Chapter Two #2
“You never quit, do you?” He bit the words off with his bread and cheese. Okay, she was right – that was damn amazing, hot and melty, a little salty, a lot rich. “I’m just accustomed to messing shit up, so there was every likelihood I’d screwed something up without realizing I’d done so.”
“You don’t mess shit up. That’s your ex-girlfriend still whispering in your ear because you picked a woman, who like your mama, is never satisfied.”
“Wasn’t this supposed to be a celebration?”
“That, too. We’re celebrating with food that might be better than sex.” She smirked while piling cheese on the remaining half of her bread. “Doesn’t mean we can’t sort out your issues and make your life better.”
“My issues.” He snorted. “Like you don’t have any.”
“Oh, I have them.” Her expression tightened, remorse stabbing dead center in his chest. Baguette slice in one hand, she ticked off on her other fingers.
“I like being in control, I love my mama but she makes me crazy, I have some slight abandonment issues because of my daddy’s drinking and their divorce–”
Colt snorted. He could get that one. Sue did okay now, though.
“--I have zero filter sometimes, and I spent way too long waiting on the wrong man to line up with my expectations.”
A frown tugged his brows together hard. Yeah, he knew this past year had to have been hard on her. “I’m sorry.”
She waved the apology away. “I made that choice, and I’ve made the choice to move on and stop living there. Oh, yay . . . pasta.”
He glanced up, flashing a smile as Teresa arrived with their entrees. Yep, that steak was worth driving a half-hour for, and if he was lucky, he might get to savor it in peace–
“I’ve watched you doing your job, Colt.” With her fork, she cut a fat pasta square in half.
“You’re good at it, and you’re good with people.
Tyler had her own set of issues, which is why you two were never going to really work although I know you cared about her, and you really have to quit thinking you’re a screw up because you’re . . . stop tuning me out.”
Her elbow dug into his ribs hard enough he winced, despite the double layer of his shirt and blazer. He finished cutting a piece of steak. “Not tuning you out, Holly. Trying to eat my supper.”
“Oh, my Lord.” Sheer amusement colored her soft exclamation, and her eyes sparkled in the dim light. “Gene is coming out of your mouth.”
“Yep. He does that sometimes.” He sectioned off another bite and dragged the edge through the pan gravy melding peppercorns with a hint of brandy. That hint wouldn’t hurt him, and he’d never liked brandy as a drink anyway.
She popped half of a ravioli in her mouth. Scooping up a forkful of rich mashed potatoes, he waited.
“I hate when you down yourself.” This time, her voice was quiet, smaller with her level of seriousness. He swung his gaze sideways to find her watching him, blue eyes dark and solemn. She folded her fingers around his leg, just above his knee, in a gentle squeeze. “You’re better than that.”
His throat closed up, and he swallowed hard. “Thank you.”
“And that is why Tyler wasn’t good enough for you.” She waved her fork in a circle and stabbed a hapless pillow of pasta. “See, it’s okay to want to help your partner improve, but you do it by building them up, not tearing them down.”
“I suppose you’re going to give me at least two pieces of cited evidence to support that thesis.” How many times had he had to listen to Mr. Davis say those words?
Her lips twitched. “Lorraine working double shifts so David could take time off to get his paramedic upgrade.”
“That’s one.” He pointed his fork at her. “By the way, Lorraine should be possessive there.”
“Lorraine is possessive.” Her lips closed about another morsel of pasta, and he shut off the visual part of his brain. They weren’t that kind of friends either. “Del’s working two jobs and scheduling them around Barb’s student teaching.”
“There’s two. Nice use of the possessive.” He grinned over a sip of water. “Mr. Davis would be proud.”
“Oh, wait.” She slapped the table hard enough the couple one spot over jumped and turned wide eyes in their direction.
Colt lifted a hand in . . . well, hell. Not apology, but maybe acknowledgement.
Hadn’t they ever been in the middle of a hurricane before?
Sometimes, it was noisy. Holly dug in her bag and came up with her phone. “I have pictorial evidence.”
“Can’t wait.”
“Don’t be a jerk. Look.” She waved the device under his nose, and he steadied it with a hand on her wrist, keeping his fingers as still as possible so his thumb didn’t stroke over her pulsepoint or anything like that. “See?”
He wasn’t sure what he was seeing, other than a post to a private group on FitMe, a running route in the shape of a rough oval with the caption PR 19:51 #haterunning #butloveher. That made no sense–
Oh.
The poster’s handle filtered in, the Tick821. His Dougherty County badge number? Still? Geez, he was such a goober sometimes.
And geez, Colt missed him like hell sometimes.
Still.
“What proof?” Colt dropped his hand. “He’s always hated running.”
“Did you see that time? He’ll run on the treadmill because he has to and because it’s easier.
” She dropped the device in her bag, and Colt stifled an insane urge to snatch it back, to scroll through posts that had nothing to do with him, simply to have that moment of connection with Lamar all over again.
“But he runs with her because she loves it and he loves her. She gives him a fit, really pushes him but in a good way, and he’s better because of it. That’s what I’m talking about.”
As far as celebrations went, this one kinda sucked, despite the excellent food and the even better company. Talking about his cousin hurt, talking about Tyler hurt, and examining his own propensity for mistakes didn’t feel so great either.
He pulled in an even breath. “I’m happy for him, Holly.”
Next to him, she stilled, her gaze heavy on his face. “When are you going to forgive yourself?”
He closed his eyes.
Her fingers landed on his knee again. “Colt.”
Opening his eyes, he laid his fork and knife across his plate. “When he forgives me.”
Which meant he never had to worry about forgiving himself. He could strike that task off his to-do list.
“I love him–” Yeah, that was nothing new, but the words pinched his heart for some crazy reason, the idea of Holly loving Lamar. “--but he’s too stubborn for his own good.”
“I don’t blame him.” He set his glass down. “What I did was wrong.”
“Yes, but still. You have always acknowledged your part in the whole mess and owned what you did.” She slid her plate away. “On some level, you did him a favor.”
“Holly.”
“I know.” She waved a hand between them, her dogged expression almost contrite. “We don’t have to talk about it.”
“Thank you.”
“But.”
“Sheesh.” He slumped into the seat.
“Oh, come on, Colton. Everyone has a sexual past, and most everyone has something in that sexual past they don’t want people to know.”
“Yeah.” His something was common knowledge in their small town, so he never got away from it, not really. Hell, his mirror meant he never got away from it. He slanted a glare sideways. “So what’s yours?”
“Oh.” Her cheeks flushed, the gentlest wave of pink. “Okay, if I share with you, you cannot tell anyone.”
“Who am I gonna tell?” He waved a hand, palm up, at the restaurant. “You know me better than that.”
“Okay.” She pulled in a deep breath, pendant trembling atop the curve of her breasts. “So back when we were like twenty-one and Coach Zakrzewski got divorced?”
“Yeah.” He vaguely remembered that. Hadn’t Coach Z remarried since then, like one of the kindergarten teachers at the primary school?
Holly traced a finger along the table edge. “So I ran into him a couple of weeks after it was final and we kinda had a weekend fling.”
“You kinda had a weekend fling.” His brows tugged down, hard. “That’s not something you kinda do. Either you do or you don’t.”
“Okay, we definitely had a weekend fling.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Uh, no.” Her wide grin lit up her face, even as her blush lingered. “I met him in Tallahassee so we wouldn’t run into anyone we knew, and we didn’t leave the hotel room for three days.”
“Holy . . .” Slumped into the settee, food forgotten, he stared at her. “Hell.”
“Stop looking at me like that.” Burying her face in a sip of icy water, she waved a quelling hand at him.
Man, that was the longest he’d ever seen her blush – she was pretty unshockable – and that was damn cute on her.
Her glass hit the table with a solid thunk.
“Listen, there is something to be said for an experienced man who knows what he’s doing. ”
“You had a three-day fling with Coach Z.” His fuzzy brain refused to wrap around that.
He’d trained it to wrap around Tick and Holly or even the future Mrs. Holly Calvert, but not Holly and Coach Z.
Not in a million years. Reconciling Holly with the man who’d had them running drills and punishment laps was akin to reconciling Holly with Mr. Davis.
Glaring, she flung herself sideways in the settee. “Are you going to make me regret telling you this?”
“I’m regretting you telling me this.” He mirrored her pose, gesturing between them with the flat of his hand. “I don’t need those mental pictures.”
She made a hmph high in her nose, a quintessential noise of disdain he knew she’d learned from Lorraine King. “Then we’re even because I totally wanted the imagery of you and . . . Lord, I can’t even say her name.”
“Thank you.” Because he didn’t want to hear her name. He stared into her narrowed blue eyes a moment before the ridiculousness of the argument sank in, and a chuckle worked up from his chest. “So was he any good?”
“Well.” Her smile reappeared, pure mischief, pure Holly. “That was the weekend I realized sex might be worth all the hype. I mean it was okay that one time with–”
She clamped her lips shut, and he arched a brow. One time? No way that was all because the two of them were always together, Maybe she meant one time before Coach Z and wasn’t counting everything after.
He got the idea of a relationship that offered affection and okay sex. Things had been . . . decent . . . with him and Tyler. They hadn’t exactly been burning up the bed, but it hadn’t been awful, either.
“Maybe this is one of those things we talk about once and then forget.” He reached for his glass, condensation chilling his fingers.
“So you don’t want to know I slept with Mr. Danny?”
He choked, spewing icy droplets across his hand. Their youth pastor? “What?”
Her laugh rose between them, clear and sparkling, bursting over him like soap bubbles on a sunny day. “Okay, that one’s a lie.”
“Thank You, Jesus.” His own laugh clenched his belly and rolled upward, spilling free. He rubbed at a water spot on his shirt. “Damn it, Holly.”
“Your face.” With a cheeky grin, she tucked a knee on the settee, the fine knitted fabric of her dress stretching across her hip and thigh.
“Why are we friends?” He gave up on the spot. It was just water, after all.
“Hmm, because I don’t lead you into as much trouble as Wally.”
Because he didn’t let himself get into situations where she could lead him into trouble. He sobered, relaxing into the velvet. This was good, feeling lighter and less tense, like shaking out halfway through a run. Still, he couldn’t sit here all night.
“We should probably go.” Lifting a hip to grab his wallet, he caught Teresa’s eye and signaled with a finger.
“Put that up.” Her tone brooked no argument, and she pulled her own wallet free of her bag, passing her card over to Teresa. “We’re celebrating, and this is my treat.”
He opened his mouth and snapped it shut on a I’ll-get-it-next-time. He limited any meals with her to once in a blue moon, so not like they’d be doing this again any time soon.
Settling up didn’t take long, and he ushered her ahead of him, a tug of regret in his chest, a weird iteration of watching Del and Chuck at church with their families or sitting a few pews farther back on the Sunday’s Tick was there, giving him space, missing the way they’d been close.
He’d rushed the end of the evening, that was all. Wasn’t like he wouldn’t see her again soon, when Ralph needed food or when he serviced the clinic.
Except he’d be in the warehouse now, not going in the clinic every week.
Outside, the air had chilled, and she shivered, tucking a hand through his arm and huddling into his side. “Oh, that’s cold.”
“Yeah, won’t take the truck long to warm up.” He dug his keys out of his pocket, ignoring the imprint of her fingers on his forearm, of her body next to his.
If anything, she pressed closer, a wave of heat from his biceps to his thigh. “We could walk around the square.”
They could do lots of things, but letting himself entertain them wasn’t something he did. He angled them across the street rather than down the sidewalk. “I left Ralph on the back porch because like a stubborn ass he pointblank refused to come inside. Gotta install him a dog door.”
A noncommittal sound served as her reply, followed by a quiet sigh. Maybe that was commiseration, except Polo was the most agreeable canine he’d ever seen. He unlocked the truck and reached to open the passenger door. “Hey, this was a great idea. I really appreciate–”
Warm hands framed his jaw, surprising the hell out of him, and she took a step into him. In the hushed glow of the streetlights surrounding the courthouse, he caught a glimpse of determination in the bluest eyes he’d ever seen before she flexed her hold and pulled his mouth down to hers.