“Colton?” I watched her eyes simply light up at Colton’s name, and if I hadn’t known any better, the expression had been genuine. Maybe it had been, since the man clearly was her meal ticket. She sat up. “Where is he? Is he okay? I got his text.”
Before this could go any further, I showed her that text on his phone I slipped away with. I left mine at the hotel with a note on it in case Colton woke up before I could return. I said he could call me on it and reach me if he needed. I just hoped I got back before he did wake up so I wouldn’t have to explain the reason behind the switch.
Maggie’s eyes twitched while gazing at the screen and her sight lifted to me when she sat back.
“I don’t understand,” she said, bracing her purse now. “Who are you? And where’s my son?”
Her son… such a loose term she was using. As far as I knew, Colton only had one official legal mother. He had his stepmom, Ann, and a couple of other pretty awesome mother figures in his life. I knew for a fact his grandma Rose and aunt Robin raised him and his brothers from the time they were children. They raised them because this woman was completely absent from their lives. The reasons for her exit were unknown to me, of course, none of my business, but I summed up on my own a pretty good reason anyone would abandon their children.
Pure and utter selfishness.
My theory was only backed by the text messages I read. She was a manipulative woman who took advantage of someone who merely wanted to connect with her, and I’d say, if anything, desperately. He’d been desperate for a relationship with her, and she seized that glimmer of hope just as easily as she’d taken the handouts from him. She used him, hurt him, and if not for me, she might have actually killed him. Colton’s heart had been too big, too open. It got him in trouble, and when it did, he’d had too much pride or whatever to ask for help. He needed help, someone to be there for him. That someone wasn’t this woman, and I was going to make sure of that.
I put my phone away. “I read what was exchanged. The text messages between you and him?” I scoffed. “You know, he set up a charity in your name? He legitimately put aside money every month for you like the charity case you are, which I guess he had something there—”
“I don’t have to explain myself to you. Whoever you are.” She wrestled her purse on her shoulder. “The only person I need to talk to is Colton.”
“Which you’re not going to do. That is why I’m here for him,” I said, standing up with her. “Do you know what you’ve done to him? What you put him through? He trusted you, lady, and what you did to him was sick, fucked up in every way.”
“You don’t think I know that!” she whisper-shouted, actually talking to me. She moved in. “You don’t think I understand what I did. How he… How he hurt himself?”
So she really did know, something talked about in her text messages. Colton overdosing had been all over the news nationally, not just here. Wherever she was staying at the time, she would have found out. Especially if he hadn’t been answering her messages.
Shaking, the woman sank back down to her seat, her beautiful blue eyes haunted like she actually had seen Colton, her son foaming at the mouth and about to die. She hadn’t seen that, only I had, and my tongue ticked to lay into her again. The only reason I held back was because she couldn’t even see me. Her stare fell away into the cafe, lost.
“I was sick,” she said, her lips trembling. She faced me. “I did use him. Like I use everyone, their dad.”
Their dad…
“Blake was my first love,” she said, shaking her head. “A wonderful man, and I took advantage of him too.”
“Why?”
I knew for a fact Colton’s dad was a hard-ass, but there was just something about him one could tell stemmed from nothing but good intentions. Nothing but love drifted off that man, and one could see that simply from the way he’d raised four boys on his own all while working himself. Today, their dad, Blake, not only had two professional athletes as a product of himself, but also two businessmen. Colton’s brothers Brody and Hayden ran a furniture business alongside their creative father. They were all wonderful and successful people, and at the root of it all was that man, their dad.
Maggie swallowed hard. “Because I was sick, weak. I gave into the pressures of life. I don’t know if Colton told you, but I had an issue with drugs, have an issues with drugs.” She dropped her head. “They made it all easier, alcohol made things easier, and when I found out about Colton…”
“That’s not him,” I told her, not really knowing why. “He’s not like that, not like you. He was just hurt.”
She nodded her head, pushing back her hair. Considering what she said about drugs, I’d actually been surprised since she look so together, but I guess some of us could hide it.
She cupped her mouth. “I left originally because I was no good for them all. They were better without me, better with just Blake, my mom, and my sister.”
She’d left them all. I shook my head.
“Better for them,” I said, nodding. “I supposed that’s the easy way out, right? They’re better and you can just go frolicking off in the night, doing whatever the heck you want.”
“They were better.” She brought her voice down again, and the sheen in her eyes was easily identifiable. She put out a finger. “You see what they’ve become. Colton, Griffin…”
“Then why not leave them alone? Why not stay away from them? Colton?”
“Because they were okay,” she said, the cry clear in her throat. “They were older. They made it, and they didn’t need me.”
Her voice wavered on that last bit, her hands falling into her lap. She forced her fingers through her lengthy blonde hair, and though she hadn’t continued, I picked up on where she might have been headed. She was right. They were older and didn’t need her, but maybe that lack of need didn’t go both ways.
This woman was clearly troubled, needed someone, and possibly, she sought to fulfill that with Colton. I had no idea if things started out genuine or what, but she obviously took things to a place they shouldn’t have been taken, too much temptation with his successes.
Too much temptation for a sick woman.
“I didn’t mean to take anything from him,” she said, nodding. Tears fell away from her eyes as she lifted her head. “I honestly hadn’t. I had been clean for a while, and then… I wasn’t anymore. I lost my job. Things got hard again.”
“And you took the easy way out.”
Her lashes lifted. “I took the easy way out, yes, and went to the drugs again.” She dampened her pink lips. “Colton begged me to go to Texas, see his brothers and his dad, but I wasn’t ready. I just couldn’t. I was in the rough of it and refused to come back into their lives like that. Colton had no idea I’d fallen back into drugs and the drink. I was sober when I reached out to him. I wouldn’t have come to him any other way. I actually cut off contact from anything but text messages for weeks because I couldn’t see him. I didn’t want him to see me that way, my baby boy.”
“Well, he isn’t a boy,” I corrected. “He’s a man, and he deserved an explanation from you no matter how messed up you are.”
“I know that now. God, do I.” Her shoulders shook, her fingers dancing on the table. She looked up. “I went to rehab the same time they announced he did. I’m clean again.”
“And now you’re back for another crack at it? Do you realize how fragile you are right now? Let alone Colton. You came to him clean for however long, sober for what? A few weeks, and you’re trying to rebuild those ties again?”
“I didn’t come back for me.” Her face filled with red. “I know what happened to him. I know what I’ve done, and I came back to make sure he’s okay.”
“Well, he’s not,” I told her, spelling it out. “He’s far from it. He’s hurt, distracted…”
And had so much pain I actually felt its physical presence when he’d been with me earlier. He had it all clamped up in this little Pandora’s box, not to be seen or opened wit
hout special access. I felt, in a way, he was starting to open up a bit with me, and that had nothing to do with her. He may be on the road to healing, but he’d definitely shy away from that with any influence from this woman.
“He needs you to stay away,” I said. “He’s broken, fragile, and the last thing he needs is you.”
Her expression chilled. “And you would know? Whoever you are?”
“I would,” I said, standing. “Because unlike you, I’m one of the people who has been there. I’m one of the people who will stay here for the long haul.”
As long as he let me, I would. I’d be there for him through this and anything else, because I truly loved him.
Picking up my bag, I pushed it over my shoulder. I put out a finger to her. “You will stay away from that man, and if I ever hear a whisper of you coming around him, well, you better lawyer up, baby, because I’m going to come down so hard and fast on your ass you won’t know what hit you in the morning. There are grounds upon grounds of manipulation, blackmail, and all kinds of shit I can present to lock you up and throw away the key. You’ll stay away, and if not for yourself…”
For him. Because if he mattered the most, she would. At least for now. I couldn’t say where Colton would be in a month or even a year from now, but he was bound to be better off without any negativity from her in his life. From what she told me, the separation would be good for her too. She could figure herself out, come to things on her own terms, and maybe, one day, she would be better for him.
Maybe, one day, she’d be better for them both.
Today, unfortunately… tragically, wasn’t that day for either of them, a son without a mother and a mother who obviously wanted her son.
I started to walk away but stopped at her voice.
“Can you at least tell him I love him?” Her voice got closer, like she stood. “Please…”
I closed my eyes, not sure if I could even do that. Maybe one day, but it was just too soon, too fresh. Quickening my feet, I made it to the door, but an obstacle in my way stopped me, a man big and broad, and I knew who he was before I even scaled up to his face.
I supposed I recognized his basketball shoes.
Colton had my phone in his hand, his eyes slightly red like he’d been torn from sleep, and maybe he had been. He slept so soundly with me in bed, but I knew for a fact he didn’t sleep well normally. He told me. Tonight and the evening we spent together at his home had been a wonderful exception.
“Cami?”
I grabbed his arm, trying to push him out the door a little. “What are you doing here?”
“The ‘Find My Phone’ app,” he said, sliding his arm away. “What are you doing here? And with my phone? Why did you leave?”
So many questions he had, and I would have been happy to answer them if not for who he clearly saw moments after his final question. I didn’t even have to turn around to know he knew. His entire body language changed, his body stiffening after his gaze rose above me.
“Colton…?”
Again, I didn’t turn, the voice of hope behind me in my ear. It’d been her voice, his mom. Instead, I chose to grab Colton’s arm.
He took it away again, facing me instead of her. “What is she doing here? Why are you with her?”
This moment I actually chose to look at Maggie, that same hope in her eyes I’d heard in her voice. Purse in hand, she’d left the table, slowly making her way toward us.
She raised her hand, a wave. “Colton… baby—”
“I’m not your baby,” he stated, lifting his own hands. The words so sharp, Maggie stopped in her place, cringing. She could do nothing as Colton chose to grab me, pulling me out of this situation and outside the coffeehouse. The door chimed when we left, and though no words were said initially on the street, Colton’s eyes were wild.
He lifted his hands. “What the actual fuck? Cami, what—”
“Let me explain.” Because he was freaking out, panicking. I grabbed his shaking hands. “Colton—”
“No. No!” He wouldn’t even let me touch him, backing away when he pushed his hands over his buzzed head. “You went to see her? See my mom…”
He could barely even say the word and he shouldn’t have. That woman was no maternal figure to him. He had plenty of those in his life, and none of them were her.
“Why?” he asked, a clear strain in his voice. “Why? Why? Why…?”
He kept asking that, making me cringe, and I wanted to explain myself. He was asking me to explain, but I found it hard by the way he was looking at me. Like I overstepped my position. Like I betrayed him when I hadn’t. I’d only done this for him.
“Colton, I just had to talk to her. I wanted her to stop talking to you. I saw your text messages with her.”
“You read my texts?” More of that betrayal, his irises flaring as he pushed those words through his teeth. “Why, Cami? Why?”
“Because you weren’t doing it yourself,” I explained, feeling I had to do so quickly. “She was coming back again, trying to lead you down a path. She was trying to hurt you, Colton, and I just—”
“Were what? Trying to protect me?” His jaw clenched. “Why does everyone feel like they need to fucking protect me all the time? You, my brother, and my goddamn family all the fucking time. You know, Griffin came down here to tell me she might come? And that was after he felt like he had to step in to make sure Miami stuck with me.”
“Because he cares about you, Colton,” I said, trying to calm him down. “We all care. We all love…”
I couldn’t finish when his attention flashed to me, his head turning like he couldn’t take it.
Like he didn’t want me to finish.
For some reason, he didn’t want me to say I loved him, even though I had before. It bothered him for some reason, and my insides caved like I’d been run over by one of the buses in the street.
Shaking, I cradled my arms. “I care about you, Colton. I just wanted to help.”
“Well, you didn’t,” he said, closed off as well. His hand folded behind his neck. “You didn’t, and you may have only made things worse. I was handling the situation with her. I was dealing with it.”
“Ignoring her isn’t dealing with it.” I tried to find his eyes. “You have to be clear with her what you want.”
“Like you were with me?” His words cut. “When you didn’t want to be with me because of your ex? You were pretty damn crystal clear about that, weren’t you?”
I cringed. “You’re just lashing out, taking this out on me because you’re hurt. Don’t.” I paused, trying to keep my breathing even. “Don’t push me away. I just want to help.”
“I don’t need your help, Cami—”
“I don’t want you to hurt yourself again!”
The words vibrated through the open air like lightning, our reality. They severed through the world like a turbulent storm, and the pair of us were in the middle of it.
Colton’s lips trembled, his breath a harsh rupture raising his chest.
“You think,” he started, squeezing his eyes before looking at me. “You think I hurt myself on purpose?”
He… honestly didn’t see it? What he’d done because of that woman?
I shook my head. “You overdosed after all this shit with your mom.”
“Because I was stressed,” he admitted. “I got fucked up because of a fucked-up situation. That doesn’t make me suicidal, Cami.”
“Okay.” I raised my hands because I didn’t want him to shut me out, walk away, but all that did was make him tense up.
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“I’m not.”
“But you are.” He stood back. “You’re looking at me like I’m crazy, and you’ve once again assumed something about me.”
I had assumed something about him, but the difference was this wasn’t a snap judgment. He was a drug addict without a drug problem.
But for some reason he didn’t know that.
He was
n’t aware of what was going on, and I didn’t know how to help him. I tried to approach him, but he wasn’t letting me.
“I need space from you,” he said, stabbing me right in the chest with the words. He shot a finger back to the coffeehouse. “And I need to go deal with this.” He left me in the street after that, all those words between us. He wouldn’t let me help him.
How could he when he didn’t know he needed help?
Chapter Eighteen
Colton
My mom backed into the cafe when I returned. Because she’d been watching. She may not have heard the fallout between Cami and me since she was inside…
But she’d seen everything.
I had always wondered what Maggie would look like when I saw her. I mean, I’d seen pictures of her, but with the stories my brothers shared about her over the years, I figured she’d be all drugged out. She’d be all frizzy hair and unkempt and with eyes bloodshot to hell. I figured a drug abuser would be clearly seen, and if she had been that way when I first met her, that would have made this whole thing easier.
She looked… put together then, as she did now. Like a real mom with a little sporty bag and summer clothes like the locals strutted around here wearing. She looked like… Momma, and that made things so much damn harder. I didn’t want her to look like my mom. I didn’t want her seeming a fraction of anything I concocted in my head of what the woman who gave birth to my brothers and me looked like, but she did.
She fucking did.
And she used that. She used every absent memory I had and created new ones every time we’d been together. We met up numerous times, spoken on the phone countless more, and our text messages were in the hundreds. They’d been every day with only hours passing in the beginning. It’d only been too easy for her to disrupt my life and make me lie to everyone about her. I knew none of my family would be okay with her being around, but I was willing to do the hard stuff to prove to them that she should be.
Colton (Found by You Book 7) Page 14