“Rylee…” he sighs my name in that way that makes me hold my breath because there’s so much emotion packed in it. He rests his forehead against the back of my head as his hands squeeze my arms. “I can’t talk about it. I just can’t.” And the way he says it tells me that he’s referring to the baby. “I can only deal with one thing at a fucking time, and right now I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I almost lost you.”
He rocks his forehead back and forth against my head. “I’m not used to feeling, Ry. I’m used to being numb … running the first time shit gets too real. And you, us, this …” He sighs “… it’s as fucking real as real can get. I feel like I’ve been sucker punched by what happened when I was just getting used to the new fucking normal. I’m shaken up. I don’t know which goddamn way is up, but I’m dealing with it the best way I know how right now. And that means dealing with getting the image of you looking like a lifeless Raggedy Ann doll out of my head.”
His words reach into the depths of my soul and give me back the tiny pieces of hope I lost with the miscarriage and the fears that ate at me from his silence. So he doesn’t want to—can’t—deal with the baby, at least he’s told me. And as much as I want and need to speak to him about it, reassure him that he’s what I need and everything else can be figured out later, I keep quiet and let him deal with what happened to me.
I shift between his legs so I’m sitting sideways in his lap, my legs resting over the top of one of his. I need to see his face, need to show him I’m okay. I look into his eyes brimming with confusion and reach a hand up to rest on his cheek with a soft smile on my lips. “I’m okay, Colton. You saved me.” I lean in and brush a tender kiss on his lips that I can’t seem to ever get enough of. “Thank you for saving me.”
“I think I should thank you.” He subtly shakes his head. “You’re the one who’s saving me.”
His words rob all thoughts from my head except for the words I can’t tell him. I love you. I love you more than you’ll ever know or I’ll ever be able to express. Doesn’t he realize the only way I could possibly save him was because he finally let me in? When is he going to accept that he is worth saving? Our eyes are locked onto one another’s as unspoken words are exchanged. I’m surprised by the tears pooling in the corners of his eyes and the shuddered inhale of his breath.
“We’re fine, Ry. I just need a minor pit stop to work through all the crap in my head I’m not used to, okay? I’m not asking for space or time apart, just a little patience as I try to figure it all out.”
I nod my head, bottom lip between my teeth because I can’t speak—physically can’t speak—because he’s just rendered me speechless. He gets my biggest fear and wants to assuage it before my mind can over-think and over-analyze everything, as I typically do.
We sit for a bit, the silence settling around us into an easy comfort. “You hungry?” he asks after a while. I just shrug, enjoying my head nuzzled under his chin and his arms wrapped around me. “The first time we came here, you threw me for a loop.”
“Why?” My voice is sleepy and content. There is nowhere else I’d rather be right now.
I can feel his shoulders shrug against me. “I don’t know. I was expecting you to get pissed that I brought you to a beach and fed you salami and cheese and wine out of Dixie cups.” He chuckles. “Little did I know you were going to rock my fucking world.”
Warmth floods through me. Images flicker through my mind of sitting here months ago with this achingly handsome man, wondering what in the hell he saw in me. And I get it now. He saw the pieces of me that could make a whole. Accepted the jagged edges that needed to be healed, because he too had the same thing. And here we sit again, in parts and pieces, needing to be put back together. But this time we have each other to lean on, to look to for help.
“God you were cocky as hell but I just couldn’t resist you, Ace.”
“Oh, baby, I’ve still got all of the arrogance and definitely a whole lot of cock.”
I roll my eyes and giggle. “My God!” I can’t stop laughing as he presses a kiss to the top of my head. “The man has arrogance in spades.”
“Nope,” he says. “Just in aces.”
“Lame!” I say, enjoying the lighthearted banter between us and leaning back to look at his face. “Seriously? That’s all you can give me? You can’t come up with anything better than that?”
“Oh, Ry.” He smirks at me, a salacious look in his eyes, as he leans in and presses a quick kiss to my lips. “No worries about the coming or the getting it up part because you’d be hard pressed to find any man that can give a fucking better than I can.”
Before I can even respond, his lips are on mine, his hands winding around my back, and our hearts entwining in a way I never thought possible.
We’ve loved.
We’ve lost.
And now we’re just finding our footing again. Us again. And it’s never felt so good to lose myself in someone so I can find myself again.
“You sure you’re okay?”
I feel his weight on the bed as he sits down next to me, his cologne momentarily masking the antiseptic smell the cleaning crew left behind. “Mmm-hmm. I’m just tired,” I tell him as I roll on my side so I can look at him. “Thank you for this afternoon,” I say, thinking about our time on the beach. Our conversation, our food from the deli reminiscent of our first date, and of the silence between us that isn’t so lonely or pained any more. “Are you okay?” I ask the same question back to him.
He pets Baxter on the head and leans down to press a tender kiss to my lips, and it’s not lost on me that he never answers the question. “I’m gonna go do some work for a bit,” he says as he rises from the bed. “You sure you’ll be okay?”
“I’m fine, Colton. I’m just going to go to sleep.” I squeeze his hand as he turns to walk out of the bedroom. “Hey, do you know where my phone is so I can let Haddie know I’m all right?”
He walks over to the dresser and brings it to me, pressing another kiss to my forehead and then my nose before walking out of the room. I watch him leave knowing the sight of him will never get old. I will never take it for granted since it has taken so much work for us to get to this point.
I power on my phone, surprised it has any battery left since it’s been here since the night everything happened. It turns on and I shake my head at the endless texts of well-wishes. I read a few about the ground breaking ceremony we have coming up to commemorate the new project beginning. And then my last text completely throws me.
Knocks the wind out of me, and steals my heart.
It’s from Colton and I don’t think words from him have ever been so honest or the depths of his despair so raw.
I’m lost here. You’re somewhere in this damn hospital and I need to talk to you. Fucking touch you. Something to you because I’m scared as fuck … so I’m going to tell you the way I know you’ll hear me. Broken by Lifehouse.
And the tears come now. They fall freely down my face and I don’t try to stop them or hide them because no one is here to see them now. And because they are tears of joy.
He loves me.
“You going to sit out here and drown your fucking sorrows all night like a whiny little bitch or what?”
The voice coming from the pitch black night scares the shit out of me. “Fucking Christ, Becks!” I bark as I turn to see him walking down the side of the house. “What the fuck, dude? You ever heard of the front door?”
“Yeah, well, you ever heard of answering your fucking cell phone? Besides, knocking’s for friends and I’m fucking family so quit your bitching.”
“I’ve been in the hospital more than enough over the past two months, a heart attack’s not part of my fucking game plan.” I take a long tug on the beer, my head finally becoming fuzzy enough that when I think of Rylee, the image of her cold, covered in fucking blood, and unresponsive isn’t what comes to mind first.
“Well, what is part of the game plan then?” he asks as he opens
the beer he’s pulled out of the fridge, that fucking smirk on his face telling me he has a point and fuck me, I don’t need any more points or advice or fucking anything right now.
“Really, make yourself at home,” I tell him. “Steal my beer.”
“Nah, just borrowing it,” he says as he plops down in the chair beside me and we sit in silence, trying to gauge the other’s mood. “We didn’t get a chance to talk much at the hospital.”
“Yeah? Well, I had more important things on my mind than shooting the shit with you.” And fuck if I’m not being an asshole. I needed him there too, but I’m not real comfortable with where the fuck he’s going with this. I feel a Becks’ dress down coming. Fuck!
“She asleep?” he asks, lifting his chin up toward the second story.
“It’s past midnight, what do you think?”
“Don’t be such an asshole. Look, you’ve been handed a lot of fucking shit to deal with and—”
“Butt the fuck out, Becks. Let me just drink my goddamn beer in peace.” I toss my empty bottle toward the trash can and fucking miss. I must be drunker than I thought. Fuckin’ A.
“No can do, brother.” He sighs as I mutter fucker under my breath which garners a drawn out chuckle from him. “You’ve fucked this up one too many times so I’m here to help.”
“Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, sweetheart.” I just want to be left the fuck alone. Me, my beer, my dog, and my fucking peace.
“Nice try but you’re stuck with me. Kind of like herpes, only better.”
What the fuck? “Dude, did you just actually compare yourself to fucking herpes?” I lean my head back and look at the stars in the sky before angling it over to stare at him and shake my head. “Because at least with herpes, my dick gets serviced first. With you, it’s more like being bent without any fucking lube.”
He laughs that laugh of his that tugs a smile up at the corner of my mouth. The stubborn fucker is getting to me when all I want is to be left the fuck alone.
“Well at least it’s nice to know you’ll let me in somehow,” he says, winking and staring at me until I can’t take it. I let out the laugh I’ve been holding in.
“You’re a sick fuck, you know that?” I say, uncapping another bottle of beer.
“You wouldn’t want me any other way.”
“Mmm-hmm,” I say as I down half of the bottle letting the night’s silence settle around us. As much as I want to be left alone—to deal with the fucked up shit in my head that’s telling me a decision’s going to have to come sooner than later—it’s nice that Becks is here, even if he’s a fucking pain in my ass. I drum my thumbs to Seether playing through the speakers as he gives me a couple of minutes before he starts playing shrink to the fucking poisonous shit in my head.
“Remember that girl, Roxy Tomlin?” he asks finally, throwing me for a loop.
“Hoover?” I laugh, curious as to why he’s bringing up the blow job queen from our past. The one who sucked Becks off just to get to me. And normally, I’d be shoving that shit out the fucking door with a stunt like that, but after he’d bragged she gave the best head he’d ever had, I took advantage of the more than willing offer.
“Yeah, fucking Hoover. The suction that never stopped.” He laughs with me, shaking his head at the memory. “Still pretty goddamn high on the ranking scale in my book.”
“No fucking Rylee, but yeah.” I shrug. “She was decent.”
“Decent?” he barks out. “I swear to God, the woman had no fucking gag reflex.”
“Maybe that’s ’cause you’re not big enough to reach the back of her throat.” I quirk my eyebrows as I finish another beer. He wants to come to my house and fuck with my head, I sure as shit am going to fuck with his.
“Fuck off, Wood.”
His bottle cap hits me in the chest as I sit back and smirk. “I’ve had much better offers, my friend, but thanks anyway.” My head’s spinning trying to figure out where the hell he’s going with this line of thinking, but fuck if I can figure it out.
“I ran into her the other day.” His calm cadence makes me to turn my head and look at him.
“And …?”
“Shocked the shit out of me is what she did.”
“Why’s that?” I pretend to be interested but he’s losing me. I glance up at the bedroom window behind me where the light’s still off, and even though I’m way beyond the road to drunk, I like knowing Ry’s up there. I try to focus back on Becks but why the fuck do I care about the easy piece we both had way back fucking when with a head so screwed up it rivaled mine?
“I barely recognized her. Still gorgeous as fuck. Filled out in all the right places now.”
Yeah, yeah, get to your fucking point, Beckett.
“And she had three kids in tow.”
“Look, dude, I know there’s some kind of six degrees of Kevin Bacon fucking happening here right now, but I’m not fucking following you so just spit out your goddamn point.” Then it hits me. Oh shit! “They’re not your kids are they, Becks?”
“Jesus Christ, Donavan, you’re fucking drunker than I thought.” He chokes out a cough before raising his hand in the air and pointing to himself. “King of double bag before you stab, right here!”
“And who taught you that, douche bag?”
“Apparently not you since you obviously didn’t practice what you fucking preach.”
His unexpected words cause a twinge in my gut that I fucking hate. The same fucking twinge I get every time I think of Rylee lying there on the goddamn floor all by herself, for who knows how long, and every time I think of the small piece of me dying inside of her. I gulp down the beer, pushing the thoughts from my fucking head and force myself to breathe.
“Where the fuck are you going with this, Daniels, because I’m drunk, have no fucking patience, and kind of think you’re trying to push my buttons to get me to react to whatever fucking point you’re taking your sweet ass time getting to. So just fucking get to it.”
“Remember that one night we all got plastered at Jimmy’s bonfire?”
“Beckett!” I growl at him because my tolerance ran out like five fucking minutes ago.
“Chill out, shut the fuck up, and listen.” I snap my head over to look at him because I’m in no fucking mood. “We were wasted and she started talking about the shit that had happened to her—bad shit—you remember?” I give him a measured nod, still not following the fucking road map he’s lost himself on, but recall the story of abuse in all forms. A conversation I took no part in. “And she said she never wanted kids, that life’s too fucked up and she didn’t want them to go through the shit she did. And now she has three kids, is married, and seems genuinely happy.”
“The fucking point?” I growl at him
“Quit being so goddamn stubborn, Donavan, and connect the fucking dots, will you?”
“I’m not a fucking constellation. Your dots aren’t drawing a picture so help me the fuck out.”
“You look like the Little Dipper to me.” He smirks.
I pick up the pillow next to me and chuck it at him. “Fuck off! Big Dipper’s more like it.” I take a long tug on my beer. Fuck, it’s empty. They’re disappearing faster than I can count them. Usually I’d just crash right here, but fuck Ry’s up there. No way I’m sleeping without her next to me. I sigh, Becks’ words running circles in my head, hinting at his point but never really landing on the fucking bull’s-eye. “Seriously, Becks, what are you trying to tell me here? Just spit it out.”
“Things fucking change, dude! Life changes. Priorities change. Pre-fucking-conceived notions change. You have to adjust and change with them or your ass gets left behind.” He shoves up out of his chair and walks to the railing and looks out into the blackness beyond. When he turns back around, he is dead serious. “We’ve been best friends for what? Almost twenty years. I love ya, man. I never interfere with the shit you’ve got going on … which woman’s warming the sheets, but fuckin’ A, Wood …”
&n
bsp; I’m not liking where this conversation is going. Deflection is my only thought. “I thought you told me I needed to fuck a B instead,” I say, trying to add some humor to this serious conversation, and fuck all if I can follow how we went from Hoover Tomlin to Becks sticking his goddamn nose where it doesn’t fucking belong.
He laughs—has the balls to fucking mock me—before walking over to me and shaking his head at me. “You don’t get it, do you? Fuck the A or the B, you have the whole goddamn alphabet upstairs and she’s asleep in your fucking bed right now, but the only letter that can fuck this up is U!” he shouts at me.
What the fuck? He’s taking her side? I swear to God, Ry’s worked her fucking voodoo pussy magic on him and he’s never even had it before. Talk about super powers and shit.
“Becks? How am I going to fuck this up? She’s here isn’t she? I want her here, brought her here, so what the hell else do you want from me? And how the fuck does Hoover factor into this shit?”
“Jesus fucking Christ!” he swears as he paces in front of me and takes a long pull on his beer. “She’s here for now! She’s here until you start thinking too fucking much about how, now that she might be able to have a baby, she just might not want you anymore because you’ve never wanted one. Until you start pushing her the fuck away and trying to hurt her so she makes the decision for you so you don’t have to fucking make it for yourself. But things fucking change, Colton! Look at Roxy ‘Hoover’ Tomlin. She never wanted kids because of the shit that happened to her as a kid and now her kids? They’re her whole goddamn world!”
“Fuck. You.” The ice in my voice rivals the chill of the fucking polar ice cap.
“No, fuck you, Colton! You sat in that goddamn hospital room when she needed you the most and sure as fuck you were there … but fluffing pillows doesn’t fix the shit that’s hurting inside of her. Or in you. I sat there and plain as fucking day watched you start to pull the fuck away from her.”