Chapter 7 #2
“Rum?” Luke asked sharply. “You two were drinking?”
By this point, Moore had located his clothes and disappeared around the corner toward the small bathroom.
“I’m okay,” Colleen said in a mocking tone. “Thanks for asking. Nearly died of drowning, then from hypothermia. If Moore hadn’t taken off his clothes and climbed into bed with me, I’d have died.”
“He… what?”
“I wasn’t shivering. At all.”
Both her brothers went still, knowing the implications of that.
“So you’re naked in bed because all you did was huddle together so you’d get warm enough to shiver?” Kell asked slowly, eyeing Luke with trepidation, as if trying to see which way the wind was about to blow.
“No,” Moore said confidently as he reappeared in his wool pants, now four inches too short, an extremely wrinkled dress shirt with most of the buttons popped off, and socks, holding a balled up wad of fabric that looked like his jacket. He went straight to Colleen and sat on the ground next to her.
A seam in his pants ripped, the sound distinct.
“I need a word with you, Moore,” Luke announced, but Moore looked up at him with something Colleen had never seen in him before.
Authority.
“Your sister needs significant medical attention. We just broke her wrist, on top of all the contusions and injuries she sustained yesterday. How about you put your pride or grudge or whatever this crap is aside and do your duty as a family member and as a first responder by giving Colleen some compassion and professionalism?” His voice rose as the sentence went on, a list of grievances against Luke that Colleen heartily shared.
“Oh, burn,” Kell mumbled.
“And you,” Moore said as he slipped his arm under Colleen to help her stand, keeping the cover over her, guiding her to the bed. He looked at Kell. “You’re not funny. Be useful. Do you have food? A painkiller? Clothes Colleen can wear? An ambulance?”
“No signal here. Have to get back to the road,” Luke explained, taking a breath in preparation for what was clearly about to be a tongue lashing for Moore.
“THEN DO IT! NOW!” Moore boomed at him, his intensity making Colleen’s heart race.
Luke’s mouth snapped shut like a drawbridge.
“Why have you wasted all this time bickering with me when you could have been out there calling 911 for her?”
Luke’s face hardened, nose flaring.
Colleen said,“I don’t need–”
Moore pressed his finger to her lips. “You do.”
Kell took off out the door, his intent clear, while Luke turned as red as his uniform.
“Who the hell do you think you are, lecturing me about my job, while you’re screwing around with my sister?”
“I’m her friend.”
Moore couldn’t have injured her worse if he’d kicked her in the gut with steel-toed boots.
Friend.
Oh, no. No no no. Not that word. Not now. Not–
This.
Anything but this.
She was so stupid. How could she have been so stupid?
“Guys,” Colleen said, fighting tears, her wrist a mangled, throbbing mess, her heart even worse. “I need water. Some kind of food would be nice.” Breathing was suddenly hard, her chest cracked open and collapsing at the same time.
Luke pulled two protein bars out of a pocket and handed them to her and Moore, who took hers out of her hand, opened the wrapper and peeled it halfway back, and returned it to her hand.
That simple, caring gesture made the tears bubble up in her eyes.
“I have a first aid kit in the truck. There’s ibuprofen…”
She shook her head, willing herself not to cry. “I can bear it until the hospital. They might have to give me other things. My shoulder is really hurt from the accident.”
“Internal bleeding?”
“I don’t know.”
A blank look passed across Moore’s face at Luke’s question.
“That–that never occurred to me.”
“Of course not. You sell pretty stones and shiny metal for a living,” Luke said with a sneer that made her truly hate him a little bit.
“Just because he’s not a first responder doesn’t mean you need to be like that, Luke,” Colleen said, though her words came out tinny and hollow. “He saved me from drowning.”
Emptiness washed over her as if someone pulled her drain plug, whatever emotions she had after all the tumult of the last–the last…
“What time is it?” she asked, biting off a mouthful of what turned out to be a peanut butter bar.
“Two p.m.”
“Oh.”
Twenty-four hours.
A single day.
Nineteen years of hope.
Now nineteen years of… she didn’t have a word for realizing you’ve spent half your life being a fool, and it’s been exposed in a single word: friend.
The other f-word.
Maybe because no one was dumb enough to do what Colleen had just done.
Why, why, why did she cross that line she’d walked so carefully all this time? It was like crossing the Grand Canyon on a tightrope and then letting herself fall the next day. Kissing him, being with him, being wanted by him felt so good last night.
Better than good.
It was a rich indulgence for a woman who’d been starving for so long, and every taste had been a delight. Even as she sat here, head hung down, her own brother judging her with a look that made her skin feel slimy, she regretted nothing.
Which made her feel even worse.
Moore viewed her as a friend. Last night meant nothing to him. What was he going to say next? It was just an accident? A one-time thing, right?
Hey, we were a little tipsy. Lots of emotions flying around after the accident. These things happen. You know. Let’s not make it more than it really was.
Even as he stood inches away from her, she could hear him in her imagination, rejecting her. The script wrote itself, typed out letter by letter on a keyboard made of nineteen years of what-ifs.
The pain in her wrist was nothing compared to the pain in her soul.
Heart of hearts, she knew what was coming was the soft backpedal of the morning after.
Never cruel, Moore would simply be increasingly distant and so affable that nothing he said could be taken seriously.
During all these years of friendship, she’d seen what he did when he didn’t want to be close to someone.
Now, finally, after hiding her true feelings from him for so long, it was about to happen to her.
“Hey.” Luke was in front of her now, bent at the knee, his eyes soft, all of his anger gone. “I’m sorry. I–you’re more important than anything else, Collie.”
Hearing her old nickname out of his mouth made the tears finally come.
“I’m so tired.”
“I’ll bet.”
“And hurt.”
Luke’s lips formed a line. “Mmm hmm.”
The front door flew open and Kell walked in, breathless from the cold and exercise. As he shut the door behind him, he dropped a large duffel bag he’d been carrying on one shoulder.
“Basic first aid. And some old clothes Rachel and I were going to put in a donation box but never got around to it.”
“My ass is way bigger than Rachel’s,” Colleen muttered, earning a grin from Luke and a snicker from Kell.
“So wear my old sweats, then,” Kell cracked.
“Guys,” she gasped, the word full of everything, nothing, all her emotions and each barren piece within her, time spinning too fast, events merging with emotion and turning her in a gyroscope.
“Oh, Collie. It’s okay. It’ll be okay.” Unaccustomed to being the one being comforted, she let Luke hug her.
Supporting him through his wife’s death had been second nature, and she’d spent plenty of evenings after he’d put his daughter, Harriet, to bed drinking beer and listening to him try not to cry.
And fail sometimes.
Moore had been there most nights, too. Luke never cried in front of him, though, saving the breakdowns for Colleen.
“D-do Mom and Dad know I’m okay?”
“They know we found you. I’m not sure I can officially tell them you’re okay, but they know you’re alive and conscious,” Kell said. “I called them and the paramedics. Ambulance is going to take a while. Is your shoulder too bad? I can carry you out to the road.”
“That’s too much for you,” she replied, earning a huff from Moore, who gave her one of his friendly smiles.
“I did it yesterday.”
“If he can do it, I can do it. Moore’s puny compared to me.”
Kell’s joke hung in the air like a fart.
Too much.
It was all too much, and Colleen couldn’t handle it.
“Anyone have caffeine?” she asked, earning another grin from Moore, who seemed to have lost all emotional nuance and decided that just smiling was going to be his mode of communication from now on.
“Caffeine?”
“I haven’t had coffee for twenty-four hours.”
Rustling around in the duffel bag, Kell held up a small packet of instant coffee. “Better than nothing, I guess.”
“Here.” Moore took the packet from Kell’s hand and busied himself at the stove, heating water.
“How are Mom and Dad?”
“Fine. Dad’s working on the tree at the CPA office.”
“Luke texted me about that,” Colleen said. “Poor Tim.”
Luke’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean poor Tim because of what happened at the airport yesterday, or because the tree fell on their office building?”
“Both.” She grimaced. “And how do you know about what happened at the airport?”
“Third Date Colleen struck again. Word gets around. Also, Tim called Slicer and Slicer was at Bilbee’s playing pool, so...”
“Great. Half the town knows by now.”
“Not Tim’s finest day,” Luke noted.
“Or mine,” she said at the same time Moore said it from the kitchen, making them both chuckle.
“I heard Tim embarrassed you in front of a crowd?” Kell said as Luke slowly turned his head to watch Moore.
“Anyone who dates you three times is a goner,” Luke said loudly to her.
“You really know how to make your sister feel better,” she shot back.
“Sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“No, but it’s the right thing to say when you’re looking so pathetic.”
“I don’t just look pathetic, buddy. I feel pathetic.”
“We do have ibuprofen, you know.”
“Caffeine is a better drug.”
Sex, too, she thought but didn’t say, the glow in her bloodstream overriding all the pain for a split second as she remembered last night.
And this morning.
They’d made love twice, the first a frenzy of discovery, the second an act of belonging.
And now–now what?
Friend.
He said friend.
In her mind, Moore’s failure to make a big, dramatic claiming meant he was uncertain, unsure, or worse–certain and sure.
Certain and sure that last night was a fluke.
Crossing that line had been the hardest thing she’d ever done for herself, an act of self-care that overrode nineteen years of a different kind of self-care. Protecting herself from rejection was different from taking a leap, and in the end, the leap felt so much better.
Until now.
Daylight was a great disinfectant, but right now it was killing all her hope.