CHAPTER 9
I pull into my driveway and sit in the car for several moments humming to the music pouring out of the speakers, running through my time with Colton in my head. I subconsciously sing the song out of habit, for the words and the rhythm are comforting to me. I place my hands on the top of the steering wheel and rest my head on top of them. It’s not like I have been out with many guys in my life, but that was one of the most intense, passionate, and strangely comforting dates of my life. I shake my head as I replay it again.
Holy shit! That’s all I can really think about my evening. About Colton’s unexpected pursuit. The devil on my shoulder reiterates to me that this is all my fault. That if I’d acted like the ‘normal’ me, I would’ve never been willing victim to his deft hands in a backstage alcove. I would’ve never been in the position to tell him ‘thanks but no thanks,’ spurring on this whole chase—this whole challenge—a welcome change in his world of overly eager, willing women.
I scream out startled at the knock on my car window. I am so deep in thought, I never saw Haddie approach my car. My heartbeat returns to normal as I open the door to her.
“Hi, Had. Just a sec,” I say as I reach across my seat to grab my belongings.
I sense Haddie’s presence shift into the doorway as her body blocks the garage light, throwing the front seat in shadow. “Is that Matchbox Twenty?” she questions as she strains to hear the music playing quietly on the stereo system.
Uh-oh, I tell myself, she knows something is up. My subliminal predilection of listening to Matchbox Twenty whenever I’m upset or thinking things through has come back to haunt me. Haddie knows this all too well from the dark period of my life. She knows me so well that she understands certain songs represent certain things I’m working through.
I look over at her, hands on her hips, irritation emanating off of her in waves, and I’m not sure just how much she knows. And depending on what she knows is how hurt she’ll be that I’ve kept it from her.
There is no rationalizing with Haddie when she’s angry. When she feels wronged. I silently groan for I know my interesting day is about to get longer. She never backs down until she gets the answers she wants. She can fool everyone because behind her innocent beauty is her razor sharp wit—but not me.
I know better.
I flip off the car quickly before she can hear which song I have on repeat, Bent. At least it’s not Unwell. I have my bag in my hand but can’t exit the car because she is standing in the way.
“I think we need to have a little chat,” she says haughtily. “Don’t you?” She moves out of the way, her hands on her hips. All she needs is to tap her foot, and I’ll be transported back to being in the principal’s office in grade school.
I force a cheerful smile on my face, “Sure, Had—What’s up? You seem pissed at something?”
“You.”
“Me?” I respond walking to the front door, rolling my eyes since she is behind me.
“Don’t roll your eyes at me either, Ry,” she demands as we walk through the front door.
I laugh at her intimate knowledge of me and my facial expressions, and at the same time I steel myself for all that is Haddie Montgomery.
I drop my stuff by the tall table that stands against the entry wall. I skulk over to the couch in our front room and sink into, wishing I could just close my eyes and fall asleep. But I can’t for Haddie sits down on the other end of the couch and curls her lithe legs beneath her.
“When were you going to tell me?” Her voice is chillingly quiet. This is not a good sign. The quieter she is, the more pissed she is.
“About?” I prompt, figuring if she gives me what she knows, I can at least get credit for telling her the rest that she doesn’t know.
“Colton freakin’ Donavan?” she sputters, eyes wide, trying to suppress a grin that threatens to break through her implacable façade. “Are you f*cking kidding me? And you didn’t tell me?” The pitch of her voice escalates with each word. She grabs her glass of wine on the end table next to her and sips it, never breaking eye contact with me over the rim. Her next word is quiet, hurt evident. “Why?”
“Oh, Haddie,” I blow out, scrubbing my hands over my face, trying to bite back the tears that threaten. I lose the battle and a single tear slips down my cheek, “I’m so confused,” I sigh, closing my eyes momentarily to gain control of my slipping emotions.
Haddie’s face softens at my confession. “I’m so sorry, Ry—I just—I’m hurt you didn’t tell me—I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay,” I tell her, slipping my shoes off, the grains of sand stuck to my feet reminding me that I really was with Colton tonight. As if I need a reminder with the scent of his cologne mixed with the smell of him still fresh in my mind. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. How did you—”
“You didn’t answer your phone … like at all. I was excited to tell you about someone we confirmed for the big launch party tomorrow. I texted and called several times and didn’t get a response,” she says. “I was concerned. It’s not like you to at least give me a one-word answer if you’re busy. I was worried so I called Dane.” My eyebrow rises at that in question. “I guess he had just put two and two together at who CDE is with their contribution at the charity auction and with your little visitor at work today that had all the counselors texting furiously,” she shrugs as a manner of explanation. “So what’s going on, Rylee? What are you hiding from me?”
“It’s just—I am just so overwhelmed with everything.” I continue to tell her the story, every sordid detail despite my embarrassment at our first ten minutes of interaction. Her face remains impassive during my replay of events as she digests them.
When I’m finished, she is quiet for a few moments, staring at me with unconditional affection on her face. “Well,” she says rising to get more wine and returning with a glass for me, “there are many things to say, to discuss, but first and foremost,” she grabs my knee, excitement vibrating off of her, “Holy shit, Rylee! Colton? Donavan? Backstage at the theater! Woohoo!” She raises her arms above her head and I mentally cringe, hoping she won’t spill her wine. “I’m so proud you finally got a little crazy. What’s gotten into you?”
I feel the deep crimson flush over my face as I bow my head and start twisting the ring around and around my finger. “I know,” I mumble, “I just don’t get it either.”
“What?” she shouts at me. “What the hell are you talking about?” She shoves my knee vigorously. “I meant wow in admiration, not wow in why would he pick you. Snap out of it, Ry.” She snaps her fingers in front of my face, forcing me to look at her. “He is f*cking gorgeous! All rebellious and smoldering bad boy … ”
As if I need to be reminded.
Haddie looks back at me, I can see the giddy part of her now coming to the surface, “Is he as good looking in person as he is on TV?”
I try to find the perfect word but I say the first ones that comes to my mind. “He’s breathtaking,” I say reverently, “and sexy and domineering and frustrating and his eyes are just … and his lips … ugh!” I am caught up in the memory of him, my mind drifting over bits and pieces. When I come back to the here and now, I find Haddie staring at me, a ghost of a smile on her mouth.
“You really like him don’t you?” she says quietly, sensing what I feel but refuse to say.
Tears pool in my eyes at the thought despite the smile plastered on my face. “It doesn’t matter if I do or don’t, he made it clear he only wants me for one thing.” I shrug, taking a long swallow of my wine. “Besides, I can’t do that to M—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” she yells, waving her arms in the air to stop me, “I’m going to take this discussion and break it up into two different parts—compartmentalize it for you and your anal ways, if you will—because both really need to be addressed.” She scoots closer to me. “Rylee, honey,” gravity in her voice, “who cares what the future holds when it comes to Colton. If he only wants you for your body and some earth-shattering sex, then so be it. Go for it. Just because it’s not what you’re expecting doesn’t mean it’s not everything you might need. And who better to do it with than a f*cking Adonis like him?” She swigs another drink, amusement on her face, “Shit, I’d take that for a ride in a heartbeat,” she murmurs, her lips pursing in thought at what it would be like.
I laugh out loud at her, “You would,” I tease, slowly feeling my body unwind from the tension. “That kind of thing is easy for you.”
She shoves at my leg, “Gee, thanks! I’m not a slut!” She contemplates. “Well, unless I want to be,” she laughs.
“No,” I huff, “I mean you are so carefree and sure of yourself. Everything you do you’re sure about. No regrets.” I cock my head to the side, “And you sure are attracted to the bad boys.” I smirk at her.
“Hmm-hmm, I do love them naughty,” she laughs momentarily lost in her thoughts, “but back to you. No need getting me all twisted up over a man that’s into you.”
I roll my eyes at her comment.
“Rylee, the guy can have any woman he wants, and he is busy chasing you around, paying thousands for dates, spending millions to make your dream come true, and taking you on impromptu romantic dates to the beach. At sunset.”
“According to him, he doesn’t do romance.”
She snorts loudly, “Well maybe he needs to redefine what romance is,” she rebukes, “because all of those things spell out a man in pursuit to me.”
I shake my head at her and her Haddie frankness. “He just wants me because I told him no. I’m a challenge to him in an otherwise willing world of women.”
“You were quite the challenge when he had you up against the wall backstage huh?” She quirks her mouth, goading me.
“You know that is so not like me, Haddie! I haven’t been touched since …” the silence settles and I shake my head to clear it of the memories holding me hostage, “besides, I came to my senses. It was just the adrenaline from being trapped—”
“You just keep telling yourself that, sweetie, because I’m not sure if you’re trying to convince me or yourself that it’s just a simple lapse in morality.” She shrugs, not breaking eye contact with me. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s okay to feel again, Rylee. To live again.”
Tears threaten again, and I dash them away with the back of my hands before they can fall. “And even though we aren’t done with item number one on our agenda, let’s visit item number two.” I level my eyes with hers, apprehension filling me. All of the sudden, her expressions changes into understanding as the realization hits her. “You didn’t want to tell me because you didn’t want me to tell you that it’s okay to live again. That it’s okay to move on.” Her questioning voice is soft, soothing.
I nod slowly as I swallow the huge lump in my throat. She scoots close to me, wrapping her arms around me, rocking me slowly, and making hushing noises. A huge sob escapes, and I succumb to the tears that have threatened me for several days. It feels so good to let them out, cathartic really.
After a few moments I find a semblance of control and am finally able to speak. “I just—I feel like I’m betraying Max. I feel like I don’t deserve—” my breath hitches from my sobbing, “I feel guilty—”
“Rylee, honey,” she tucks an errant curl of hair behind my ear. “It’s normal to feel that way, but at some point you have to start living again. It is a tragic, horrific thing that happened to you guys. To him. To you. But it’s been over two years, Ry,” she grabs my hand, “and I know you don’t want to hear it, but at some point you have to move on. You don’t have to forget, but you—the wonderful, beautiful woman that you are—needs to live again. You too, were once carefree. It’s not too late to find that again.”
I stare at her, tears blurring my vision, and afraid that my next admission will make me a horrible person. I avert my eyes, afraid to look at her when I speak. “Part of the reason I feel guilty … I … the intensity, the desperation, the everything that Colton makes me feel is so much more, so much stronger, than I ever felt with Max,” I take a chance, and look back at her face, finding the exact opposite expression than what I had expected. I find compassion rather than the disappointed disgust. “And I was going to marry Max,” I choke out, relieved to have gotten this huge burden off of my chest and off my conscious. “I know it’s stupid, but I can’t help feeling it. I can’t help that it pops into my head in that moment when all I feel, breathe and want is more of Colton.”
“Oh, Ry … why have you been holding all of this in by yourself?” She wipes one of her own tears before pulling me to her and squeezes me again. She rests her cheek on the top of my head. “Rylee, you were a different person then. Your life is different now. Back then, anyone that saw you and Max together—we just knew that you were perfect for each other—just as you knew,” I can hear the smile in her voice as she reminisces. “And now,” she sighs, “you’ve been to hell and back in a little over two years. You are not the same person you were. It’s natural to feel differently—to love deeper, feel stronger—no one is going to fault you for that. No one has touched you in two years, Rylee. Your reaction is going to be more intense.”
We sit there in silence as I absorb the truth in her words. I know she’s right, I just hope that I can believe it when the time comes. My contemplative silence is broken when Haddie suddenly starts laughing. She releases me from her hug, and I lean back to look at her perplexed. What in the hell is so funny? “What?”
She looks at me and I can see debauchery in her eyes. “He’s probably great in bed,” she smirks wickedly. “I bet he f*cks like he drives—a little reckless, pushing all the limits, and in it until the very last lap.” She raises her eyebrows at me, her grin sassy.
Her words make me bite my bottom lip at the thought of him hovering over me, sinking into me, filling me. I relive the feel of his lips on mine, the firm muscles beneath his clothes flexing with me, and his raspy voice telling me he wants me. I break from my thoughts, my core dampening at the thought of him. I look back to Haddie, watching her watch me, her eyebrows still raised, as if she is asking me if I think her assessment is accurate.
Oh boy, do I. And then some.
“Since when do you watch racing? Know how he drives?” I try to avert the focus from me.
“Brody watches it. I pay attention when they say Colton’s name,” she says of her brother and then smirks devilishly. “It’s definitely worth watching when they flash his face on camera.”
“The man can kiss,” I confess, grinning like a loon. “He can definitely kiss.” I nod my head in agreement.
“Don’t think about it, Rylee … just do it! Be reckless. Let your hair down,” she urges. “Do you want to wake up twenty years from now with a perfectly ordered life with everything in its proper place but never having really lived? Never really put yourself out there?”
“Well, I like the everything in order part,” I kid as she rolls her eyes at me.
“Of course, in that whole statement you would hear that! Just think of the stories you can tell your grandkids someday—about the sordid affair you had with the hot playboy race car driver.”
I take a sip of my wine, contemplating her comments. “I know what you’re saying, Haddie, I really do, but the sex without commitment thing. Without the relationship thing … how do you do that?”
“Well you stick flap A in slot B,” she answers wryly.
“It was a rhetorical question, you bitch!” I laugh throwing the pillow next to me at her.
“Thank God! I was worried it had been so long that I was going to have to give you a sex-ed lesson.” She reaches over to the table and uncorks another bottle of wine, topping off both of our glasses. She settles back in the couch, and I can see her mentally choosing her words before she speaks. “Maybe it’s best that way?” When all I do is raise my eyebrows in question, she explains. “Maybe for your first guy since Max, maybe its best that he isn’t relationship material. You’re bound to have some hiccups—after everything you’ve been through—so maybe it’s best to throw caution to the wind and embrace your inner slut for a little bit. Have some fun and a lot of mind blowing sex!” She wiggles her eyebrows and I giggle at her, my overconsumption of wine slowly taking effect, smoothing over my frayed nerves.
“My inner slut,” I reiterate, nodding my head, “I like that, but I think she’s lost.”
“Oh, we can find her, sister!” she snickers. “She’s probably hiding behind the layers of cobwebs covering your crotch.”
We both laugh out loud before we slowly start giggling uncontrollably. My overwrought emotions from the week welcome this release. I giggle until tears seep from the corners of my eyes. Just when I think my laughter is going to subside, Haddie shakes her head, “You have to admit, Ry, the man is f*cking hot!”
I start giggling again, “Scorching hot!” I confirm. “Man, I can’t wait to see him naked!” The words are out before my fuzzy brain has had a chance to filter them.
Haddie stops mid-laugh, a knowing smile playing her lips. “I knew it!” she yells at me, pointing at my face, “I knew you wanted to f*ck him!”
“Well, duh?” I respond before we collapse again in another fit of giggles.
“Let’s get you drunk tomorrow night at the event, and then we’ll drunk dial his ass for a booty call.”
“Oh God, no!” I blanche. What have I gotten myself into?