Chapter Fifteen
The world held worse things than spending a day hanging out with D. Slumped in one of Mama’s pristine Adirondack chairs, Colt eyed the plume of smoke drifting from the smoker-grill. His daddy didn’t really need him for this, but wanted him around.
Colt couldn’t deny that was one hell of a nice feeling.
D’s hand appeared over his shoulder, a fresh cup of coffee dangling from long fingers that were an older version of Colt’s own. Colt wrapped a grateful hand around the warm crockery. “Thank you.”
With a groaning sigh, D settled in the chair next to him. “So how was your dinner last night?”
Covering his cringe with a sip of hot coffee, Colt shook his head. “It was good.”
Until the last fifteen minutes or so because, like always, that mess he’d pulled was right there, waiting for him.
He’d been so damned grateful for Holly after, the new normalcy of making love to her, although he’d been shaky and uneven and probably shit in bed.
If so, she hadn’t said anything, arms about him afterward, stroking his hair and nape, pressing a kiss to his throat.
He rubbed a hand over his jaw. He’d hated having that instability in bed with them, but the emotional mess lived in him and it didn’t take much to bring it to the surface.
Dropping his hand, he chafed his damp palm over his knee.
They were talking about having kids, and how was he going to be some boy’s daddy, try to model ethical behavior when he’d cheated one of the men he loved best?
How was he going to be some girl’s daddy, try to elevate her when he’d taken advantage of a girl who was upset and inebriated?
Boy, just because a girl has been drinking and isn’t herself doesn’t mean you have permission.
Someone blackout drunk can’t consent.
His fingers trembled atop his knee, and he stiffened them before D saw. He didn’t deserve to be anybody’s daddy, didn’t deserve to be Holly’s husband—
He pulled himself back from that. All the stuff on the Internet said to curtail the negative self-talk.
Holly talked about finding someone, but he couldn’t make himself call a therapist. The idea of opening himself up like that with a stranger made him feel sick, like preparing to jump at the lime mine.
Instead, he read self-help articles like he’d once read for Mr. Davis, intensely and repeatedly, looking for meaning and understanding.
So he’d done something wrong, something reprehensible. He recognized he was wrong, that he couldn’t go back and change anything, and he tried to do better every day. He had a couple of the steps of self-forgiveness underway.
Last night hadn’t helped, but it wasn’t fatal.
Now, tonight? Facing Tick after more than a year?
That might kill him.
“You’re deep in thought over there.” D’s steady voice cut across his reverie.
“What?” Steadying his mug, Colt jerked a glance sideways to find Daddy’s gaze fixed on his face. “Oh, yeah.”
A gentle smile flitted over D’s face and disappeared, leaving solemn concern in its place. “Want to tell me about it?”
Shit, no. He recoiled, then concealed the reaction in a gulp of coffee, burning his tongue in the process. Throat closed up, he shook his head, a sharp negative.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he ignored it. Probably Wally again — he’d been reaching out all day. Colt wasn’t in the mood for him, wasn’t ready for that, either.
He scrubbed his palm over his knee. If he didn’t know Sue would have a fit, that her feelings would be crushed, he’d find a way to dodge tonight, then stay out of Tick’s way all weekend.
Except the damn Internet said he had to face up to what he did, that at some point he needed to try talking to Tick again, apologize, make things right.
Bile curled up in the base of his throat, burning, making it hard to swallow.
“What’s got you het up, son? Something off with you and Holly?” D’s hand landed on his other knee, warmth and comfort in the weight. “Or whatever went wrong with you and Tick all that time ago?”
Aw, fuck. Colt swiveled a horrified look at his father, meeting nothing but calm sympathy in the dark eyes that might as well have been his own because he looked that much like D.
“Daddy . . . “ His voice cracked, and he forced a swallow, licked painfully dry lips. “I can’t.”
“You don’t have to.” Daddy squeezed his knee, pressing in, steadying, holding him. “But might help you if you did.”
Lord, the idea, opening up and spilling out how he’d gone against everything he’d been taught.
D would never look at him the same again. He could take a lot — Tick hating him, having the past haunt his life, hating himself — but not that.
But letting D think he was the man he wasn’t . . . that was a lie. Hiding who he was? Fine. Lying to D? Nope. That was anathema.
Eyes closed, he pinched the bridge of his nose. If he pressed hard enough, maybe he’d suffocate himself. “He caught me with his girlfriend.”
D’s hand didn’t move. “Right around when Will was killed?”
Tears scalding the back of his eyes, Colt nodded. “The night before.”
He couldn’t breathe, his nose stuffing up, his lungs constricted like barbed wire coiled around his chest.
A delighted bark hurt his ears, jerked through him like a shotgun blast. Blinking, he stared down at Ralph, the dog’s joyful gambol at his feet a foreign language. Small paws clawed at his jeans above his knees, but didn’t dislodge D’s firm hold.
“Come here, buddy.” Setting his mug on the concrete before he dropped it — Sue would kill him since it came from her favorite set — he scooped Ralph into his lap.
The wily canine wriggled sideways to lick his jaw.
Colt dashed a hand over his damp cheek, rubbing tears away with the heel of his hand.
He stared down at Ralph’s ropy white fur, unable to meet D’s eyes. “We’d both been drinking, me and—”
He couldn’t say her name. Instead, he cleared his throat.
“Laurel dumped me, and my feelings were hurt.” It sounded so stupid when he said it out loud now. “Wally and I showed up at a party, and she was there.”
Silence wrapped around them, broken only by the crackle of coals in the smoker, some kids playing across the fence, and Ralph hassling.
“I went into an empty bedroom with her.” He closed his eyes, images flashing through his brain, blurry, disjointed sensations. “Kissed her.”
That was right, wasn’t it? He remembered her mouth on his, her heavy lipgloss, a thick strawberry taste warring with cheap rum. Maybe the rum was in his nose?
“Touched her.” At some point, her shirt had disappeared — she’d stripped off the t-shirt, but maybe he’d helped her? But she’d shaped his fingers over her breast, and her tongue slipped between his lips. Then the rum had been inside his mouth.
His stomach folded in, twisting. He pressed Ralph closer to his chest.
He’d had a hand between her thighs, but it felt more like seeking leverage, pushing himself up, away. That wasn’t right, though, was it? Maybe that had come after the door opened and Tick’s wounded noise slammed into him.
“He walked in on us.” No point in telling what came after — tripping over his own feet, trying to catch up with Tick, laughter and shocked whispers not drowned out by heavy music, fury and loss wrapped up in a trembling finger in his face when he’d expected, deserved, a fist, and Tick’s raspy We’re done.
Ralph wriggled, twisting in a bid for freedom, and Colt leaned forward to set him loose. The barbed wire moved into his throat.
Swallowing hard, staring at D’s hand on his knee, scarred wedding ring gleaming in the sunlight, Colt shrugged. “So that’s it. I can’t fix it, so I just leave him alone as much as I can.”
The moment stretched out, about like his nerves, then D cleared his throat, fingers flexing in a squeeze, a slight shake of Colt’s thigh. “I’m sorry, son.”
He was sorry? The sympathy slammed into Colt’s chest, shoving a strangled gasp from his lungs. He jerked a sideways glance at D, whose mouth twisted in fond humor not belying the sorrow in his dark eyes.
“What?” D shook his knee again. “You expect me to beat you up or punish you? Seems like you have that covered all on your own.”
The shallow breath he’d managed to suck in whooshed back out, transforming into a rough sob.
D’s expression softened, and he finally moved his hand, hooking the back of Colt’s neck and dragging him sideways into a heavy hug.
Another broken breath wracking his chest, Colt buried his face in the curve between his daddy’s neck and shoulder.
The pain and confusion fought free, clawing out in harsh sobs, and D sighed, patting his back, holding his nape.
“That’s right, son.” Strong fingers caressed his hairline, and D pulled him closer, the lifeline of a hug awkward with the chair arms between them. Stroking his neck, Daddy pressed a kiss to his hair and held him safe. “I’ve got you. You let that out, just like that.”
A gasping sob scraping him raw, Colt rested his fists on D’s thighs, squeezed his eyes shut, and cried.
By the time evening rolled around, Colt had himself together, as much as he was ever together, anyway. Throat sore and eyes gritty, he’d spent the afternoon with D, then showered off the smoke upstairs in the bathroom he’d been meant to share with Nicole.
The door to her room remained firmly closed.
Mama had turned his old room into a guest room that never really got used unless he was over and needed to change clothes or Uncle Bill and Kevin visited because Bill and D were close and his uncles preferred staying here rather than in the B&B. Nicole’s room was just . . . empty.
No furniture, no nothing, except D’s gun safe in the closet and whatever else he stored in there.
Maybe Colt came by his penchant to cling to the pain of the past honest. The difference was he’d earned his. Mama hadn’t done anything to deserve her hurt, and her grief gutted him.