Chapter 11
Eleven
Colin
22 Years Old
The car door slammed shut, and Colin immediately pulled out his phone as Walker got in beside him. Talia and Amala piled in the backseat after them, and Walker turned around with a furrowed brow.
“Are we being hijacked right now?” Walker asked. “You both drove here in your own vehicles.”
“We want the tea.” Amala shrugged.
“ You want the tea,” Talia said. “I want to help my nephew.”
Colin leaned over the center console to peer back at them. “You can all help me by staying quiet for a second.” He tapped into his contacts and hit the one at the very top of his favorites list.
“Put it on speaker,” Walker directed after he caught sight of who Colin was calling. Colin obliged, tapping the right button and turning up the volume to full blast as the first dial tone rang out. Carter picked up after the second ring.
“What’s up? I’m walking to class.”
Colin leaned toward the phone and spoke clearly. “How do you woo a woman?” Talia and Amala both gasped behind him, and Walker shifted in his seat, a smile pulling on his lips.
“Wow,” Carter said. “Coming in hot with the questions on a Monday. Is it safe to assume you mean Scarlett? Also, no one says ‘woo’ anymore.”
“Yes, I mean Scarlett.” Colin closed his eyes and pressed into his temples with his free hand. “I still…” He trailed off in misery. “I blew everything up the last time, and I don’t want to do that again. I don’t even know if it’s possible to win her back, but I have to try. You’re clearly good at getting women for some reason. You’ve always had a girlfriend since you were five. Tell me how you do it.”
Carter hummed on the other line. “Can I get some context? Have you seen her yet?”
“Yeah, I saw her. She dropped her mug, told me to leave her alone, and almost started crying. Then Harper and Walker started shouting a lot, and I had a meltdown, and she helped me.” Colin glanced at Walker beside him, who coughed guiltily. “So, I guess you could say it went really well.”
“Is that sarcasm?” Carter’s voice held a smile.
“Was trying it out. How did I do?” Colin asked.
“Not bad. Wish it was under different circumstances, though. Okay, so, there’s not a whole lot you can do if she specifically told you to stay away from her. You don’t want to come off as obsessive and stalker-ish. There’s a fine line between wooing and being a creep.” Carter paused for a moment, and Colin waited. When there was only dead silence on the other line for at least ten seconds, Colin gave up the waiting game.
“That’s your tip? Stay away from her? Can’t I at least be her friend? I mean, she told me to hit her with a whip once, and I didn’t listen to that, either. It turned out that that was a good decision on my part.”
“I do not need to hear this,” Walker muttered beside him.
“Oh, am I on speaker phone?” Carter asked. “Walker, you’re a dick for giving Colin a meltdown.”
“I know.” Walker sighed. “I already apologized. Harper really hates Colin for obvious reasons, but it hasn’t really come up that much before now, so it threw me off guard.”
“She was being unreasonable,” Talia said.
“It’s not that unreasonable. She’s just protective of Scarlett,” Colin argued. Harper’s hatred almost felt like a proper punishment and what he deserved for what happened back then. It probably wasn’t healthy to think that way, but he couldn’t help it.
“I still think it was overkill,” Amala said. “You didn’t murder Scarlett, you broke up with her.”
It was so much more than that. None of them really knew just how in deep they both had been when he did it. None of them truly understood why he did it.
“How many fucking people are with you right now?” Carter wheezed into the phone. Fletcher University, the college both Carter and Piper were attending, was built into the side of a massive hill, and it sounded like Carter had been scaling stairs for the entirety of the conversation.
“Walker, Talia, and Amala,” Colin answered.
“While we’re all here and inserting ourselves into your love life,” Amala said, “I also think it’s stupid that you’re calling Carter, a manchild, to?—”
“Hey!” Carter protested, but Amala barged ahead.
“—help you woo a woman. Clearly, this question deserves a woman’s touch.”
“You think I should ask a woman?” Colin considered. He always ran immediately to Carter with social issues because Carter was well-versed in them and had no qualms about Colin asking questions, regardless of how direct those questions might be. But maybe Amala was right. “Should I call Piper?” Colin asked. When Walker, Talia, Amala, and Carter all shouted some variation of ‘no’ and ‘don’t do that,’ Colin flinched.
“I think what we’re all trying to tell you,” Talia lowered her volume, “is that Piper dates assholes and wouldn’t know how to be wooed if it hit her in the face.”
“And that’s putting it lightly,” Amala agreed. “If she wastes her time on any more losers, I might drive down to Fletcher to smack some sense into her.”
“Think about it, Colin,” Walker said. “Have you liked a single one of your sister’s boyfriends?”
Colin didn’t have to think about it before he was shaking his head no. The only one he had ever met was Piper’s high school boyfriend, and Harden was quite possibly the biggest tool on the entire West Coast. That, and Colin had personal reasons to hate the guy beyond him being a dick to his sister. He rubbed at his right hand, a phantom pain aching in his knuckles. “Okay, I won’t call Piper, then. Scarlett’s still friends with Kashvi per her Instagram. I could try that?”
Amala turned to Talia. “I’m insulted.”
“Colin, there are literally two women sitting right here.” Talia gestured to herself and Amala.
“Oh.” Colin blanched. “I was looking for a more modern take on this.”
“Did he just call us old?” Amala gasped.
“He did.” Talia folded her arms over her chest. “We are both still incredibly young and lively, Colin. What the fuck?”
“While we’re at it, don’t ask Walker, either,” Carter said.
“Rude!” Walker protested beside him. “I am not old.”
“You are old, but I meant more because you are absolute garbage at wooing women,” Carter retorted. “You have game, but you don’t know what to do with it.”
“I did just fine. I’m married. I know exactly what to do with it.” Walker looked back at Talia, who was whispering something into Amala’s ear.
“You barely did anything,” Colin noted. “Not even after we forced you to go on a date with her.”
“He’s not wrong,” Carter agreed.
“I would like to point out that if you’re asking how to woo a woman, I highly suggest not doing what you did to us when you were in high school, Colin,” Talia grumbled.
Colin shrugged, unfazed. “It was a very specific circumstance, and for a good cause,” he said. The circumstance being that Walker and Talia weren’t speaking at the time, and Colin, Piper, and Carter had collectively decided to use the school live auction as a way to throw them together under the guise of fundraising for their respective sports teams and clubs. Yes, they had technically offered up a date with Talia as an auction item without her consent, but everyone knew Walker would save her.
“Right, the Mathletes team?” Talia scoffed.
Colin fidgeted with his fingers and looked out the window guiltily. That was a lie he had never been caught in, and now that he was a full-ass adult, he figured it was as good a time as any to clear his conscience. “I was never in Mathletes my senior year.”
Walker twisted toward him. “What?”
“I wasn’t in Mathletes,” Colin repeated louder. “The auction money I raised was just split between Carter’s basketball and Piper’s soccer teams.”
“I heard you, I’m just trying to reconcile what the fuck you were doing one day a week for months.” Walker had his parenting tone on, the stern one he had only ever really used a few times with Colin. Most notably, the time Colin had overreacted to the knowledge of Piper getting drunk at a party, and, of course, the live auction. Things that were out of his control back then had made his emotions feel like chemical explosions rather than something he could manage. Now, he knew exactly why emotional regulation was hard for him, especially during that period after his parents died. Recently, his self-soothing tactics had worked so well for him that things like shibari and lying sprawled out on the floor kept him better tethered to his emotions.
“At first I was using it to visit my parents—er, their grave, I guess,” Colin said.
“Oh.” Walker hung his head. “Why would you need to hide that from me?”
“No offense, but I didn’t want anyone to come with me. I just wanted time to myself.” That filled Colin with a pang of guilt, too. It was normal for him to want time to himself, away from socialization of any kind, but it almost felt like a betrayal to his siblings and uncle for using that time to visit the family they had all lost. Walker was probably the one that understood the most what Colin specifically went through. Cole and Paisley were his best friends, too, the way Carter was Colin’s best friend now.
“You could have just said that,” Carter called out from the phone Colin was still clutching in his hand. Colin blinked and came back to the present, shoving down the guilt and reminding himself, once again, that his behavior wasn’t something to feel guilty about.
“I know that now,” he said. “I didn’t at the time.”
“You said ‘at first,’” Amala noted. “You stopped going to their grave?”
“I still went sometimes,” Colin explained. “But a lot less after Scarlett and I got together.”
“You were having copious amounts of sex, weren’t you?” Walker sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Carter was snickering on the phone, knowing exactly what his brother had been up to. Half the time when Colin needed a scapegoat after everyone found out about Scarlett, Carter freely volunteered. And when Carter wasn’t available, Piper was. While growing up with a lot of younger siblings had always been a constant invasion of privacy, it was also very convenient at times because they all had things they wanted to hide from Walker and Talia.
“Kids are getting sneakier and sneakier nowadays. What the hell are we supposed to do about Cooper and Jayla when they get older?” Amala asked. “Do you think they’re already lying to us about shit?”
“Oh, they definitely are.” Carter chuckled. For once, Colin knew exactly what Carter was talking about. Their sibling group chat was sworn to secrecy, and Colin now owed Carter twenty bucks for Cooper’s first kiss being none other than Amala’s daughter Jayla.
Walker jerked his head around his seat to look at Talia. “What about Pearl? She’s not… doing that, is she?”
“I wouldn’t tell you if she was,” Talia said. Again, per the sibling text chain, Pearl was as innocent as ever.
“Really? Because you have zero problem telling me all the shit Piper is up to,” Walker huffed.
“She’s still currently dating Tim, in case anyone was wondering,” Carter said.
“Todd,” Talia corrected.
“Douchebag name starting with a T, we get it,” Walker groaned. “Fuck, I was… am a terrible guardian.”
“No, you weren’t.” Colin shook his head earnestly. “I was eighteen, so there wasn’t much you could do about it. And it’s not like I wasn’t protected every time. We were careful. Plus, you and Dr. Thomlinson are the reason I know anything about myself, so I should be thanking you.”
“Have you set something up with someone now that you’re back?” Walker asked, clearly sidestepping the thanks. Praise was never something Walker took easily, and it would also require him to acknowledge Cole and Paisley’s one massive failing if he did, which Walker would never do. Colin was the only one who didn’t see his parents as the epitome of perfection. While he loved them, their failure had made the formative parts of his life a hell of a lot harder to figure out. Mistakes were a part of their memory just as much as the good things were. The good outweighed the bad by a long shot, but he was still allowed to be occasionally pissed off that that his parents, medical professionals, and the education system had royally fucked him over on getting the resources and knowledge he should have had from a young age.
“I’m back with Dr. Thomlinson on Monday,” Colin said. It would be strange to go back to his old therapist, the one who had diagnosed him with autism at eighteen, but if anyone knew how in love with Scarlett he was, it was Dr. Thomlinson.
“Good, good.” Walker nodded. Despite how reluctant Walker had been in the beginning to join therapy himself, he was the one who had pushed Colin and all his siblings into therapy after their parents passed. Now, Walker was a staunch supporter of mental health, including his own.
“Maybe he knows how to woo a woman,” Colin considered.
“Can we stop saying woo?” Carter chuckled. “You’re not about to ask Scarlett’s dad for a dowry for her.”
“Uncle,” Colin corrected, a pinch of irritation in his voice. “Scarlett’s dad is a bit busy fucking his interns and leaving his family high and dry for him to be worried about a dowry.”
“Damn,” Amala muttered.
“Was that not an appropriate thing to say?” Colin asked, then shrugged. “Because I don’t really care.”
“As the president of the shitty dad club,” Talia raised her hand like she was in a lecture hall, “I think it’s perfectly appropriate.” Jeff Cohen, Talia’s father, was none other than the man who had drunk driven himself into the collision that killed Colin’s parents, so he figured she was definitely a good judge on whether his hatred for Scarlett’s dad was unfounded. “I also think that you should just talk to Scarlett. See where you stand exactly. Figure out whether she just needs time to get used to you being back or whether she wants you to stay away forever. And then, whatever that is, respect it.”
“Talk to her,” Colin said slowly, mulling it over in his head for a moment. “Okay. Bye, Carter.” He hit the end button while Carter was in the middle of asking what was going on, and he reached for the handle.
“What are you doing?” Walker set his hand on Colin’s arm.
“I’m going back in there, and I’m going to talk to her.”