Chapter 43
SUMMER
Ichecked my phone for the third time and found nothing.
No text. No missed call. Nothing. I set it face down on the kitchen counter and told myself to stop.
He was late. Twenty minutes late, which wasn’t the end of the world.
People were late. Traffic happened. Phones died.
There were a thousand completely reasonable explanations for why Colt Anderson had not shown up and had not responded to either of my texts.
But he lived next door. He didn’t get to use traffic as an excuse. I knew he had power. There weren’t any emergency vehicles at his house. The only excuse he had was he was at the bottom of the stairs after a nasty fall.
His car was in the driveway. So he was home. He hadn’t been in an accident. He hadn’t driven off a bridge. He was right next door, twenty yards away, and apparently had decided not to come over and not to answer his phone. He was ignoring me.
Don’t spiral, I told myself. You are a grown woman. You are not going to spiral over twenty minutes.
Twenty-five minutes.
Becca had taken the kids out, so I was home alone. It was too quiet. And it was leaving me too much time to think.
I love you, Summer Banks.
He had said those words and now he was standing me up. I could only believe he was getting cold feet. Had cold feet. Yesterday had been amazing. I gave him the choice and he had told me he wanted me. He said he wanted to stay. He made me believe there was a chance we were going to make it.
I hadn’t asked him to stay. I wouldn’t do that because I understood what he was giving up. But he was the one that said he wanted to stay. I could have moved on.
But he said he wanted to stay and I let myself believe there was a chance for a forever with him. I let him back in and now I was getting my heart broken again. I was prepared for him to leave in September. I had accepted that and then he told me he loved me.
I stood up.
I was not doing this. I was not going to sit here and manufacture a catastrophe.
If something was wrong, I was going to find out what it was.
And if nothing was wrong and he had simply lost track of time, I was going to feel extremely silly and I would accept that consequence with grace.
But I wasn’t going to sit here and stew.
If he was ending this, he was going to do it to my face.
I was dressed, wearing the pretty lingerie and makeup. Makeup! I was not going to take getting stood up lying down. I grabbed my sandals off the mat by the back door and shoved my feet into them and walked across the yard before I could talk myself out of it.
I walked up on the deck and knocked on the door. The porch light was on. I could hear movement inside the house. I knocked again, louder this time. I had not gotten all done up to be ignored through a screen door.
The door swung open. Colt stood there in a T-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts. His hair was a mess. He had his phone pressed against his ear. He looked at me and seemed confused by my presence.
I watched the exact moment it hit him. He looked down at himself. Then me. Then his phone.
“Oh no,” he breathed.
And just like that, the tight knot that had been sitting in my chest for the last thirty minutes dissolved completely. He hadn’t gotten cold feet. He hadn’t changed his mind. He had forgotten that we had plans. I wasn’t sure that was any better but at least it wasn’t intentional.
“You forgot,” I said.
“I have to go,” he said into the phone. “Yeah, yeah, we’ll talk tomorrow.
” He ended the call and grabbed my hand.
“Summer. Shit. I am so sorry. I got served this morning and I’ve been on the phone with my attorney and investors, my family and crisis management.
” He stopped himself. Ran a hand through his hair.
“I lost track of time. I completely lost track of time. I’m so sorry. I’m an asshole.”
I wasn’t mad. Not really. He had a lot on his plate. I didn’t appreciate being forgotten, but given the circumstances, it was understandable.
“You look incredible,” he said. His eyes moved over me. His reaction made the effort to get ready for him all worth it.
“You’re not an asshole,” I said.
“I’m a complete idiot.”
“That, I might agree with,” I said with a laugh.
“Give me fifteen minutes,” he said, already stepping back from the door and pulling it open wider. “Come in, come in. Please. Fifteen minutes, I swear. I’ll shower and change and we can go.”
“I think it’s too late for that,” I said.
“Fuck. The reservations. I’m so sorry.”
I shrugged. “It’s fine.”
“I’ll call them,” he said. “I know the owner, I can explain I’m a mess.”
“Colt.” I put my hand on his arm. “It’s fine. Truly.”
I could see how distressed he was. I walked into the house. It had been so long since I’d been in the house but I remembered the layout.
I walked to the kitchen, which was visible from the living room with the open floor plan.
“I’m going to cook,” I said.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know I don’t have to.”
“Shower. I’ll see what you have in here. If you guys have been living like bachelors, I’ll go to my house and pull something from the freezer.”
“We have groceries,” he said. “Cody insists.”
I glanced back at him over my shoulder. “When you come back down, you’re going to be my line cook.”
He blinked. “Your what?”
“My line cook.” I pulled open the refrigerator. “My sous chef.” I surveyed the contents of his fridge. There was actually quite a lot to work with. Someone had gone to the grocery store recently and it hadn’t been Colt. I pulled out a few things and set them on the counter. “My bitch,” I finished.
Then he laughed. “Your bitch,” he repeated.
“That’s what I said.” I found a cutting board in the third cabinet I tried and set it on the counter. “Now go. You stink. Make sure you put on that cologne. I want to smell you.”
“You want to smell me?”
“Go.”
He went, still laughing. I had walked over here ready to have a very difficult conversation and instead I was standing in his kitchen in my good dress about to make pasta. Life was strange sometimes.
I found a pan, olive oil, and garlic. There was also fresh onion. Becca did most of the cooking at home but I knew how to. I opened cupboards and drawers and found everything I needed. Cooking was meditative for me. It always had been.
By the time I heard him on the stairs, I had water boiling and something that smelled genuinely good happening in the pan. Sauteed onion and garlic was the best smell. It didn’t matter what the dish was, it always made you seem like a pro.
“That smells unbelievable,” he said.
I turned around. He was freshly showered, hair still damp, wearing a dark blue tee and khaki shorts. He looked so good it was genuinely unfair.
He kissed my cheek. “I’m sorry. I am truly, deeply, embarrassingly sorry for ruining our date night.”
“You should be.” I turned back to the stove. “You stood me up. I was sitting over there spiraling.”
“You were spiraling?”
“I caught it early. I was expecting to come over here and find you knocked out at the bottom of the stairs. I knew you were home. I knew you weren’t caught in traffic, so if you weren’t bleeding out at the bottom of the stairs and chose to stand me up, you were going to be in serious trouble.”
He laughed. “I can’t believe I did that. Cody woke me up early with a process server at the door.” He came up beside me and looked into the pan. “What are you making?”
“Chicken and pasta,” I said. “Basic bitch dinner.”
“It doesn’t smell basic.”
“You have wine?” I asked him.
He laughed. “We have a wine closet.”
“Oh, rich people problems. Pick a nice red. I need wine while I’m making pasta.”
He disappeared through a narrow door. When he returned, he was holding a bottle. I watched him pull two glasses and fill them. I sniffed the wine and nodded before taking a sip.
“So, what did he do?”
He sighed. “Judd filed a lawsuit.”
I stirred the chopped tomatoes into the pan. “Against you?”
“Breach of contract, tortious interference, and defamation.”
“Is it serious?”
“The breach of contract piece has some teeth,” he said. “The rest is noise. He’s trying to rattle me.”
“Is it working?”
He glanced over at me. “What do you think?”
“I’d say no, but I don’t know.”
“I’m not. Not really.”
“Not really?”
“There’s more,” he said.
I waited.
“I got a call this afternoon. One of the other investors. He warned me Judd is planning some kind of coordinated media thing. Online reputation campaign. He wants to shape the narrative before the legal proceedings get moving. Make himself the victim.”
I stirred the pan and thought about that. “He’s going to come after you publicly.”
“He’s going to try.”
“And your family.”
“Probably.”
He looked tired and slightly annoyed. I wanted to kiss him and also potentially commit light violence on Judd Mathers on his behalf.
“He’s a miserable little man,” I said.
Colt burst out laughing. “He really is.”
I drained the pasta and came back to the stove and nudged him gently out of the way with my hip. He moved, but only about six inches, which put him directly beside me with his shoulder against mine.
“Maybe I should poison your food,” I said conversationally. “Keep you on your toes. Remind you to never forget a dinner date with me again. I did the whole makeup thing and everything.”
“I would deserve it.”
“I also wore something special for you.”
“The dress is very nice and you’re gorgeous.”
I turned to look at him. “It’s not the dress I’m talking about.”
“Ohhh, woman,” he growled. He came up behind me. His lips moved to my earlobe. “Cody’s out all night,” he said quietly against my skin.
“Yeah?”
“There’s only one thing I want for dinner,” he whispered against my ear.
I shuddered. I didn’t get the chance to respond before his hands found my hips and he lifted me clean off the floor and set me on the kitchen counter like I weighed nothing. The edge of the granite was cool through the thin fabric of my dress. I made a sound somewhere between a gasp and a laugh.
“Colt!”
“The pasta can wait,” he said.
“It’ll overcook.”
“We’ll make more.” He stepped between my knees, spreading them with his body. His hands slid up the outside of my thighs, pushing the hem of my dress up as they went. His eyes never left mine. “I’ve been thinking about this all day.”
“You forgot I existed,” I reminded him.
“And I’ve been thinking about making it up to you ever since.” His fingers found the waistband of the pale blue satin I’d bought specifically for him to see and take off me. He looked down and went completely still.
I watched his jaw tighten.
“Summer Banks,” he said quietly.
“I told you it wasn’t the dress.”
He exhaled slowly through his nose, his thumbs tracing the lace edging at my hips with a reverence that made my breath catch. He was taking his time on purpose. Making me feel every single second of his attention.
“You wore this for me,” he said.
“I did.”
He looked up at me with that slow, devastating smile.
“Turn off the stove,” I told him.
He did as I asked and then returned to me. “Lift,” he commanded.
I did what he asked, holding my weight on my arms while he peeled off the pretty panties. Then the dress was lifted over my head and he very carefully laid it over the back of the barstool. I felt mildly ridiculous wearing nothing but the flimsy bra while sitting on his kitchen counter.
He looked at me with hunger in his eyes before he dropped to his knees on the kitchen floor.
My breath left my body completely.