Chapter Eight
Linda barely pulled into her driveway when I jettisoned from the car, raced across the lawn, and into Colin’s house. Bailey shrieked, and I cried as I scooped her up into a bear hug of my own. It had only been sixteen hours since we’d parted, but they’d been a hellish sixteen hours, and I never wanted to repeat it.
I breathed in her baby scent and didn’t complain one bit as she ran her sticky hands all over my face. Linda came in for one last group hug before she patted both our heads and left. I collapsed on the couch with Bailey and smothered her with kisses. One for every hour I’d been away seemed reasonable to me.
In my rush to find Bailey, to hold her, I’d barely registered that Colin was in the room. Now I looked over at him, to find him watching us intently. He didn’t look away—which was good, right?—but he didn’t say anything. I couldn’t read him. I usually could, at least a little, but now his eyes were frozen over, so cold, so remote, like they’d been on that very first night in the club. He’d been a stranger, then. He looked like a stranger now.
“Colin?” I asked.
Only the slightest twitch of his eyebrow as acknowledgment.
“Don’t look at me like that. You’re freaking me out. I know you’re angry. That’s okay—you can be angry. But I’m home, and that’s…that’s good, right?”
A long pause, then he said, “Yes.”
I hadn’t necessarily been expecting a parade or anything, but what a welcome.
“Okay,” I said. “So how was Bailey for you? I mean, I know it’s only been a few hours. What time did she wake up?”
“She’s been fine. She woke up at eight and had watermelon for breakfast.”
My face fell. He was so distant. “Colin, talk to me.”
He shook his head, though it wasn’t quite a refusal. His throat worked. Oh no, he wasn’t uncaring. He was upset. I set Bailey, who’d recovered from my absence with somewhat insulting speed, down and went over to him.
“Hey,” I said, touching his cheek. “I know things were bad last night. But we’ll get through this, right?”
“You shouldn’t be standing,” he said gruffly.
It wasn’t the reassurance I’d been hoping for, but at least he cared. I let him maneuver me onto the couch. I also let him serve me the lunch he’d had delivered from his restaurant, without helping clean up afterward. Then I lay down for Bailey’s nap with her. He tucked us both into his bed, settling the blanket around us before shutting off the light and closing the door. Throughout it all, he barely said a word to me.
No, things weren’t great between us, but they would get better.
After the nap Colin insisted I lie down on the sofa while Bailey played in front of me. Since I was, in fact, tired, I allowed him to coddle me. Besides, about the only time he talked to me was to tell me to eat or sit or lie down, so I figured I might as well encourage him with my obedience. I wished he’d open up to me, but that wouldn’t be Colin.
Oh, I figured he’d crack one of these days. I’d learned that much, at least, from our drama about Rick. He kept quiet, but if I waited long enough, he’d be the one to bring it up. That’s what I told myself.
Like that night I’d been sick in my apartment, he even put Bailey down for bed.
I lay across the hall, listening to him read Goodnight Moon. There was murmuring back and forth and a song. Then he trekked down the stairs and back up, for a glass of water was my guess. And so forth.
Late, past Bailey’s normal bedtime routine, Colin came into our bedroom.
“Ready to shower?” he asked.
I raised my eyebrows, amused. “Are you telling me I stink?”
“You’ll need help,” he said as he walked into his closet.
Hmm, help in the shower. I did need one, and bonus—we’d be naked. I desperately needed to reconnect with Colin, and sex was the one way that had always worked. My head kind of hurt, and my body rather ached, but I could do this. It would be worth it, not to have Colin holding himself so still and tense whenever I was near.
He came out of the closet wearing only boxers. He pulled me off the bed and undressed me, reminding me of that night in my apartment. That night he had kissed every bruise. Would he now? I had plenty of bruises in all kinds of interesting places. And if I didn’t, I’d fake it.
Colin held my hand as I stepped into the shower; then he came in after me. He didn’t take off his boxers, though. He just walked right in and soaked them through.