Текст книги "Crashed"
Автор книги: K. Bromberg
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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 31 страниц)
CHAPTER 33
Colton
“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 …”
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.”
“I’m warning you, Becks!” I say, standing up, fists clenched, fury racing through my veins. His words hit a little too close to fucking home. A little too close to a truth I always said I never wanted—would never tolerate—but now all of a sudden I can’t get out of my mind. Ideas of a life I never even thought could exist for me. But how is that even fucking possible? The broken merry-go-round in my head keeps whirling, but all I can think about is shutting Becks the fuck up because he’s right about me pulling away. About me not being there for her when she needed me most. So fucking right my stomach is a motherfucking mess.
“Truth hurt, dude? You want to throw a punch at me? Take the truth you don’t want to fucking face out on me?”
I grit my teeth and throw my bottle into the can and watch it shatter into a million fucking pieces. And once again I’m back here—broken glass, broken mind, and fucked up all around. He pushes my shoulder from behind, egging me on, and I take the fucking bait so quick it’s not even a thought. I whirl around, arm cocked back, fists clenched, and a fucking freight train of anger tears through me.
And Becks just stands there, eyes locked on mine, chin raised in that fuck you position daring me to take a shot. “What’s your problem, hotshot? Not so tough now, are ya?”
My body fucking hums, vibrates with every fucking ounce of emotion I’ve held in over the past week, but all I can do is stare at him, wanting so desperately to expel the motherfucking guilt eating at every goddamn piece of me.
Guilt that all of this happened because of me—not stepping up to be a man, leaving her alone with Zander, not getting to The House quick enough, not getting to the bathroom quick enough. The guilt clings to so many fucking things inside of me—the poison and the hope– that the only thing I want to do is drink another fucking beer, numb myself, and push it away.
“You wanna fight? How ’bout you save it? How about you fight for what fucking matters? Because she,” he says, pointing up to the bedroom window and lowering his voice to a quiet fucking steel, “she’s worth the fight, dude. Worth every goddamn fear eating at you. Every piece of it, Colton—A to motherfucking Z.” He steps into me and jabs a finger into my chest. “Time to deal with your past, because Rylee?” He points up to the room again and then back at me. “She’s your goddamn future. It’s fight or flight time, man. Let’s just hope you’re the man I’ve always thought you were.”
My whole body tenses at his words, and I’m so fucking pissed at myself that I don’t immediately tell him he’s full of bullshit. I’m so motherfucking angry that for a moment—just a flicker of a moment—fear consumes me so I think of flight.
Think of flight when she’s done nothing but prove she’s a fighter—a fucking gorgeous, defiant, scrappy brawler when it comes to what’s hers—while I fucking hesitated. My teeth are gritted so goddamn hard I swear my molars are going to break, and I turn my back to him and walk over to the railing and cuss out into the darkness that rivals the black I feel in my soul right now.
I don’t fucking deserve her. Sinner and saint. My caution to her motherfucking checkered flag. And as much as I know this—as much as my fucking chest hurts with each breath because of this—she’s the only thing I see. The only one I want. My fucking Rylee.
“Cat got your tongue, Colt?” he taunts from behind me. “Are you that fucking stupid you’re going to walk away because she got pregnant? Because of some shit that hap—”
And I’m done.
Temper snapped.
Gas added to my fucking fire.
“You have no fucking clue about what happened!” I yell at him, my voice breaking as I turn to face him. “Not a fucking clue!”
Beckett’s in my face in five strides. “You’re right! I don’t have a fucking clue!” He grabs my shoulders so I can’t turn away from him, and as hard as I try I can’t shrug them the fuck off of me. “But, Colton, brother, I’ve watched you struggle for years with whatever the fuck that bitch of a mother did to you as a kid, but that’s not you anymore. You’re not that kid. Never again. And, dude, Rylee accepts that. Accepts you. Fucking loves you. Figure out how to accept it and the rest will figure itself out.” He reaches out and cuffs the side of my face with a hand before stepping back and shaking his head. “It’s time to man the fuck up and realize you fucking love her too, before it’s too goddamn late and you lose the one person who’s made you whole again. Figure out how to deal with your past so you don’t lose your fucking future.”
And with that the fucker nods his head and walks toward the house as if he didn’t just fuck with me. He stops as he opens the door and turns back to face me. “When we were younger I didn’t get it, but what your dad used to tell you about hurting is feeling and some shit like that?” I just nod. “Yeah, I think you need to remember that now.”
He turns back around and disappears into the house, leaving me all alone with nothing but an empty night and haunting memories.
* * *
Hurting is feeling and feeling is living, and isn’t it good to be alive? My dad’s mantra passes through my mind as I walk into my room and see Ry asleep.
Fuck me.
She still takes my breath away. Still makes me want and need and fucking ache like no one ever has. And fuck I still want to corrupt her—that part will never go away. I laugh at my fucked up mind, but I know deep down corruption doesn’t matter anymore. Because she’s what matters now.
Rylee. Motherfucking checkered flags and shit.
I walk toward the bed knowing I could sit and stare at her for hours. Dark curls fanned across my pillow, tank top covering those perfect fucking tits and riding up on her abdomen so the moonlight shows the scars of her past. The scars that robbed her of a future she thought was impossible, until three fucking days ago.
I rub my hand down my side as I watch her, slide it over my inked scars that remind me of a future I never imagined was a possibility—until three fucking days ago, and my fingers linger over the last one—uncolored and empty. The one thing left I have to figure out before I know for sure if I can do what my head and heart agree on.
Because baggage can be a powerful thing. It can contain you. Prevent you from moving on. Kill you. And sometimes feelings aren’t enough to break its hold. To allow you to move on. But right as fucking rain, standing here, watching her chest rise and fall, it’s time my 747—baggage and all—takes fucking flight.
Because I chose fight.
My breath catches in my throat as I come to the realization that I want this. I fucking want her. In my life—day, night, now, later—and the thought staggers me. Breaks and mends me. Tames the un-fucking-tamable. Fuckin’A.
I shake my head and laugh softly. I guess I should say A to fucking Z. And I can’t resist anymore. I sink down softly into the bed next to her and push away images of what happened the last night we lay there together.
I give into the necessity coursing through me like the adrenaline I crave. I reach out and pull her in tight against me. When I do, she rolls over in my arms so her face is nestled under my chin, her arms pressed between our chests, and the heat of her breath tickling my skin as she murmurs, “I love you, Colton.”
It’s so soft I almost don’t hear it. So quiet and sluggish that I realize she’s still asleep but it doesn’t matter, my breath stops. My pulse races and my heart constricts. I open my mouth but then close it to swallow because I feel like I just ate a mouthful of cotton. I do the only thing I possibly can. I press a kiss to the top of her head.
I want to blame it on the fucking alcohol. And I want to think that someday it might be possible to actually say those words without feeling like I’m opening old wounds just to re-infect them.
I want to have hope that normal might just be a possibility for me. That this woman curled up beside me really is my cure.
So I settle for the only words that will come, the ones I know she knows matters.
“I race you, Ry.” I press a kiss to her shoulder. “Night, baby.”
CHAPTER 34
“The ceremony starts at four. You’ll be there right?”
“Yes, Mother! We’ll be there.” Shane calls out to me as he heads out the front door with a huge grin on his face, a little swagger in his step, and car keys rattling around in his hand.
“I fear we’re creating a monster.” I laugh as I look over at Colton, who has one shoulder leaned against the wall and is staring at me with a quiet intensity. I notice the dark circles still under his eyes that have been there for the last few weeks, and it saddens me he’s having nightmares again and isn’t talking to me about them. Then again he isn’t really talking to me at all about anything, other than work or the boys or the ribbon cutting ceremony later today to kick off the project. And it’s weird. It’s not as if anything is off between us, actually it’s the opposite. He’s more attentive and physical than ever before, but it feels like this is his way to make up for the fact we still haven’t talked about the miscarriage.
He asked for space and I’ve given it to him, not talking about the loss or how I’m feeling, how I’m coping. I even went so far as to not tell him about my follow-up appointment yesterday.
I get that we’re both dealing with this in our own ways. His way is to wall himself off, figure it out alone, when mine is to hold on a little tighter, need him a little more. The momentary distance between us I can handle—I know it’s temporary—but at the same time, it’s killing me to know he’s hurting. To be hurting myself when I need him and can’t ask for any more from him. Needing the connection that’s always been a constant between us.
To give him the space he asked for, when all I want to do is fix.
Late at night when I wake from dreams filled with car crashes and floors filled with blood, I watch him sleep and my mind wanders to those deep, dark thoughts that I can hide from in broad daylight. I wonder if he’s not addressing or dealing with the miscarriage because he’s worried that maybe a baby is what I want now. That maybe we’re doomed because he never will.
But if I can’t talk to him, if he changes the subject any time I try to bring it up, I can’t tell him otherwise.
And yes, while thoughts of a baby have crossed my mind, I can’t hang my hat on the idea. I can’t let myself think that I’ll be granted that post-accident miraculous chance more than once in my lifetime. Hope like that can ruin you if it’s all you’re holding on to.
But what if I’m hanging on to the hope that he’ll talk to me—come back to me—rather than slowly slip away and through my fingers? Won’t that hope ruin me too? Becks has told me to sit tight, that Colton’s figuring out his shit as much as he can tell from their years of friendship, but to not let him pull too far away. How in the hell am I supposed to know exactly how far is too far?
I need him to need me as much as I need him while I go through the emotions of losing a piece of something that was uniquely ours … and the fact that he doesn’t, kills me. Yes, his arms are wrapped around me at night while we sleep, but his mind is elsewhere. Lost perhaps in his endless texts and hushed conversations as of late. The ones that unnerve me, despite knowing deep down, he’s not cheating on me.
But he’s hiding something, dealing with something, and it’s without me when I need him to help me deal with this.
I try to tell myself it’s the lack of our physical connection that’s making me read into everything way too much. Over analyzing everything. While I lie in his arms every night, pulled tight against his chest exactly where I long to be, we’ve yet to make love since coming back from the hospital. We kiss and when I try to deepen it, move my hands down his body and entice him to want me like I crave him, he’ll cuff my wrists and tell me to wait until I feel better, despite me telling him I’m not hurt and that I’m perfectly fine. That I want to feel him in me, connecting with me, taking me again.
The rejection stings something fierce because I know Colton—know the virile, physicality he needs when he’s hurting—so why isn’t he taking it, taking me, if he’s in the pain I see rampant in his eyes?
I shake myself from my thoughts and focus on the emerald eyes locked onto mine. The man I love. The man I fear like hell is slipping away from me.
“A monster? No,” he says with a shake of his head and a smile tilting up the left corner of his mouth so his dimple deepens. “A teenager on the loose? Most definitely.”
I smile at him as he closes the distance between us, free to touch me since the rest of the boys are at baseball practice and will meet us at the ribbon cutting afterward. “You okay?” I ask him, probably for the umpteenth time in the past week.
“Yeah, I’m fine. You?”
“Mmm-hmm.” And so goes our usual thrice daily conversation—at least. Our affirmation that everything is all right even though everything feels so very different. “Colton …” My voice fades as I lose the courage to ask him more.
He senses my hesitation and reaches out to cup the side of my face, his thumb rubbing gently over my cheek. I close my eyes and absorb the resonance of his touch because it’s so much more than just skin to skin. It vibrates through me and delves into every fiber of my being, seeping into places unknown and forever stamping them with his presence, ruining me for anyone else ever again with invisible tattoos.
When I open my eyes, his are front and center in my line of sight. “Hey, quit worrying. Everything’s going to be okay. We’re okay.” He swallows and lowers his eyes before bringing them back up to mine. “I’m just trying to figure out my shit so it doesn’t affect us.”
“But—” My question is cut off when his lips meet mine. It’s a soft sigh of a kiss that he slowly deepens when he slips his tongue between my lips to dance in a slow entanglement with mine. I taste need laced with desire, but all my head can think about is why won’t he act on it?
I move my hands up so my fingers can twist in the hair curling over his collar and tell my mind to shut up, tell it to quiet down so I can enjoy this moment, enjoy him. I feel the tears well as the tenderness behind his touch overwhelms me. As if I’m fragile and will break.
I’m not sure if he can feel the shudder of my breath as I try to rein in my emotions, but he places one more soft kiss to my lips and then to my nose, that almost breaks my floodgates, before pulling back to look at me. Hands frame the side of my face and eyes search mine. “Don’t cry,” he whispers before leaning in and pressing another kiss to my forehead. “Please don’t cry,” he murmurs.
“I just … ” I sigh, words escaping me on how to express what I feel and need and want from him without pushing him too hard.
“I know, baby. I know. Me too.” He presses a kiss to my lips that causes another tear to slide down my cheek. “Me too.”
* * *
The crowd is clapping as I finish my speech and step down from the podium, my eyes sweeping over the audience. I see Shane sitting next to Jackson, clapping like the rest of the boys, but I don’t see Colton.
I scramble to come up with a valid excuse for why the biggest sponsor of the project is going to be AWOL at the ribbon-cutting ceremony and press photo session, taking place in less than ten minutes.
Where in the hell is he? He would never purposefully miss something for the boys or the project he was so instrumental in making a reality. I look down at my phone as I head toward Shane to ask him where Colton is and there is nothing. No missed call, no text, no anything.
The clapping subsides as Teddy takes the podium again to wind the press conference down. “Shane!” I whisper loudly as I motion him over to me. “Shane!”
Jax nudges him so that he stands and walks toward me. I turn my back and start walking away from the crowd, assuming he’s following me. We turn a corner so we’re away from the press and I force myself to take a breath.
“Where’s Colton?” I ask without trying to sound like I’m anxious.
“Well,” he says, shuffling his feet before looking back up to meet my eyes. “When we were on our way here, he got a phone call from someone named Kelly and he made me pull over to the side of the road so he could get out and talk to her privately.”
My heart skips and lodges in my throat despite telling myself that there has to be a perfectly logical explanation for this. Telling myself and convincing myself are two very different things though.
“Are you okay?” he asks me, blue eyes looking over my face and meeting my eyes.
I mentally chastise myself and have to remember that Shane is no longer a twelve year old but rather a teenager on the verge of manhood who notices things. “Yeah, I’m good, fine, just surprised he’s not here. That’s all.”
“Well he got back in the car and told the lady he’d call her back in a couple of minutes because he had to get us here on time. We parked right before the speeches started and he told me to head on in and he’d be right there. He got out and watched me sit next to Jax and I saw him talking on the phone as he waved goodbye to me. Why? Is something wrong, Ry?”
“No. Not at all. I just missed his call,” I lie to Shane, and most likely myself, to soften the blow. “I wanted to see if he told you when he’d be back because I’d hate for him to miss the ribbon cutting ceremony.”
“Yeah, well I’m sure something pretty important came up for him to not be here. He knows how much it means to you and stuff,” he says, twisting his lips, trying to comfort me in that awkward prepubescent way that makes my heart swell with pride.
“It must have been very important.” I smile at him. “You guys mean the world to him.” I put my arm around his shoulder and start walking back toward the crowd, hoping he misses what I’m not saying, that maybe I don’t mean the world to him anymore.
We make it back in time for the ribbon cutting ceremony, and I can’t stop my eyes from frantically searching the crowd for him. My mind repeats Shane’s words over and over. It must be something very important. Something huge, but the question is what?
And then of course doubt creeps in and nibbles at my resolve. Did something come up with Tawny? With his family? But if it had, he would have called me, texted me, something, right?
By the time the ceremony is over and I’ve said goodbye to the boys, my nerves are frayed. I’ve gone from concerned, to pissed, to uneasy, to angry, and as I speed up Pacific Coast Highway toward Broadbeach Road—his voicemail answering every time I hit dial—I’m sick to my stomach with worry.
By the time I reach the gates and pull into an empty driveway, I’m a freaking mess. I unlock and fling open the front door, his name a shout of my lips. But before I even make it past the kitchen, I know he’s not home. It’s not just the frantically excited Baxter that tells me but also the eerie silence in the house.
I open the sliding glass door to let Baxter out as a new thought hits me. What if something happened to his head? What if he’s injured somewhere and needs help and no one knows?
I run back to the kitchen counter and dial Haddie.
“Hey!”
“Has Colton called the house?”
“No, what’s wrong?” Concern floods Haddie’s voice but I don’t have time to go into details.
“I’ll explain later. Thanks.” I hang up on her while she’s still talking, telling myself I’ll apologize later while the phone’s already ringing for the next person.
