Chapter 4
FOUR
VIOLET
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, WEST VIRGINIA
“It seems some other people stayed busy last night, no?” Kitty asked, looking around at her circle of bridesmaids while a stylist stood behind her, curling her long brown locks. “A couple of you bailed on me in favor of getting ass.”
“Not my fault your brother’s fine,” Tania cracked, sending the rest of us into shrieks.
I laughed while Kitty continued her interrogation, lifting my coffee mug to my lips.
I was going to need every drop to get through the wedding day.
Even though I was tired, a fresh feeling coursed through my veins, like taking that first breath of outside air on a warm day.
My night with Colton kept playing on repeat.
There was no kissing, no yelling, none of the things I feared coming to this wedding.
Just his smiles and rapt listening, his kindness given so freely.
I felt everything: guilt for talking bad about him, shame for my behavior with our breakup, elation at seeing him again and being in the glow of his presence, hope that maybe it wasn’t all ruined.
Kitty’s attention turned to me. “Vi, I saw Colton chatting you up last night.”
I thought about how I’d used hurtful words about him just a day before and how fucking awful that was of me.
Yes, I made up shit about him when I was nineteen to avoid questions.
But that didn’t mean I needed to keep up that unfair ruse at age twenty-seven.
It was time to start telling the truth .
. . or at least as much as I was willing to give away.
The flutters I felt when he said “pretty girl” returned.
“Yeah, it was surprisingly good to see him.” I quickly diverted the attention away from the confusing blend of feelings inside me. I turned to look at Annie, the maid of honor. “But I noticed some little blondie running off with a certain goalie.”
Annie groaned and put her head in her hands. “Do we have to?”
“Poor Annie had a less successful night,” Kitty said, sipping her mimosa to stifle a laugh.
Jessie’s eyes rounded. “Oh no, what did he do?”
The conversation moved to Annie’s disastrous hookup, and I was able to let my tired brain drift back to Colton.
I was shocked at how easily we still got along, catching up, shooting the breeze.
At how readily he forgave me. What would our lives look like if I hadn’t ended things?
It could be me wearing white and getting the princess treatment.
It could be my friends giggling in a room and spilling their wedding sexcapades.
My sister as my maid of honor, regardless of the ways our parents pitted us against each other.
My mom in attendance, maybe happy for me.
It could be Colton waiting for me at the end of the aisle, almost certainly crying, but definitely wearing that legendary smile. His crew, all grown up, not quite as foolish as I once knew them to be—but loved them for it anyway.
It could have been wedding goggles, the romance of the occasion that had us all together. But I couldn’t stop my pattering heart, the feeling that I floated above the ground, the sense that Colton was still mine.
My Colton.
The cake was cut, the reception dress was on, and the dance floor was hopping under a pristine white tent. When the song that was popular at our alma mater came on, Guy, Kitty, Mikey, and I made a circle in the middle of the floor with some of Kitty’s friends.
And Colton.
I’d had some champagne and was riding that pleasant edge between buzzed and loose. Colton looked to be about the same. But he was in peak party boy Colton mode: hair messy, voice ragged, eyes sparkling, and skin a little sweaty, but in a way that added to his charm.
When it came to the part we all belted out as drunk dummies in frat house basements, Colton dropped to his knees next to me and threw his head back.
If there’s something to be said for Colton Jones, it’s that he’s always game for a good time. Even if it hurt him. He’d paste over his own hurt with joy, faking it until he made it back to the happy-go-lucky, dependable guy everyone knew him to be.
I laughed when he took my hand on the appropriate lyric, beg-singing on his knees. My other hand covered my mouth, embarrassed for him since he sure as hell had never known shame. Kitty let out a loud whoop and Guy booty-bumped Colt’s shoulder to shove him into me.
It was ridiculous, but it was also just plain fun. Colt’s aura was made of fun, sunshine doing cartwheels.
“Get up, you wiener,” I shouted over the music.
He gave me a scampy smile. “You love my wiener.”
I blushed and covered my hot cheeks. There was a time when, yes, I loved his wiener. Colt’s wiener was the first wiener I ever loved, if one can love a wiener.
Maybe the only wiener I ever truly loved. I only dabbled in a few other wieners, and all were lackluster. Other wiener owners wanted me to do something with their wiener while I wanted to go slow. Unsolicited wiener pics. Pressing their wiener against me like that would somehow tempt me.
But Colt was never like that. He waited. Never pushed. If he did happen to get turned on, he’d just laugh. Ignore him.
There are all those phrases about dicks: “It’s not the size of the boat, but the motion of the ocean.” “It’s not about the hammer, but how hard you nail it.”
But what I’ve found is that it’s not about the wiener, but about the wiener owner caring about you.
And the man on his knees before me cared.
My starry-eyed reflection was soon interrupted.
“YEAH!” Mikey yelled. “WIENER!”
Scratch all those thoughts I had about them being grown up. They were still a bunch of jocks slapping each other with wet towels and doing helicopters in the locker room.
I stayed on the floor when the DJ played “Twist and Shout,” letting Colton hold my hands and twist me. I held back at first, afraid to cut loose with him. But like he always could, he got me out of my shell and had me screaming lyrics into his face in no time.
He hugged me close at the end of that song. The music was loud, but his voice was clear. “I missed you, Vi.”
My insides squeezed, my cheeks hurt from smiling, and everything felt so good and real and, for that fleeting moment, untouchable.
Like we never broke. Like the things that drew us together were still intact.
Because they were. For that night, we picked up where we left off, right before everything disintegrated.
The dance floor emptied slowly, couples pairing off and disappearing.
A slow song came on. I could have made an excuse: go get another drink, go to the bathroom.
But Colton stood in front of me, sweaty from whatever nonsense dance we’d just been doing, eyes unsure.
He kept his hand close to his body, but flipped his palm up, the silent “may I have this dance?”
I couldn’t turn him down. I didn’t want to turn him down.
Because in my longest, loneliest nights, it was him I craved. His touch. His even breaths and warm, soft scent. The tiny kisses he’d dust wherever his lips landed.
Matching his nervous smile, I folded myself into his arms, my hands resting on his shoulder and his chest. Tentatively, Colt’s hand swallowed up my waist and the other carefully covered mine over his heart.
He cocked his head back ever so slightly to check my reaction.
My eyes flicked up to his, and my cheeks warmed as my smile broadened.
I felt the soft puff of his chuckle against my ear as he pulled me closer.
We were almost cheek to cheek, and a delicious melting sensation flooded every nerve ending in my body.
If that wasn’t enough, Colt added the cherry on top.
His lips pressed to my temple. The action stole my breath.
In the movie of my life, this would be a freeze frame.
I loved it, every fucking second of his lips on my skin.
I wanted to fall into it. To believe. To pretend this was my future.
To pretend the rest of my life could be full of moments like these.
I let myself dream, to imagine the security of being in Colton’s arms as part of my every day. “This is nice.”
I looked up into his face, a half head taller than me in my wedding heels. “It is nice,” he agreed.
“Beautiful wedding,” I said, so softly I wasn’t sure he could hear me over the music.
His gaze swept over my face, a slight knit between his brows. “Yeah. Beautiful.”
Emotion thickened my throat. I wasn’t stupid. I’d seen enough Hallmark movies to know what was happening here. He was calling me beautiful. Like I never hurt him. Like he really did forgive and forget. But how? How could he forgive me, and how could I deserve this kind of affection from him?
I itched to change the subject. “When do you go back? Or I guess, where are you going next?”
Pro hockey players always have summers off and I knew Colt loved to travel. I wondered how many places he’d been since the last time I saw him.
“To my parents’. I think we’re going to the lake house. But no real schedule.” His eyes met mine. “You should come. Mom would love to see you. She still brings you up sometimes.”
Back in his presence for just over twenty-four hours and Colton was already inviting me back into his life. And I wanted that. I wanted it so badly I could taste it, sink my teeth into it.
But I was leading us down a dark path if I thought I could give Colton what he needed outside of this weekend.
For one thing, my life in Boston was crammed to max capacity, and that doesn’t even include the potential drama layer that would come with being back together.
My family surely hadn’t changed their stance on him.
If I didn’t have anything else going on in my life, maybe I could say fuck it and do it anyway, consequences be damned.
But now, I needed my family. I needed their support, disapproving as it was.
I cleared my throat, preparing to talk to the buttons on Colt’s shirt. “I’ll have to go back to the lab. Back to Boston.”
His lips pressed together and he looked somewhere behind me. “Next time, then.”
What next time would there be? Kitty had never been keen on having kids and men usually didn’t go to baby showers anyway. I probably wouldn’t be invited to Mikey’s wedding if he somehow locked down Jessie. What other mutual friends did we have?
But since the risk of having to make good on the promise was low, I agreed. “Next time.”
Colton didn’t say anything and my stomach tensed in the silence.
I savored his body against mine, his broad shoulders and toned muscles that made him such a good defenseman.
There was even a term for his hockey hits: “getting Jonesed.” I thought about how he used his brawn as protection for his team and, at one time, for me.
Colt was my safe haven. He pulled me closer and stroked his hand down my hair.
Just as I was about to lean my head on his pec, the song ended.
It was painful, stepping away from him, getting back to reality and out of this nostalgia bubble.
My hand slid down his arm, but before I could let it drop, Colt grabbed it.
He squeezed it with a wry smile, and I wondered if he was weighing all the things I was.
He moved a half step closer. His gaze moved to our hands, and he spread his fingers, inviting mine to fall into the grooves between his.
I let it happen, let Colt hold my hand. He towed me closer to him again, suppressing a massive grin. The emcee was talking but I didn’t hear a word, floating in this liminal space between what we were and what I wished we could be.
A familiar folk guitar strum and a quickly filling dance floor pulled us from our daze.
We joined the circle forming around the happy couple.
Colt and I exchanged a laugh as Kitty, not usually the emotional type, ugly cried to the sounds of “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” But she still missed nothing, raising her eyebrows at me when she saw who stood next to me.
It was time to start the post-wedding cleanup.
The bridal party had mostly scattered. Annie got her period and scampered away with the disaster hookup goalie trailing behind her.
Mikey and Jessie had long since fucked off.
We were down to two bridesmaids and two groomsmen, plus Kitty’s parents and . . . Colton.
Even though he wasn’t in the wedding, he jumped in to help out. We carried flower arrangements inside to set up for the next day’s farewell brunch.
Kitty’s mom was a drunk, emotional mess and held onto Colton for an exceedingly long time.
“You were so good to Guy in college, Colton. He needed you.”
Colton just laughed and patted her back. “He’s a good friend too, Mrs. G.”
“We just love you so much,” she cried. Colt flicked a glance at me, looking for help.
“Hey, Heather,” I cut in. “Anything else you want us to take care of before we go?”
Kitty’s mom sniffled. “No, no. You two go have fun.”
Colt turned my way with a half-hearted smile.
Fun. Alone. The two of us, and the countless words we should have said.