Colton (Found by You Book 7)

by Victoria H. Smith

  “Cami? Cami?” He just kept saying my name, gripping my hand like he did so for dear life. “Cami, help me. I can’t see.” He really couldn’t, staring at me blankly.

  I screamed in that parking lot, calling out for someone, anyone to help me.

  “Please, we need help!” I called again, staring down at this beautiful man. “Colton, stay with me, okay?”

  “Cami…”

  “Help, please! Anyone!”

  “Oh my God. Colt!”

  Colton’s brother Hayden bounded toward us, the troops behind him. Brody, Griffin, and Roxie had been walking, but as soon as they saw me in the parking lot with Colton, they ran too.

  “What’s happened to him?” Hayden asked, getting to us first. With the other men, he moved Colton out of my arms and onto his back. Laid out on the concrete, Colton’s back bowed suddenly off the ground, and alarm in his eyes, Hayden threw his hand out. “Someone call 911. Now!”

  911… The number and the operator were still so clear in my head.

  “Can you tell me what you think he took…” she’d said, but he didn’t take anything this time. I know that. He was clean.

  I’d been with him.

  “I got it,” Roxie said, suddenly on the phone. She called 911 while the men’s attention stayed on their brother.

  “He said he couldn’t see,” I informed them, my heart hurting. So much was like that day I found him. So much, but this couldn’t possibly happen again. He’d been fine before. He was fine, until I turned my back and walked away.

  “They said ten minutes,” Roxie announced, hanging up her phone, and in all the panic, everyone was trying to get through to Colton. They were talking to him, asking him what was wrong and what could they do. He didn’t answer any of them.

  “Cami?”

  He called for me, just like he had that night, and the world stopped with that word.

  I was there immediately, and all too quickly, the others allowed me in.

  I took his hand. “Colton, I’m here.”

  Something happened when he heard my voice, felt my hand in his. He squeezed, and suddenly his breathing wasn’t so rapid, his vision no longer unfocused. The clarity formed in his eyes and, with their observation, the calm to his body.

  He stared at me, and the world, his family, saw him come back to us. He came back to me, and so many jaws were dropped.

  “What’s happened? Was it a seizure?” Roxie asked, and as Colton’s brothers probably didn’t know, they said nothing. They only looked at me, and ironically enough, I felt I might have been the only one who had the answers. Something like this had happened to me before.

  My heart moved.

  “A panic attack,” I rationalized, certain of the fact when Colton closed his eyes and let me guide him back. His breathing leveled out, and when it did, he gripped my hand so hard I thought he’d never let go.

  “How do you know?” It’d been Griffin to ask, the others to wait. They might have waited forever if not for the flashing lights and the sirens pulling around the corner. They came for Colton and saved me from admitting the reason I knew the difference between a panic attack and a seizure. I knew because I’d seen Colton have a seizure.

  It was way different from my panic attack, which initially brought me to LA.

  Chapter Twenty

  Cami

  There was something about secrets, the lies we told ourselves solely for our own protection. It wasn’t something we necessarily did on purpose. It was like the mind’s safety mechanism. We triggered it, and we were whole. We were safe.

  Until we weren’t.

  It took my panic attack in NYC to let me know that. It took until I was on the floor, crying and alone with no one else in my corner for me to see what I allowed my secrets and my lies to do to me. I kept the secret inside that things were okay with Taylor, that how he was treating me was okay. So later, when I was railroaded with what he’d done to me and my career, it completely broke me down, I lost it all. And even though he had been the one to take it, I had been the one to accept it. I stayed in that city too long before demanding for a fresh start for myself, and it was only after I did that I started to get my life back. I got a man, a wonderful one who I felt like I should have seen. Colton said when we made love that I saw him.

  But I didn’t always.

  He suffered with the stress about his mom for a long time before I found out. He had his own secrets, and like me…

  I supposed he had to own up to them.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Colton

  It was a different treatment center this time, and my doctor at the hospital advised it. I’d been diagnosed with a panic attack, and that was easy, right? It was easy to write off to my brothers, Roxie. They’d been freaking the fuck out when it happened, but the moment the doctor came in, told us what had happened, and gave me the all clear, the stress I thrust upon my family went away. Panic attack… fucking easy. I could write that one off and did at first. It was stress. I was stressed. I was about to play for a new team, changing the entire dynamic of my life, and the relief of a “stressful” diagnosis provided an easy out for my brothers, Roxie, and even myself. The rest of our family was informed, of course, but not with urgency or worry or the dire need for help. Hayden had been the one to make the call to Pop, Gram, and Aunt Robin, and the crazy thing was, he didn’t even sound upset by it. He’d said I was stressed, had an incident, and after he assured my family things were okay, I didn’t even hear from them. They’d trusted Hayden and what he was saying.

  I’d been cleared.

  The only person who wasn’t confused, who didn’t play along with the game, was the woman who brought me back. She’d been with me again, and she didn’t fall for the bullshit. Cami stuck around after the diagnosis, after my brothers and Roxie had left. She stayed, and I had to own up to my truths, those eyes that did see me. She knew something was wrong, and she said so before.

  The doctor advising treatment only confirmed it.

  I wasn’t to go to a center for drugs and alcohol, no, but something else. He’d said I was depressed…

  Depressed.

  I’d never used such a word to describe myself, and even after the doctor told me, I still really didn’t think I accepted it. I was just going through stuff, right? Stressed, and I intended to get help only because of the woman who stuck by me. Cami was there with the paperwork. She was even there packing my bags. She came with me on this “special” trip, and I suddenly found myself back on the other side of the country. The mental health center was a few hours outside of LA, and once dropped off, I had to do the next part alone.

  “Just try,” Cami said to me, kissing me once before leaving me with my bag. She had other things to tend to, excuses to make up for my family. I’d have to miss my gram’s surprise party in order to commit to my stay here.

  And so there were more secrets.

  I intended to take them to my grave, and those first few weeks in the treatment center, surrounded by palm trees and nature, were a lot like my time at Shining Hope. I barely participated in anything, went along with the show. It wasn’t until a few weeks in that something changed. I’d gotten a call to my room that someone came to see me, and when I went downstairs, I didn’t expect anyone but Cami. She was the only one who knew I was here, getting help. Even my agent, Joe, believed I was simply on vacation. He handled all the business stuff and everything, giving me time to unwind. I’d fed him a story like everyone else.

  I went to the arrival doors after that call to my room, fully intending to tell Cami that this wasn’t working out, wasn’t for me, but at the sight of another, I stopped in my tracks. My pop stood there, my… pop.

  And he was here to see me.

  *

  We stared at each other for a while, he and I. A big man, he was wearing shorts and a button-up, his hands in his pockets, with the landscape behind him. We were both in sunny California, and the treatment center had big windows. They completely let the day in,
making this place mellow and beautiful. It’d been the only thing that resonated with me while being here, the peaceful and calming environment. There were no cellphones, no distractions or people.

  I stepped forward into the lobby where my pop was standing. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t know I was here at all.

  “Pop?” The word sounded weird, weird here where I shouldn’t be seeing him, and at my voice, his expression fell. He looked sad, his blond eyebrows drawing in. My pop used to be stressed all the time and wore that stress all over his face in the past. But something happened only a few years ago. He stopped working so hard upon doing something he loved, and also found the love of his life in my stepmom, Ann. He was happy all the time now, and it’d been so long since I’d seen him frown.

  He was doing so at me as I came forward, and when his lips parted, he sighed.

  “Wanna go for a walk?” he asked me, not saying why he was here or anything. He was always a man of few words, so when he spoke, a guy tended to listen to him.

  I nodded at him, going along, and he strode through the center like he ran the place. After only a few directions from me, suddenly, we were out back in more peace, more environment. The butterfly garden surrounded by koi ponds was a great place to just walk, peaceful just like the rest of this place. I took my pop back there, and we did what he asked, walked.

  We strode side by side on cobblestone trails, and the only time words were shared was when I pointed things out to him. He liked to know about nature, took us camping all the time as kids, and I let him know about the various plants and things. It helped the pair of us communicate, and I found myself really happy, at ease since being here. Eventually, we took seats in front of one of the koi ponds, and my old man hunched over, staring at them.

  “You’re a long way from Texas,” I said to him, opening that door. I sat back and just… looked at him. My pop didn’t like to travel, hated heights and planes, and yet here he was.

  He grunted a little at what I said, acknowledging me. His hands rubbed together, and he nodded his head. “Thought it was important,” he told me, leaning back. “And it took a lot to get her to tell me where you were, so don’t be mad at her none.”

  My frown was on him when he faced me. My lips parted. “Cami?” I asked, feeling my heart leap a little. She was the only one who knew I was here, getting help.

  Pop nodded again. “I called to check up on you,” he said. “Felt like something was wrong.”

  “Why?” I’d been… so good at hiding it. I hid it even from myself. I didn’t want to admit things weren’t working right with me.

  His jaw moved. “You used to shine, son.” He faced me. “And you haven’t done that for a long time. You don’t come home, don’t come to see us.” His breath slowly blew from his lips. “Why didn’t you tell us you were here?”

  I said nothing, and unable to look at him, I stood. I never did things like that, walked away from a conversation with my pop, but I couldn’t take it.

  “I’m handling it,” I said, thinking he wouldn’t hear me, and I was talking to myself. I didn’t want him to hear any vulnerability in my voice, but when his hand touched my shoulder, I knew he had. He was standing there, close…

  And he wasn’t going anywhere.

  His other hand came to my shoulder. He squeezed them both, and I had to lower my head. I couldn’t face him. I knew there was too much emotion going on inside me and he’d see it.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” I forced out, that emotion fully charged in my goddamn voice. I breathed hard. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “What’s going on, Colt?” he asked me, and I shook. I was shaking, and I knew he felt it. I knew. “Come on, son. Just… talk to me.”

  Talk to him. Talk. To. Him. I didn’t talk to him. I didn’t talk to anyone. I handled things myself. I dealt with it all. I had to because I was the youngest and I needed them to see that I could, but in that moment, my pop here and all my vulnerabilities around me…

  I was tired. I was so goddamn tired and sick to death of feeling so vulnerable. I was done feeling like this.

  I was done trying to admit I didn’t need help.

  “It’s Momma,” I confessed, turning. My jaw moved, my eyes hot. “It’s been Momma for a while.”

  I didn’t know how long it took to tell my pop about my mother coming to me. I didn’t take in the reality of the amount of time it took to rehash almost two years of constant struggle. It’d been a struggle I took on all by myself and felt alone for so long. By the time I was done, it was evening and the twinkling garden lights started coming on. Pop and I were alone, had been for a while without a passerby, and not once did my pop interrupt me during my story. Not once did he look angry or disappointed. He just listened to me.

  And that felt good.

  Toward the end, he reached out, squeezing my shoulder. I thought he was going to tell me it was time to wrap things up, as my pop was never an emotional guy. He didn’t wear his emotions on his sleeve.

  But with his hug, he did.

  He hugged me, something only I used to initiate as a child. I didn’t hug him as an adult. He just wasn’t a hugging man. He took care of us, loved us, but the hugging was usually Gram and my aunt Robin.

  He was doing it now, hugging me tight and close, and I couldn’t even react, in shock.

  Mostly because I needed it.

  I needed him and this moment and just to get it all out. I needed to realize I wasn’t alone.

  And that I never had been.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Cami

  It took him some time, a lot of time actually. Colton had a lot to work through and only he could do it. He didn’t come back home when we originally thought he would. In fact, he stayed in treatment for several more weeks past the thirty-day commitment he made. He stayed because he felt he had to do so.

  He stayed for himself.

  Every day wasn’t easy in the months that followed, but each one got better and better. Colton had to fall into his vulnerabilities, and after everything was out on the table, things with his mom out in the air, he was able to heal from it all. He told his entire family about his mom coming back and actually did so in treatment. They came down to see him during family day, and from what I heard, there’d been a lot of tears. There’d been a lot of blame and people wondering if they could have prevented her influence. They couldn’t possibly, of course, but hurting for him, they wanted to do so. Colton, deep in his healing, was able to explain to them it was no one’s fault. Things happened, and it’s what we did after that mattered the most. He’d told them about the reason behind his overdose then.

  But that was only after he told me.

  I didn’t come down for that family visit because I came before that at Colton’s request. He’d wanted to talk to me, and his counselors agreed he should. He wanted to explain to me what happened that night, just the two of us, as that had been how it all began.

  “I don’t believe I wanted to die that night, Cami,” he said to me, completely vulnerable. He had unshed tears in his eyes, but I had already shed mine.

  I cupped his face, waiting for him, and I was there when those tears finally fell. He’d looked up at me, gripping my hand with a flush in his cheeks.

  “But if it happened,” he explained, his eyes red. He squeezed my wrist tight. “I would have given in to it.”

  I had anticipated this, so much about that night still weighed on my heart. He’d had so much pain, and he didn’t even have to tell me. I saw it. I lived it in that moment.

  I held him close after that, both of us in a wash of so many emotions. It was the beginning of what was next for us.

  Especially after what he said next.

  “I love you, Camille,” he said, before brushing his lips softly over mine. He held me closer. “And I’m finally brave enough to tell you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Cami

  “Colton, where are your damn paper plates?”

&nb
sp; Colton’s quickening hips didn’t stop at the sound of his pop’s voice, and I had to keep my laughter silent. Buried deep inside me, the basketball player only braced my hips more, fucking me from inside his closet. His whole family was in the house somewhere, and we had to be stealthy about this.

  I sighed as he pinched my lips between his, the man’s scent rich and smoky from his aftershave. He’d shaved his head again after leaving treatment, but I didn’t think for the same reasons this time.

  I ran my hand over his buzz cut, his powerful hips slapping my inner thighs. His hips pumped, sweat beading his brow, and all too soon, he filled that condom between my legs.

  I moaned as my orgasm hit, my hand slapping his closet door. With his whole family in the house for what felt like days, we’d had to sneak away for this moment.

  But it was worth it.

  Colton held my butt cheeks as we rode it out, not letting me go. His dad called again from somewhere downstairs, but the pair of us stayed silent, exhausted.

  “Colton, honey. If you don’t come out of that room and help your poppa find those plates so he can eat, I’m going to come up there!”

  At his grandma Rose’s voice, Colton laughed, pressing his mouth to mine to silence my own. She couldn’t come up here, and that much was a given.

  Together, we dropped away from his closet wall, and after putting himself away, Colton gathered my scattered clothes. I was naked from the waist down and had actually tried to resist this man’s coercion for a quickie.

  He was so just so very sexy.

  Completely smoldering, Colton wore his jeans low on his hips. He was naked from the waist up, and my greedy eyes couldn’t help but feast on his toned body and rippling abs. After he gave me my clothes, he found his, sliding on his t-shirt.

  “Eh, uh, don’t do that, Gram. I’m coming,” he shouted behind himself, laughing, actually laughing, and it was so good to hear. He didn’t laugh when he first came back, and it took a while for things to finally get back into a rhythm. I was happy things were turning around, and today definitely marked that.