was quiet for a moment, swirling the water in his bottle. “A small town in the mountains where no one knows my name.” He set the bottle down. “Fine. I’ll come. Two days, maybe three. Just for the opening.”
“That’s a start.”
“It’s me voluntarily leaving Manhattan for somewhere that probably doesn’t have a decent espresso within fifty miles.”
“They have coffee. Like I said, it’s not Italian coffee, but it’s good.”
“American coffee.” Marco made a face. “The things I do for friendship.”
Colton picked up his phone and pulled up his contacts. Ally’s name sat there, unchanged since they’d broken up in that hotel room. His thumb hovered over the screen.
“Just do it,” Marco said. “Before you talk yourself out of it.”
He typed a message. Not a call—he wasn’t ready for that yet—but a text. Something to break the silence, to let her know he was coming.
I’m coming to the inn opening. I’d really like to see you. And Daisy.
He hit send before he could second-guess it.
“There.” He set the phone down, his heart beating harder than it had any right to. “Done.”
“See? That wasn’t so hard.”
“Easy for you to say. You don’t have to wait for the response.”
Marco stood, straightening his sweater. “I have a dinner thing I can’t get out of—some designer who wants to collaborate on something. But I’ll block out the dates for the opening. Send me the details.”
“I will.”
The rain had eased to a drizzle, the city outside the windows emerging from the gray in patches.
“Colton.” Marco paused by the elevator. “For what it’s worth? I think you’re making the right choice. The mountains, the girl, all of it.”
“And what about you? What would make things right for you?”
Marco’s smile turned rueful. “If I figure that out, I’ll let you know.”
The elevator doors closed behind him, and Colton was alone again. But it felt different now. Less like somewhere he was stuck, more like somewhere he was leaving.
His phone buzzed.
He grabbed it too fast, nearly dropping it. Ally’s name appeared on the screen.
I’d like that too.
Three words. Four, technically. But they changed everything.
In two weeks, he’d be in Blueberry Hill. In two weeks, he’d see her.
He needed to book a flight. Colton pulled up a travel site on his phone and started searching for flights to Asheville, but before he could put in the dates, a text from Marco popped up.
We’ll take my jet.
Guess Marco needed a change too.