26. Brynn
brYNN
I loved the way he said things. The way he softly demanded, but never commanded. He told me to do things, but never with malice. Never with any ill intent.
If I wasn’t careful, I’d become addicted to this man.
“Well,” I said as I took another bite of my steak. I groaned at how the filet practically melted in my mouth. “I suppose a few things contributed to it.”
He took a bite of his food, but his attention was solely on me. I squirmed a bit in my chair beneath his heavy gaze, but having the attention of a man like him was addictive.
"Like?" he finally prompted.
I blinked. Christ, how long had I been staring? "My mom needed help. And the arena needed someone in the community relations role." I shrugged. "It made sense on paper."
Colton nodded slowly. "And off paper?"
"Off paper it still made sense." I reached for my wine. "Mostly."
He stabbed at his food and took another bite. "Why do I get the feeling that you're not being entirely honest with yourself about why you came home?"
“It isn’t that I’m not honest with myself,” I said as I reached for the glass of wine that had been poured for me earlier by the waiter. “It’s just…”
He waited patiently, and I squirmed yet again underneath his scrutinous gaze.
“Want to know what I think?” he asked.
I grinned. “Are you going to give me an option?”
He chuckled, but my question didn’t deter mine. “I think you came back for someone else’s benefit, and now you can’t figure out how to reconcile your own life because of it.”
I swallowed hard. “Sounds like you speak from experience.”
He shrugged. “We all do stupid things when we’re in love.”
I searched his eyes. “Story for a story?”
He grinned as he leaned back into his chair. “Ladies first.”
I stuck my tongue out at him before I settled back into my own seat with my glass of wine. I swirled the rich, red liquid around in the glass before I peered down into it.
“Mom’s grief got pretty bad my junior year of college,” I said as I recounted the memories.
The numerous phone calls where I’d call to check in on her and catch her crying.
The questions people bombarded me with about her every time I managed to come home from college on a break.
The memories left me breathless, but I continued to speak.
For some reason, I wanted Colton to know, even if it wasn’t my issue.
“Crying all the time. Ducking work. Never leaving the house.”
He didn’t offer anything. Instead, he merely sat there, giving me his undivided attention as I sipped my wine.
I relished the burn before I continued. “I mean, I knew she was still grieving ever since Dad’s death. But she just kind of threw herself into work and…”
“Work will stave things off for a while.”
I shrugged. “However, my senior year? That was when she gained her first foothold in her business. She was able to buy the arena, and…”
I felt his gaze searching me. Again, he didn’t prompt, but it was clear he wasn’t letting me out of this conversation until I talked.
It felt good to talk about it for once. “And…all of that extra time seemed to go toward her grief.”
Colton nodded slowly. “She chased normalcy instead of help, and then it sunk her when she finally stopped.”
I pointed my wine glass at him. “Exactly. Not that I held any of that against her.”
“I never thought you did.”
“It’s just,” I took another sip of my wine, “I want more for her. I want more for my mom, Colton. Always have. She’s been through so much, and she works so hard, and she built an empire on the back of her grief, and she should be prized for that. You know?”
He nodded slowly. “You know her grief isn’t your responsibility, right?”
I snickered as I took another pull from my wine. “Now, you just sound like her.”
“Good.”
“What?”
He pinned me with a look from across the table. “I’m glad that I sound like her. I’m glad she’s not making you feel like taking care of her is your responsibility.”
I blinked. “She’s my mother. Taking care of her comes with the territory.”
He shook his head. “When she’s eighty, sure. But not now.”
I peered back down into my wine glass. I knew he was right. I knew that I needed to get on with my life. I just… didn’t know how.
How was I supposed to just leave my mother like that? After everything she’d been through? After all of the help she gave me processing my grief? After all of the arguments she let me have with her and all of the ugly things I said to her after burying Dad?
I wanted to say all of those things. But before I could, Colton cleared his throat. “After my divorce, I was a mess.”
I turned my attention fully to him, giving him the courtesy he gave me only moments before. Long gone was my thought about food as I sipped my wine, watching the way Colton stared over my shoulder with that stoic gaze of his.
His stare grew unfocused, and I hung onto every word as he spoke. “Drinking. Smoking. Not showering. You name it, I did it at least once. The drinking stuck, and became a frequent flier during my evenings, and one particular evening while I was drinking at a bar not too far from my place…”
I decided to throw him a bone. “I’m familiar with the articles, Colton.” His gaze slowly slid to mine and I cleared my throat. “I mean, if that helps.”
He sighed and threw back the rest of his bourbon.
“My point is, grief is a hard thing to process. It can completely take over and cause us to make decisions that we wouldn’t otherwise make.
But if there’s one thing I’d never want for anyone around me, it’s to compromise their own life for the sake of my grief.
My grief is my responsibility, just as my actions are, and I’m sure your mother feels the same. ”
“I know she does,” I said softly, setting my wine glass back down onto the table.
“But…?”
I shrugged. “But she’s my mom. I don’t feel responsible for her grief, but I know Dad would want me to help her. Maybe not at the expense of my entire life, but at least for a little while.”
He nodded slowly. I could tell he wanted to say something else, but instead, he simply settled on, “No one can ever blame you for wanting to help your mother.”
My smile felt weak more than anything else. “Thanks.”
The waiter cleared our appetizer plates without either of us noticing him do it. That was the kind of dinner it was. The kind where the room kept going and we stayed still inside it.
Colton was watching me the way he did when he wasn’t trying to hide that he was watching me. Not a stare. Just attention, steady and unhurried, like he had all night and intended to use it.
“Can I tell you something?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
I looked down at my wine glass. Turned the stem once. “You already know. I saw it on your face in your office, right before Mom walked in.” I looked up. “But I wanted to say it myself. Out loud. On my own terms. Not because you cornered me into it.”
He held my eyes and didn’t say anything. Just waited. That was one of the things about him I was already in trouble over.
“I’ve never been with anyone,” I said. “Like, at all. Twenty-six years old, English Lit degree, bartender, community relations coordinator for a professional hockey team.” I reached for my wine. “Virgin.”
“I know,” he said. Quietly. No weight on it.
“I know you know.” I set my glass back down. “That’s not the point. The point is I didn’t want it to just be a thing you figured out. I wanted to be the one who told you.” I met his eyes. “It’s not precious to me. I don’t have a whole story about it. I just wanted you to have it from me.”
He was quiet for a moment. The restaurant moved around us. Someone laughed at a table nearby, and then it went back to the low hum of other people’s evenings.
“Thank you for telling me,” he said.
“You’re not going to make it weird?”
“No.”
“Or go all —” I made a vague gesture.
“Protective? Overcautious?” He tilted his head. “Back off entirely and spend the next week reconsidering everything?”
“Any of the above.”
“No,” he said. “You told me something true. I’m going to treat it like something true.” He reached across the table, and his hand covered mine the way it had before — both of his around both of mine, unhurried. “It changes what I want to do. Not whether I want to.”
I let out a breath I’d been holding since the appetizers.
“How does it change it?” I asked.
He looked at me for a long moment. “I want to take more time with you than I might have otherwise. I want you to know what you’re walking into before you walk into it.” A pause. “And I want you to tell me what you want. Not what you think I want. What you actually want.”
“What if I don’t know yet?”
“Then we figure it out.” His thumb moved across my knuckles. “No more moving faster than you’re ready for.”
I looked down at his hand on mine. At the way his knuckles were scarred and thick and covered in black hair and mine disappeared underneath them. The size difference had seemed almost cartoonish at first. Now it just seemed like the truth of him.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay,” he said back.
“For what it’s worth,” Colton said after a while, eyes on his food, “twenty-six is not the number you seem to think it is.”
“I know.”
“You’ve also put your whole life on hold for other people for the better part of five years.”
“I know that too.”
“So there’s nothing —”
“Colton.” I said it gently. “I know. I’m okay.” I speared a piece of my steak. “I just wanted you to have it from me.”
He nodded once. Let it go. That was another thing about him. He knew when a thing was done.
The check never actually came to our table. The waiter just appeared at Colton’s elbow at some point, and Colton pressed his card into the man’s hand without looking up from the conversation. I never saw the number. I had a feeling that was intentional.
To-go plates were a thing in our world as we kept to the small talk over the course of dinner. Well, I did, at least. One heavy topic was enough for one evening. Plus, I had a million other things to look forward to.
Like the promises Colton made me earlier in the week.