Chapter Fifteen
Colter
I was growing on her.
She might not be in a place where she could verbalize that.
Hell, with how shitty things sounded about her childhood, I wouldn’t be surprised if it took her years to admit to any kind of feelings.
But it was there in the admissions she made, in the way she invited me in.
I doubted she did that with many people. Maybe not anyone.
I’d also caught her touching the spot near her clavicle where I’d left a mark several times as she grabbed Sugar and headed back out with Syn to walk her.
She was so beat from the earlier walk that she only wanted to go halfway down the road before she was tugging me back toward the hotel.
“Yeah, I’m beat tonight too,” I agreed, giving Syn a shrug. “Where you heading?” I asked when we got back and he walked toward his bike. “You know your brother is gonna ask me,” I added at his look that very much said What are you, my mother?
“I’m just going for a ride. I found it helps me sleep.”
“I get that. It always clears my head.”
“Yeah, something like that. I won’t be long.”
“Okay. See you in the morning.”
—
Dylan
I heard voices in Saint’s room as I passed, making me pause to eavesdrop, but all I could make out was the timbre of male voices, not any actual words.
I knocked lightly with my knuckles and waited.
“Everything alright?” Colter answered, immediately stiffening.
“Yeah, fine. I just wanted to tell Saint that Syn went for a ride to clear his head. Didn’t want you to worry.”
“Thanks, babe,” Saint said from his spot at the desk.
“Everything alright here?”
“Yeah, we just finished a call with Slash. Wanted to update him.”
“Alright. Well… goodnight,” I said, suddenly feeling awkward, like I was on the outside.
Which I was, I reminded myself.
Even if we were working together on this, I wasn’t a part of the club. I wasn’t part of anything anymore. I was on my own. I needed to remember that.
I blinked at the sting in my eyes as I unlocked my door and unlatched Sugar’s leash.
It was as I was straightening that I saw it.
A big decorative box.
Huge, really.
I wasn’t even sure where you found a box like that.
It was covered in dainty little purple flowers.
I couldn’t help but wonder what about me suggested to Colter that some part of me had always been drawn to sweet little girly things.
I mean, I wore almost exclusively black.
I was hard and thorny. I didn’t talk about anything stereotypically feminine.
Because in the world I’d grown up in, feminine things were not only looked down on, but relentlessly ridiculed.
I’d learned young to pretend not to like girly colors, patterns, or interests.
That said, did some part of me always ache for it?
Yes.
How did he know that?
Maybe he didn’t. I needed to believe he didn’t. Because it was easier to think he simply thought all girls wanted flowers than to assume he understood some unspoken, secret little part of me without me saying anything.
I flipped the lid off the box.
He’d gone with a theme like last time. But not yellow.
Lilac.
I reached for the pajamas first. The pattern was similar to the box on the soft robe and matching nightgown.
I’d never owned a nightgown.
Half my life, I simply slept in whatever I wore during the day. Then, as an adult, I just threw on a T-shirt and slept in that and my underwear.
I was shocked by how badly I wanted to strip and slip right into it.
But I carefully folded them and set them on the bed and went back to the box.
There was another set of fuzzy socks.
An adult coloring book and fancy markers.
Some kind of cube decor thing I set aside to figure out later.
And, finally, all the way at the bottom, one of those big squishy stuffed animals I saw in the stores and secretly loved but refused to ever buy.
This one was a freaking lobster roll. Complete with little claws and legs.
“No, this one is for me,” I told Sugar as I pulled it out and held it against me.
But this was Colter we were talking about.
He thought of everything.
The final thing in the box?
A small lobster-shaped toy for her.
“Fetch,” I said, tossing it through to Colter’s suite before carefully placing mine on the desk out of reach while I gathered up my new pajamas and went to take a shower.
The neckline of the nightgown exposed the hickey Colter gave me completely. My belly flipped at that as I moved back into the bedroom and opened the cube thing and plugged it in to find it was some kind of projector that made the room look like it was covered in the Northern Lights.
It wasn’t something I would have ever thought to buy myself, but I loved it.
I brought my stuffed animal back to the bed with me, where I sat cross-legged and did something I hadn’t done since I was in elementary school: I colored.
It wasn’t until a long time later that I looked up to find I wasn’t alone, that I was being watched.
Colter leaned in the doorway.
There was such a soft look on his face that my heart stuttered.
“I had a feeling that would be a hit,” he said, nodding to the coloring book.
“My mind hasn’t been that quiet in years,” I admitted.
“I get that way with solitaire.”
“Solitaire, really?”
“Didn’t always have a lot of forms of entertainment when I was deployed. But I could almost always find a deck of cards. Still have to do it manually; the apps don’t hit the same. Figure the coloring apps are the same.”
“Probably. But they do have one advantage.”
“What’s that?”
“You can probably undo these kinds of mistakes,” I said, pointing to the picture where I’d messed up my little color scheme in one spot.
Colter pushed off the doorway and came to sit off the side of the bed, taking the coloring book from me.
“Dunno. Think coloring can be a lot like life. Imperfect. Doesn’t make it ugly. Just unique.” He paused, then glanced over at me. “Can I ask you something?”
“Okay,” I agreed, inwardly tensing.
“What happened to your mom?”
“What?”
I had no idea what I’d been expecting, but that wasn’t it.
“You talk about your dad and the club. But you’ve never mentioned a mom.”
“My mom was a club girl my father knocked up. Though he denied that for years until she finally got a paternity test. When he had the proof, she was allowed back in the clubhouse with me.”
“How old were you?”
“Um… maybe four? I don’t remember. But I don’t think I was in school yet.”
“Did she pass away?”
A bitter laugh escaped me at that.
“That might have been easier, actually. No. She stayed for maybe a year or so. I don’t know exactly, just that I was in school. Because she wasn’t at the bus stop, and I had to walk home alone.”
“At five? In that wooded area?”
“Yeah. I knew my way, but I remember being nervous.”
“I bet.”
“When I got back to the clubhouse, my mom wasn’t there. And when I was hungry for dinner and there was none because she still hadn’t come home, I finally went to ask my father where she was. He told me she was gone.”
“What’d he really say?” Colter asked, sensing the wound there, and seeming to know it needed to be opened back up to leech out all the ick so it could heal right.
“He told me that my ‘stupid fucking whore’ of a mother stole his money and took off with one of his club guys. And that if she ever tried to come back, he would slit her throat and bury her in the woods behind the clubhouse.”
“Jesus Christ. You were still a baby.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, nodding.
“How the hell did you survive with such a shithead of a father?”
“Kids are resilient,” I said, shrugging. “There was always food around. There was a bus to and from school.”
“Yeah, but who took care of you when you were sick? Played with you? Comforted you when you were upset?”
“No one.”
Colter’s hand moved out, grabbing me by the back of the neck and pulling me forward just enough to press a soft kiss to my forehead before releasing me.
“Can I ask one more thing?”
I couldn’t possibly be more exposed than I was right then.
“Sure.”
“Why the fuck do you wear that bastard’s leather jacket?”
“Oh,” I said with a strange little laugh. “Spite,” I admitted. “He caught me trying it on once. He ripped it off me and told me that ‘bitches’ have no right to wear a club jacket. He also wanted to be buried in it. But fuck him. This bitch does wear his club jacket.”
“Spite is a powerful motivator.”
“Do you hate your ex-wife?” I blurted out.
He watched me for a long second before answering.
“Hate is a strong word. Maybe I did right at first. When the cut was fresh. But by the time I was sitting in a cell, I knew it wasn’t hate. It was just the sting of betrayal. And maybe a little jealousy. Or inferiority.”
“Inferiority?” I wasn’t sure how someone like him could feel inferior to anyone.
“That whole ‘what does he have that I don’t?’ kind of thing.
It took a bit to see that it wasn’t necessarily that he had anything that I didn’t, but that they just…
worked where she and I didn’t. So, no. I don’t hate her.
I’m not really even angry anymore. Though I still fucking hate cheating because of it. ”
“I’ve never been with someone seriously enough to consider them sleeping around on me cheating.”
“The way you worded that makes me think that you maybe still felt dicked over by it.”
“I maybe have some slight issues with the idea of being seen as interchangeable.”
“Like the club girls you grew up around.”
“Yeah, I guess. I think I’m just starting to realize how much growing up there mentally fucked me. Can you believe I’ve never worn a dress? Or nightgown,” I said, waving down at myself.
“I can, actually. Even if you wanted to, I feel like that would have felt really… exposed in the club.”
“Yeah. So what about your upbringing? Aside from your child marriage?”
That got a strangled laugh out of him.
“Child marriage?” he balked.
“You were underage. So… child.”
“Fair enough. It was… average for that generation, I guess. Kind of hands-off parenting. I don’t think my parents knew where I was half the time.”
“And where were you?”
“In cornfields getting trashed, mostly. And almost knocking up my girlfriend.”
“The safe sex talk didn’t stick, huh?”
“Safe sex talk? Babe, I grew up with abstinence-only sex education. I’m somewhat impressed I knew where to stick it the first time, looking back.”
“I, unfortunately, saw a lot I shouldn’t have seen at a young age. I knew all the bits. So… are you close with your parents?”
“I got myself locked up. They practically disowned me.”
“That sucks. Do you have any siblings?”
“An older brother. He’s still in the military. Never married or had kids. Have you ever heard from your mom?”
“No. Honestly, I can barely remember what she looks like anymore. If she showed up at my doorstep, I don’t think I’d recognize her.”
“Do you think she tried or wanted to but got pushed away by your dad?”
“If she did, he took that to his grave,” I said, yawning.
“Alright. I’ll stop pestering you. Get some sleep,” he said, patting my knee as he got to his feet.
“Night,” I called at his retreating form.
“Goodnight, babe,” he said, glancing back.
And, God, it felt so wrong when he turned and walked away again.
Alone, because my dang dog abandoned me for her very own queen-sized bed again, I flicked off the light and curled up on my side with my silly lobster roll stuffed animal.
I lay there for what felt like forever, listening to the white noise of the projector, staring at the colorful ceiling, and running my fingers over the lobster’s little feet and claws.
I couldn’t tell you when it went from a thought to reality, but eventually, I found myself calling out softly, “Colter?”
I waited.
Two seconds.
Five.
But no answer came.
It was for the best, I tried to convince myself even as there was a sinking sensation in my chest.
“Yeah, babe?” Colter asked, making my heart leap as I turned to see him standing in the doorway, naked from the waist up.
“Sleep in here with me?”
He didn’t answer, just walked to the other side of the bed and slid in.
His arm slid under my pillow but didn’t curl me into him like the needy part of me wanted.
“The lobster can come too,” he invited, making my lips curl up.
“In that case…” I said, scooting closer until my head was on his chest with the lobster roll nestled on Colter’s other side, close enough so my fingers could still rub over his weirdly comforting little legs.
“Could get used to this,” Colter said, wrapping his arms around me.
The scary part?
I could too.