Hold On

He studied me as I had these thoughts, ending them with my lips going up in a small smile.

Seeing that, he shook his head again, gave me another mouth touch, then murmured, “Get to work. I’ll be back.”

He started to walk away and I started to follow him, but then he stopped.

I did too.

He twisted to me. “Steer clear of that house, baby.”

Something in his face freaked me.

Shit. Did he already know something was going down at that house?

I didn’t ask. I nodded.

He nodded back, turned around, and kept walking.

Only when he tipped up his chin did I notice Colt leaning against the wall that delineated the pool area from the rest of the bar.

I walked right to Colt, who didn’t move, and stopped.

“Did you call him?” I asked.

“Nope,” he answered. “You barely rounded the corner to get to Ryan when he walked in the front door. I just told him where you were.”

Bad timing.

“Though,” Colt went on, “you plus Ryan equaling disaster, or just Ryan bein’ a dumbass on more than a rare occasion equaling disaster, Merry showin’ saved me from makin’ the call I was just about to make.”

“Traitor,” I muttered, only slightly joking, and made a move to pass him and finally get to work.

“Cher.”

I stopped at his side and looked up at him, raising my brows.

“You mean a lot to me. The pain-in-the-ass little sister I never had,” he announced.

Shit.

More warm and squishy, even with the pain-in-the-ass part.

“Sayin’ that to soften the blow of sayin’ this,” he continued.

Fuck.

“Take your big brother’s advice,” Colt stated. “You’re a tough chick and we all get that. But you hooked your star to a guy who makes a living providing protection. That is not a job. It’s a calling. Do not take that away from him. I don’t give a shit if it’s somethin’ you think is stupid, like fightin’ over who takes out the trash. But definitely shit like this, Cher. You gotta let him have shit like this or you’re not gonna keep him.”

Apparently, Colt had been our audience for a while.

“I thought I was protecting him,” I explained.

“You got that job, babe. Definitely. But when you do that, actually do it. And you aren’t doin’ it, keepin’ anything from him.”

I had noted late in life, after getting Colt in that life, that having a big brother rocked.

Except in times like these when he shared badass wisdom and relationship advice and it compounded the feeling of being an idiot I already felt.

It sucked to admit it was lucky for me he did. I’d already come to this conclusion about how to proceed in a relationship with Merry, but his added wisdom wasn’t entirely unwelcome.

Just mostly unwelcome because it compounded the feeling of me being an idiot.

I powered past that because I had no choice and because the jig was up, and since it was, I had to see to my part of the protection deal with Merry.

“Ryker’s got somethin’ goin’ on with that house, Colt, and I’m not thinkin’ Merry’s gonna be too happy when he finds out what it is.”

“I’ll talk to Mike. I’ll talk to Tanner. We’ll have his back.”

That made me feel better.

“Thanks,” I muttered, again moving to pass him.

“Cher,” he called again.

I stopped on an audible huff and gave him big impatient eyes.

I knew by his dancing he was going to give me shit, but I had no clue how the kind of shit he was going to give me would make me feel.

“You ask anyone else other than me to give you away at your wedding, it’s gonna piss me off.”

All the oxygen evacuated my body. Gone. I couldn’t breathe. And when you can’t breathe, you can’t move. So that’s what happened. I stood there, immobile, not breathing, staring at Colt, thinking of walking down an aisle in a church toward Garrett Merrick.

Since Colt got me and got me good, he smiled huge, moved into me, tossed an arm around my neck, and forced me out of my statue state to walk tucked into his side toward the bar.