Chapter 25 Colt
Colt
“Apart from fake Garrison, how was the rest of the morning?” I ask as Denver gets comfortable in the chair next to me. The lunch rush is over, so other than the conversation floating from a few people on the far side of the room and the soft music, the restaurant is quiet.
“It was fine,” she says. “Same as home, really. Lewis thinks it’s more fun, though.”
Lewis is at another table with Charlie, cackling at a story Charlie is telling, and I dread to think which one.
“Do you think it’s fun?” I ask.
She shrugs. “It’s … fine.” She meets my eye. “Is this another attempt to get me to stay?”
“Maybe.”
Her cheeks flush as she smiles. “I’ll decide when I’m ready.”
I shouldn’t push. I know that. Regardless of her marriage, her life is in San Francisco.
She grew up there, it’s all she knows, and even though her parents are from here, she doesn’t know this city.
But God, I want her to stay. I like having her here.
I like knowing I can go to Finn’s and she’s there.
I like knowing I can take her to lunch whenever I want to.
She’s also safer here. Spider has fallen suspiciously quiet since he tried to take her. There haven’t been any sightings of him, and that makes me nervous. There’s no way he’s let his son’s murder go. He’s lying in wait, planning something.
“I got an update about Theo today,” she says. “He’s safe. He went to the park.”
“Are you still sure you don’t want to go for custody?” I ask. “We could find a way.”
She shakes her head. “He’s happy. And she …
she seems like a nice mom. I can’t take him away from that.
Anyway, how are you? Where did you go?” she asks, switching to her brighter self, something she does far too easily.
I wonder how many emotions she’s brushed over to make other people comfortable—to make Ranger comfortable.
“Making deals with scary men,” I say, reading the menu. “But you want to know the scariest thing that happened to me? I picked Holly up from a birthday party today, and she told me she has a boyfriend. She’s six. Six!”
“Almost seven,” Denver points out. A basket of bread is placed down, and she drops the menu in favor of a slice. She’s remarkably calm after hearing news that almost had me pulling over and shouting into my steering wheel. “What did you say when she told you?”
“I asked for his name and social security number.”
Denver chuckles. “Do six-year-olds even have social security numbers?”
“Scott should. Scott sounds suspicious. We should keep her away from him. Isolate her from any Scotts in the vicinity.”
She watches me, her eyes sparkling. “My dad dealt with my boyfriends in the same way.” She pops a piece of bread into her mouth. “Look how my dating life turned out.”
“We should meet Scott,” I decide, and she starts laughing. “Welcome him into the family. He’s one of us now.” She grins, and I do, too. “I like making you laugh.”
“I like you making me laugh,” she says. “But I also need to eat, so let’s order before this breadbasket ruins my meal.”
We order, we eat, we talk. The conversation is easy like it always is, and Denver has me laughing over things I’ve missed.
“Holly also said something else that was interesting,” I say, as our plates are collected. Denver makes an intrigued humming noise. “She asked if you were my girlfriend.”
Her smile does beautifully violent things to my heart. She props her chin up on her hand. “Did she? And what did you say to her?”
“That you’re my friend and a girl. Then she rolled her eyes and asked if you were a girlfriend I hold hands with.”
Denver laughs, her cheeks pink, a subtle flush climbing up her throat. “That’s the cutest thing I’ve ever heard. Was she disappointed with your answer?”
“She just shrugged,” I say, and I place my hand on the table, palm up. “Shall we pretend again?”
Denver looks between the table and me, unable to contain a smile, and places her hand against mine.
Her skin is soft, warm, and I know if I were to kiss her knuckles she’d smell like vanilla body lotion, but I resist. Instead, I run my thumb across the back of her hand, then turn it over, tracing her palm with my fingertips.
Such limited contact shouldn’t have my heart climbing up my throat or my cock hardening, but there’s something intimate about sharing a moment this tender with a woman so uniquely powerful.
All our moments alone have the same crackling energy, like livewires at our feet.
I lift her hand, pressing a kiss to her palm, and she takes in a small breath. “I think I like holding hands with you.”
“We should do it more often then,” I say. “While we’re pretending, obviously.”
She swallows, her smile faltering. “Right. Pretending. Colt Harland and Denver DeLuca.”
I smile, but it feels forced, because I don’t want to fucking pretend. I want to lay her across this table and take her. I want every fucker in this place to know she’s mine, to hear her moans and my name falling from her lips.
“We should get the check,” Denver breathes out, getting the attention of the waitress. Reluctantly, I release her hand. She takes out her credit card, and I slip it out of her hand and into my pocket before she can lay it on the table.
“You don’t need that,” I say, taking out my own card.
She huffs. “I can pay for my own food, Colt.”
“Denver, you can be independent all you like, any time you like, but when you’re with me, the only credit card I want to see in your hand is mine.”
A blush steals up her throat again, brighter than before, and she stumbles over her words, but I’m fairly sure she calls me a pushy prick. When we leave the restaurant, she still hasn’t dropped the issue.
“What if you forget your card? What then?” she challenges as we stand out front, waiting for the car.
“This is my territory, Denver. I pay for a meal because I want to, not because I have to.”
She frowns, a line appearing between her brows as she clearly tries to continue an argument she’s losing. “Fine, then I’ll go shopping with your card. You’ll regret that.”
“Only if you failed to buy something I can tear off later.” I grin, knowing I’m pushing my luck, but enjoying her reaction, nonetheless.
A laugh tumbles out of her, and she swats my arm. “You’re a cocky prick. And …” She shifts closer, her gaze on my hair as she reaches up to touch it. “You’re getting grays.”
“I am?” I already know I am, but I like her being this close. “I meet you and I go gray. Not a coincidence.”
She grins proudly, her eyes travelling over my hair. “It looks good. It’s sexy.”
Fuck.
“Is it?” I hope I sound calmer than my racing heart, and I hope I have the strength not to yank her body to mine and kiss her.
It’s a herculean effort not to look at her mouth, to imagine what she’d do if I nibbled her bottom lip.
I wonder if a similar thought crosses her mind, because her cheeks are flushed.
She sighs softly, her chest rising and falling with the action. She runs the tip of her finger across my jacket. “I’m glad you’re home.” When my smile widens, she tilts her head. “What?”
“Two things.” I unfasten a button on her coat. “One, you called it home.” Another button. Then another. Once her coat is fully open, I slide my hand around her waist and pull her close. Her lips part, but she doesn’t pull away—she settles against me. “Two, you missed me.”
She bites that bottom lip, and I’ll be surprised if she can’t hear my heartbeat. “I didn’t say that.”
“But that’s what you meant.” I pull her even closer, until there’s no space left between us. “I missed you, too.” I tuck her hair behind her ear, keeping my voice low. “So fucking much.”
I sound a little tortured and maybe I am. Callie was the last woman I held like this. She was the only woman who could look at me and have me spilling truths I should keep locked away. But Denver invokes the same reaction, the same need to be entirely honest.
And it scares me. It’s terrifying to think I could care again, could feel this way again, because losing it almost destroyed me.
“Are we still pretending?” she whispers.
I finally look at her lips. “Are you?”
She doesn’t nod or shake or head, but she looks at my mouth, too.
Fuck it.
“Denver?”
Denver’s head snaps to the left, the moment broken by someone who I can only describe as a fucking Disney prince.
His light hair is brushed back, suit impeccable, and he flashes a Colgate smile that makes me want to remove his teeth.
When Denver leaves my side to greet this fucker, he lifts her off her feet in a hug that has me close to reaching for my gun.
“Who the fuck is that?” I mumble to Lewis as he leaves the restaurant.
He looks surprised to see the man, too. “Noah Merrick.”
Noah. Noah Merrick. Noah “I-took-Denver’s-virginity” Merrick.
I watch with a ticking jaw as Noah places Denver on her feet again, but she stays close, talking excitedly. He looks equally happy to see her, and if I see him even check for her wedding ring, I’m going to snap his neck.
How did she describe them? Romeo and Juliet? I take some small satisfaction in knowing Romeo dies in the end. Maybe Romeo could die right now.
“Be more obvious, Colt,” Lewis says.
I huff. “Obvious about what?”
He rolls his eyes. “You both exhaust me. Next time, just kiss her. I owe Charlie fifty bucks because you chickened out.”
I ignore him, too focused on the Disney prince.
They’re still talking. About what? Fuck this.
I walk over, and Denver smiles brightly at me. “Colt, this is Noah. You remember me telling you about him?”
Pool house, sex, blah, blah, blah.
“Colt Harland,” I say, extending my hand and using my name as a weapon, waiting for it to strike true. Noah doesn’t even react; he just shakes my hand. This fucker has no idea who I am. The one person—
“We should definitely do that coffee,” Noah says to Denver.
Do coffee. You don’t do coffee. You drink it.
“We should!” Denver says. “How long are you here?”