Chapter 15 Colt
Colt
Beau, Booker, and Drew are sitting on the couch playing a game on the PlayStation when I walk in the door of my apartment.
Stella has to work tonight, so she needs to go home and get ready for her shift after I ambushed her in the parking lot.
I haven’t stopped grinning since I dropped her off.
Between her work schedule and my game schedule, our “first date” will have to be pushed off until next weekend, when we will both have a night off.
I’m secretly grateful for the extra time to plan the perfect date.
“Hey, C, grab me a beer?” Beau asks, not looking up from the TV screen.
“It’s barely noon,” I say dryly.
“And?” he shoots back. “We’re going to a Halloween party later. I’m pre-gaming.”
I walk over to the fridge and grab him a can. “Halloween isn’t until next week.” I contemplate tossing the beer at him, but stop at the image of it exploding all over the couch. Instead, I set it on the coffee table in front of him.
“Halloween is on Wednesday, so everyone is having parties this weekend. You didn’t look at the group chat?” Booker asks. He looks up from his seat on the sectional. He’s not playing the virtual football game, since we only have two controllers, currently occupied by Drew and Beau.
I pull out my phone and see that while I was with Stella, I missed an onslaught of messages in the team group chat about going to the house of a few basketball players for tonight’s party.
“No, I was busy, didn’t even pay attention.” I scroll through the texts, reading what everyone’s been saying they’re going to wear as costumes—as well as all the messages shitting on said costumes.
“I was telling them we should be the Ninja Turtles,” Drew says, finally joining the conversation.
“I told you, I’m not dressing up as a fucking turtle,” Beau snaps in response, apparently having already been through this conversation multiple times. “Where have you been, anyway?” he asks, directing his question at me. “I thought you went for a run.”
“I did go for a run,” I reply.
“For five hours?” he deadpans.
Booker raises his eyebrows at me in question, obviously curious as well, but too polite to ask.
“I went to see Stella,” I say, heading back to the fridge for a bottle of water and to search for some lunch.
“Shit, shit, shit!” Drew hollers, throwing his controller down on the table as Beau whoops in victory, having won their game.
Booker gets up and follows me into the kitchen. “Stella, the girl you’re doing a class project with? Stella, the girl whose roommate you slept with? Stella, the girl you aren’t hooking up with? That Stella?”
I give him a look out of the corner of my eye, hopefully conveying how unamused I am, but he only laughs.
He plops down on one of the barstools and waits for me to start talking—because he knows I’ll cave.
I feel slightly shitty for not telling my friends what I’ve been up to lately, but I didn’t want to even say anything to them if things between Stella and me weren’t going anywhere.
“Yeah, okay, so things may have escalated a little.”
Drew and Beau get up and join us in the kitchen, more invested in what I have to say now than their game. Beau comes over to the fridge and pulls some chicken out that’s been marinating. “You talk, I’ll cook,” is all he says.
I heave a sigh and jump up to sit on the counter facing them. “We met up that night I left your all’s house,” I begin, nodding to Book and Drew, “when you made burgers?”
They both nod in acknowledgment, and Drew throws me a shit-eating grin. “Dude, I was lowkey pissed that you bailed, but I forgive you. I would’ve ditched too to tap that.”
He lets out a grunt as Booker smacks him on the back of the head. “Dude, what the fuck. Don’t say that.”
Beau laughs but looks at me out of the corner of his eyes as he fries up some eggs and rice in a pan with the chicken. He’s trying to gauge my reaction without letting the other two see.
“I didn’t leave to have sex with her,” I explain to them. “Before that, though, we kissed at the bar that night she came with her friends. I didn’t mean to, but it just sort of happened. And then she turned me down, repeatedly, before changing her mind.”
“What made her give you a chance?” Booker asks. Out of the four of us, he’s the most mature. But, for reasons I never asked about, he’s adamantly against having a girlfriend. I would venture to say he is more against relationships than Stella was.
I shrug in response. “We started working on that project and spending time together, and I guess she just decided to give me a shot.” I don’t want to get into all the details about how I slept with her over fall break, because then I would have to explain why I didn’t go home like everyone else.
I would also have to explain some of Stella’s story, which isn’t mine to tell.
“So, what’s happening now?” Beau asks.
“Now,” I start, wiping my hands on my shorts to try to remove some of the sweat. This interrogation has me feeling oddly nervous. “I have to plan a date.”
Booker raises his eyebrows, but Drew’s the one who responds. “Damn, who would’ve thought we’d see the day Crosby gets himself a girlfriend!”
“Hey, asshole, out of everyone in this room, I’m the least slutty, thank you very much,” I say in mock offense.
Booker and Drew laugh and concede that I have a point, but Beau just gives me a look. A look that feels like when you got caught doing something you weren’t supposed to as a child, and you knew you were going to be in big trouble. But he doesn’t say a word.
“Are you going to invite her to the party tonight?” Beau asks, scooping the finished stir-fry out into four large bowls.
“She’s working until ten, I think,” I start to respond.
“Ten isn’t too late to pull up to a party. It’s basically right on time,” Drew says.
“Yeah, but I don’t know that parties are her scene. Besides, I doubt she has a costume to wear on such short notice.”
Beau frowns as he hands us each a bowl and fork. “Are you making excuses because you really don’t think she would want an invite, or because you don’t want to go? Please don’t turn into one of those couples who have to do everything together and are just up each other’s asses all the time.”
“I mean, I’ll text her and ask if she wants to go, but I really don’t know that she will. I don’t think it’s her scene. Also, we aren’t a couple. We haven’t even been on a date yet.”
“Yeah, but I can see it in your face. You’re down bad for her, man.” Beau walks back over to the couch to eat his food, leaving the rest of us staring at his back.
The talk about my love life dies down after that. I shoot a text to Stella about the party, and a few hours go by before she responds.
Stella
Me: Hey, so the boys are talking about going to a Halloween party tn. Is that something
you’d be interested in?
Stella: I don’t know…
Me: No pressure. I just wanted you to know you had an invite.
Stella: Are you going?
Me: Probably. Beau will bitch until next Halloween if I didn’t. But we have a game tmw
so I won’t be drinking.
Stella: If you’ll be with me and sober, then I’ll go.
I’m so caught off guard by her saying that she’ll go that I don’t even know how to respond. I know why she doesn’t go to parties, and I don’t blame her at all for that choice. I also know that her deciding to go to this one with me is very significant, whether either of us admits it or not.
I finally respond by asking her if she wants me to find her a costume while she’s at work, but she says she’ll “figure something out” when she gets home. Then she says her break is about to end, so I tell her I’ll pick her up from her place at eleven.
After letting the guys know she’d be joining us, I hop in the shower, realizing I never took one after my run this morning.
I’m lying across my bed, doing some research for our Lit project, when Beau knocks on my door.
“Booker and Drew went home to chill before going out later,” he says as he walks in and lies his big frame across the foot of my bed.
For as long as I’ve known Beau, he’s never been one to mince words. He’s straightforward, always telling it like it is. He’s not mean, but he doesn’t believe in sugarcoating. So, when he lies there in silence for a beat longer than necessary, just staring at the ceiling, I start to get nervous.
“What is it?” I ask, closing my laptop and taking off my reading glasses.
“Nothing, man. I mean, nothing serious, anyway. I’m just trying to make sure you’re all good, that this whole thing with Stella is good for you, but it’s hard to balance sounding like a friend and sounding like my mom.” He raises an arm and crosses his elbow over his eyes.
“What do you mean?” I ask, confused as to why he thinks a relationship with Stella could be a bad thing.
“That day, when you were pissed and wouldn’t tell me what was going on, that was about her, wasn’t it?” He asks, dropping his arm and turning to look at me.
Sucking my teeth, I nod my head in confirmation but don’t say anything.
“You’re not going to tell me what it was about?” he continues.
“It’s not my place to share her secrets, B. But I can promise you that I’m okay. She just hasn’t had the easiest hand dealt in life, either. You should know what that’s like; it’s something the three of us have in common.”
“And as glad as I am that you found someone you connect with, I don’t know that a trauma bond is the best foundation for a relationship.” He looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to get upset or to argue, but I don’t.
Used to be, when Beau would criticize something I did or a choice I made, I would go off on him, asking who he was to tell me what to do.
That was before the medicine really started working and before I started taking my therapy seriously.
Now, though, I know that his words come from a place of caring and not condemnation.