Why? A voice buried deep inside my brain scoffed at me. You know why, silly. Even if you’re not ready to admit it just yet. You still want him, and more than that, you still want him to want you.
Chapter 15
PAXTON
When was the last time I heard Colette laugh so freely? I couldn’t remember. The end of our relationship had been so tumultuous and broken that I doubted she’d laughed at all for the final month we were together.
It was all my fault, of course. After I told her about the army, things just fell apart. She hadn’t climbed out of my truck that day, never to be seen again.
I was the one who’d run away, but she hadn’t stopped fighting for us just because I’d told her I’d changed my mind about going to college with her.
Nevertheless, this side of her was refreshing. It reminded me of old times before things turned bad.
We’d finished our tasks for the evening and were now just having fun. She was even laughing at my jokes and cracking some of her own.
“How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?” She giggled as she swiped her fingers underneath her eyes to clear away the little tears of laughter that had been clinging to her lashes.
I cocked my head at her, trying really hard not to grin. “I don’t know, but this feels like a trap.”
“Oh, lighten up. There might not be as many jokes about us out there as there are about lawyers, but there are still a lot. Everyone has to be able to laugh at themselves, right?”
“Okay, so how many?” I asked, even if I was still wondering if she was going to go back to snapping at me or glaring at any minute.
“One,” she said, struggling to hold back her laughter while she explained. “But that bulb has really got to want to change.”
She cracked up, and so did I. I was really liking seeing this Colette again. The one who had made her one of my closest friends before she’d become so much more.
“That’s a good one,” I said once the laughter subsided. “Do you remember Kenny Killjoy? I wonder if he ever ended up becoming a psychiatrist. Do you know? He definitely struck me as the person who really would give a light bulb a talking-to if it didn’t want to work.”
Groaning as she covered her eyes with her hands, she nodded and was still chuckling when she replied. “I do actually know. He gave it a try, but his ability to literally kill any joy he came across got in the way. The last I heard, he was giving therapy a try. I’m proud of him for that, but I haven’t seen him again.”
“You mean he finally got over his everlasting crush on you? I’d have thought he’d still be purposely running into you all the time.”
“Nah, that ended after the first month in college.” Bracing myself for that switch to flip inside her again at the mention of the school I was supposed to have attended as well, I was pleasantly surprised when all I got was a wistful smile. “We ran into each other at this frat party, and we were talking when I realized he wasn’t listening to me at all. He was staring at this girl standing in the corner. Mara, I think. It was love at first sight for him.”
“Really? How did that go?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure. They dated for a while, but then he switched majors, and I didn’t really see much of him after. I think he might have even transferred eventually.”
After we got caught up on a few other people from high school and what we knew about them, she started telling me stories about her residency. I knew she’d been seeing April’s father around that time, but I didn’t bring it up.
We were having fun. I didn’t want to ruin it. Her hands waved around animatedly while she talked, her eyes illuminated and her features relaxed.
“When April was born, I was so out of my depth it wasn’t even a joke,” she said. “I got to the hospital one morning, and I was late, flustered, and exhausted. One of the patients came up to me, gave me one look, and said, ‘Doc, it looks like you’re the one who needs to talk today. How does that make you feel?’”
“How did it make you feel?” I asked.
She gave her head a shake and shrugged one shoulder. “Like I needed to ask him why he wanted to talk about me.”
“What did you do?” Hearing about her life after me, even though it wasn’t the immediate aftermath of me leaving, made something inside ease up.
Something that had been clenched and worried for so long that it made me feel off-center now that it wasn’t so tightly wound anymore. I’d never thought she needed me, per se, but that hadn’t stopped me from wondering about her.
Colette had carved out a good life for herself, though. A life she might never have gotten if I’d stuck around. It had never really occurred to me how much or how often I’d wondered if I’d made a mistake, but I knew now I hadn’t. Regardless of how much my decision had hurt both of us, it had worked out well.
She laughed again, a contented smile staying on her lips once she’d stopped. “I did the only thing I could do. I sat him down, told him I had a newborn that I was raising alone, and then proceeded to find out why he wanted to avoid talking about himself.”
“Did he give you a reason?”
Her cheeks turned bright red, and she rolled her lips into her mouth before slowly releasing them. “Yeah, it turned out he had been admitted for a supposed porn addiction, and he didn’t want to talk to a woman about it. But especially not to a new mom.”
Expression sobering, she sighed and pulled her hair over one shoulder. “He thought I wouldn’t understand.”
“You? But you’ve always been so understanding,” I teased, but I was also being serious. “I used to talk to you about stuff like porn all the time.”
“Yeah, but you were also my friend. He didn’t know me the way you did.”
“Fair enough, but you should’ve told him that all he needed to do was watch one video with you. Your running commentary put me off for ages.”
“It wasn’t really the same situation with him, but I’m glad if it worked for you.” She smirked before she shook off the more serious direction the conversation had gone in, redirecting it to lighter topics. “Anyway, I realized that day that I needed to find some way to do both. To be the best mom I could be as well as the best doctor.”
“You’ve always taken it upon yourself to do the impossible,” I said. “Have you figured out how to be both?”
She shrugged. “I don’t think I’m the best at either of those things, but at least I’ve found a balance. When I’m with April, I try to just focus on her. We laugh, we play, we cuddle, we learn, and then we laugh some more.”
“I can imagine that. I’ve only known her for this week, and even I’ve had fun with her.”
“She’s got a really sweet sense of humor, but we also laugh at so many everyday things.” She picked up her phone again and flashed me a picture Tierra had sent her earlier. “Look at those smiles. They turned their entire living room into a blanket fort for her, and yet they’re smiling wider than she is. Kids are good like that. They just sort of force you to be in the moment with them and not worry about anything else.”
“Tierra really needed that,” I said as I studied my sister’s face in the photograph. It was the first time since she’d told me they were engaged that she really looked completely relaxed. “Have you got any residual kiddie energy on you? I feel like I could use some of it too.”
“Always.” She started telling me stories about April that had me in stitches in no time.
Our waitress had gone off shift, and our new server was a guy who kept making eyes at Colette whenever he came to our table. She didn’t seem to notice it, but she charmed him too whenever she spoke to him.
“There was a time I bought her a headband with a crown on it and a tutu in a little princess set,” she was saying. “That thing had to be put back on the cardboard cutout of the princess it had come on every time she was finished wearing it, and it slept in bed with her for a week.”
“A crown and a tutu in bed, huh? Aren’t tutus really s
cratchy? Those don’t sound like the kinds of items you’d want to have in bed with you.”
She groaned. “You haven’t heard the worst of it if you’re worried about a tutu and a crown. Those were child’s play compared to the train set, the building blocks, and every plastic animal she has. There have been some interesting nights.”
I winced at the thought of unsuspectingly lying down on a train, a building block, or a rhinoceros. “Not exactly the kind of toys that are fun to have in bed?”
The comment just slipped out of me, and for a moment, her face fell and a thousand painful memories seemed to flicker behind her eyes, but then she sat up a little straighter and grinned. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
With the tense moment past us, she pointed at me with the open end of her glass. Luckily, it was almost done, and nothing came sloshing out of it. “It might not be as fun, but it’s much safer in ways. For example, you don’t run the risk of exploding batteries or tripping the power.”
Her eyes danced at the memories she was referring to now. It was my turn to groan and plant my face in my hands. “That happened one time. Okay, two times. How was I supposed to know that batteries salvaged from the trash that had been out in the sun weren’t a good idea, or that the stupid massager thing would make the power go out?”
“Common sense for the first one and maybe by reading the label for the latter?” she suggested, trying and failing to stifle her laughter. “Then again, common sense isn’t all that common among teenage boys.”
“Hey, I had common sense. I just wasn’t using it at that very moment. I was too excited,” I admitted without any hesitation whatsoever. “Besides, you can’t tell me you weren’t having fun with all that before disaster struck.”
Heat flared between us as we reminisced about that part of our history, but then she dropped her gaze and fidgeted with her glass before clearing her throat. “Everything was fun until disaster struck, wasn’t it?”
Her voice was softer now than it had been, but I still heard her. Sitting forward, I inched my hand closer to hers on the table but didn’t take it. Instead, I waited for her to notice it and look back up at me.
“You’re right, but have you noticed how whenever there is a disaster, new life inevitably finds a way to grow there sooner or later? Entire civilizations have risen from the ashes of what was there before.”
“Sure. In some cases. In others, all that remains to this day are the desolate wastelands of places that have never quite recovered.”
“Yet,” I said, fixing my gaze on hers. “They haven’t quite recovered yet. But regardless of what all the doomsday theorists out there believe, there’s still time for them to recover. It ain’t over ’til it’s over.”
She paused for a beat, then laughed as she rolled her eyes at me. “Okay, Mr. Eternal Optimist. Whatever you say, but I think we’re going to need more drinks if we’re going to continue down this path. Sometimes there’s a reason things don’t recover, and sometimes it’s even better for them if they don’t.”
Chapter 16
COLETTE
“You’re so drunk.” I giggled when Paxton swayed after getting up from his chair.
“So are you.” He flashed me a lopsided grin and scowled at his phone in his hand before realizing he had it the wrong way around. “That’s why I’m getting us a cab.”
I sighed dramatically and shook my empty glass at him, my cheek in my palm and my head angled up so I could look at him without standing up. “Booo. We’re having a good time. Aren’t we having a good time? Why do you want to leave?”
“Because they’re going to be sweeping us out of here with the dirt tomorrow morning if we don’t go now,” he said, dipping into a gallant bow and holding out his hand for me to take. “Our carriage is on its way. It’s too late to cancel it now.”
“It might be too late to cancel a carriage, but it’s not too late to cancel an Uber,” I grumbled but slung my purse over my shoulder and took his hand to let him pull me up.
As soon as my skin touched his, these pleasant, familiar sparks lit me up from the inside out, and it felt so good that I might have let out a little moan. I’d thought I’d swallowed it, but when his gaze darted to mine and a questioning frown appeared between them, I knew I’d made the sound out loud.
Instead of trying to defend myself, I simply shrugged and wound my fingers around his. “What?”
“Did you just moan?” he asked, amusement in his tone despite the questions on his features.
“Yep,” I said, not offering an explanation for it. Everything tonight just felt so good, almost just like it had before stuff had gone so very, very bad.
My thoughts were a jumbled mess. I knew the alcohol was firmly in charge, and I knew I’d regret some of the decisions I’d made tonight in the morning, but it just felt soooo gooood. I didn’t even care if I regretted it tomorrow. I hadn’t had this much fun or felt this free in forever.
Everyone deserves to have a night off every once in a while, I told myself. Cut loose. Enjoy life. Forget who they’re supposed to hate and why.
As if he sensed me thinking about him, Paxton tightened his grip on my hand and led me through the throng of people until we spilled out on the sidewalk outside the bar. He checked his phone before perking right up.
“There’s our car,” he said cheerfully, the slightest slur to his words.
I was sure I sounded the same, so I clung to him, and together, we stumbled toward where the sedan he’d pointed at was parked. Eyeing the ride now that I was closer, I burst out laughing and nudged Paxton with my elbow.
“Really? You splurged on a fancy one? This isn’t a date, Pax. You shouldn’t have bothered.”
He teetered sideways from the light nudge but didn’t lose his balance. His blue eyes found mine, hazy but twinkling in the neon lights that lined every entranceway on this street, and he stepped off the curb to open the door.
“I know it’s not a date, but I wanted to get you home in style now that I can actually afford to splurge a little every once in a while.” He opened the door and motioned me in. “Ladies first.”
An embarrassingly loud hiccup came out of me as I nodded and slid into the luxurious interior of the car, but I didn’t care. I didn’t really care about anything right now. It was glorious.
Except April. I always cared about her. Fumbling around in my purse, I found my phone and made a quick call to Tierra.
She answered on the second ring, whispering until there was a faint click of a door in the background. “Hey, Colette. Sorry. I just needed to leave the room. Brett and April fell asleep on the sofa in the blanket fort.”
“Is it still okay if I only come get her tomorrow morning, then?” I asked, suddenly very aware of how hot my ears felt and the buzzing I heard in them now that we’d left the noisy bar and street behind.
She chuckled softly. “It’s no problem. Like I said, they’re sound asleep, and it sounds like Paxton showed you a good time. Go sleep it off, and we’ll see you in the morning as planned. I’ll call if we need to.”
“Great. Thank you.” There were tears in my eyes when I hung up.
A heavy arm landed around my shoulders, and I started until I remembered Paxton was still with me. When I turned my head, his was only inches away from mine, and there was concern in his shiny eyes.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah.” I swallowed past the lump in my throat and shut my eyes. “Sorry. I’m just not used to spending a whole night away from April. Brett and Tierra said she could sleep there tonight, but I just wanted to check on her.”
“I bet she’s already sleeping, babe. It’s past eleven. She’ll be fine, but we can go crash on their couch so you’re there when she wakes up if you want?”
“We can’t go crash on their couch because she and Brett already have,” I said, then waved him off as I sat forward. “It’s really fine. I’ll be fine. Just having a moment.”
He squeezed my shoulder. “You’re entitled to have
a moment, but you also need to give the driver your address unless you want me to do it?”
“No, I can. I appreciate you not just taking over and doing it for me anyway. It means a lot that you trust me despite my less than ideal state right now.” I didn’t even know why I’d said it, but the words were already out, and they were true. So why the hell not say them?
He laughed softly. “Any state you’re in is the ideal state. Now, address?”
“Right.” Scooting further forward on the seat, I really took notice of the car for the first time. It was incredibly fancy, all leather and smooth finishes with only faint light and even a privacy shield between us and the driver.
He had it down at the moment, waiting somewhat impatiently for me to struggle through giving him my address. “It’s 174 Leander, I think. A town house. It’s got a black gate, and it’s gray on the outside.”
Paxton nodded. “Yep. That’s the one. I’m at 15 Aldo. Hers is a little past mine.”
The driver inclined his head to show his understanding, then stoically turned to face the road and slid the privacy shield in place. I wiggled my nose at him. “Think we stink too bad for him to keep that down?”
“Possible. We are full of liquor and little else. We should’ve ordered the nachos. I told you we should’ve ordered the nachos.”
“You did, but those other people got them, and they looked really soggy.” I bumped my shoulder into his, giggling at something not even I could pinpoint. “There’s nothing worse than soggy nachos.”
“Nothing?” He lifted his brows at me, and then his hands shot out and he was tickling me. “That can’t be true. I distinctly remember you saying many times that there’s nothing worse than being tickled by someone you couldn’t wrestle away.”
Shouting with laughter, I realized in the back of my mind that we were horsing around like teenagers in the back of a cab when we shouldn’t be, but I was too intent on trying to escape to remember why.
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