“Well, that was unexpected. I was half expecting you to say you were sorry.”
“That too,” he said sheepishly.
“I misjudged her it seems, Colton. If you like her, she must be cool.”
“You are, and always have been, the coolest person I know, Angela.”
She hugged him.
“You’re more than a friend. You’re family.”
“Ick,” Angela giggled. “Considering what we’ve done, let’s just not go that far, okay?”
Colton laughed. “The song? You hate it, don’t you?”
“I don’t hate it, not after hearing you sing it. It’s a little…love-songy for me.” She laughed. “But hey, you’re in love, so…”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Colton said, uncomfortably.
“Well, get used to saying it, Masters. You might as well admit it. That’s what this is, don’t you see that?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I see it.”
“Then, go. We’ll talk later.”
“Nothing will change our friendship, Angela. Nothing.”
“You need to find some guy friends too, Colton. Start trusting people.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“Call me tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
“Hey,” Angela said before he could leave. “The song is good too. You sounded beautiful together. The harmony was brilliant.”
Colton smiled and knew he beamed. Angela was not the type who would offer a compliment if she didn’t mean it. He looked at her hard exterior, the striking blue of her eyes and their intense pensive depth, and at that moment, he wished her happiness more than anything he ever wanted for her. To see her soften like this was one of the most attractive things he’d ever seen. At the core of everyone, Colton realized, we’re all just looking to be found.
*****
Colton came home to his apartment, and no one was there but for Lauren. She sat in a cute pair of shorts and blouse pajama set on his couch, two red glasses of wine poured.
“How’d you get the—” Colton wondered.
“I’ve got my ways now that everyone’s corrupted me,” Lauren giggled.
“Stephanie?” Colton inferred.
“Stephanie.” Lauren laughed.
Colton sat down beside her. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“About the memorial…”
“It’s okay, Colton. I left.”
“You what?”
“Yeah. I lost it on my parents. I have a lot to talk to them about.”
“Well, that’s a good thing then, right? Clear the air?”
“Maybe.”
“I stupidly visited my father in prison at my mother’s request,” Colton blurted.
“Why is that stupid? I don’t think that’s stupid.”
Lauren watched his face change. He took a big sip before pointing to his stitches. “No?” he said, and Lauren understood.
“Oh my god. He did this to you?”
“Yeah…not the first time either.” Colton removed his hemp necklace, and Lauren traced her finger along the scar she’d seen a long time ago, and then her lips replaced her fingers.
“I think back to that day and worry that he might have killed my mother if I hadn’t stepped in.”
“What day?
“The day I got this.” He traced the scar Lauren had kissed.
“I’m sorry, Colton.”
“Yeah. He was drunk and carrying on with my mother, and I’d had enough. I was thirteen, had just started high school, and I just clocked him. He then smashed his bottle right across my collarbone and snapped out of it. Guess how many stitches I got?”
Lauren had no idea.
“Thirteen.”
“Ironic.”
“Yeah. A bit different than blowing out thirteen candles, don’t you think?”
“Shelby was thirteen when she died too.”
Colton kissed her forehead. “I told you. We have much more in common than not in these strange ways that are hard to ignore.”
“I know,” Lauren agreed, playing with the hemp necklace.
“My mother made it for me. The necklace. She always felt responsible, wanted me to hide the cut. Didn’t want people to know just how bad our family life had really gotten.”
“My mother is similar. Likes to pretend we’re this perfect family, handling our losses with great dignity. Must always put on a good face at all times, but I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, Colton.” She touched the scar again. Lauren loved him so much.
“Don’t belittle your pain, Lauren,” Colton said firmly, and Lauren crawled onto Colton’s lap. She needed no space between them.
“Put your arms around me, Colton.”
Colton complied, and they sat there listening to each other’s heartbeat, Colton’s finally slowing for the first time since he stepped into his apartment, fearful of what Lauren would say and if she’d want to stay.
Lauren lifted her head. “So what happened with your father?”
“He tried to get me to say I’d lied. That I was coerced into saying he did all those things, that I’d been misled or tricked. When I rose to leave, he jumped me from behind and smashed his handcuffs across my face a couple times.”
“Where the fuck were the guards?”
“Ha!”
“What do you mean, ha?”
“They would have loved for me to have pummeled him.”
“Is that why your fist looks bashed up? I wondered how you’d still play.”
“No. That’s from the wall I punched after.” He chuckled a little.
“Jesus.”
“I refused to stoop to his level.”
“Good for you. That is so not cool that happened, Colton.”
“Nope. It’s not. And I wasn’t going to fight back and give him what he wanted, more excuses to take his anger out on me. Why I’m pretty beat up. His strikes don’t hurt me. Having no father. That hurts me. He’ll have lost all his visitation rights for a while.”
Lauren took him in her arms. “You’ve learned who you want to be from his mistakes, Colton. That’s what is important.”
“Yeah. You’ve helped me too.”
“You’ve helped me.”
“So, I was at the hospital instead of the memorial. And I’m sorry for that.”
“Colton…”
“I can’t be reimbursed for my flight either, and that sucks.”
“I bet you could if you document that you were in the hospital, Colton. It’s worth a try.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“It doesn’t matter. I left anyway.”
“Is that because I wasn’t there with you? God, Lauren, I’d hate to think I’m the reason you didn’t stay.”
“I don’t know, Colton. I was upset, for sure, but it was a long time coming. I can’t keep living like this, in Shelby’s shadow, feeling inferior, feeling lesser than just because they’re not my flesh and blood. They are my parents, they have always been my parents, but sometimes, they don’t understand the things they do or say.”
Colton pulled Lauren to him.
“I would much rather have been adopted into a family that loves me than what I was dealt with in blood.”
“That’s just it, Colton. Sometimes, I don’t know if they really love me.”
“They do, Lauren.”
“Maybe.”
“No. No maybes.”
“Your family loves you too, Colton, your mom especially.”
“I know she does. But sometimes love isn’t always enough.”
Lauren sighed.
“Have you ever thought about knowing your biological parents?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“And?”
“My mother was artificially inseminated. I was put up for adoption, because she died in childbirth, with no paperwork in place for anything. Her parents, I guess, wanted nothing to do with me. She was estranged from them.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. It makes me too
sad to talk about it, Colton. It feels like I’ve not been loved by any of them.”
“Well, guess what?” Colton said, holding Lauren’s face steady.
“What?”
“I love you, Lauren.”
“You what? You—”
“I. Love. You.”
“You do?”
“I do.”
“I love you.”
“I know,” he said.
She slapped him, and he laughed. “And I’m not letting you get away.”
“Good. Because I’m not going anywhere.”
*****
“Make love to me,” Lauren said, lying on her back in Colton’s bed. “I’ve waited long enough.”
Colton was humming their song as he put his phone in its holder. “Angela recorded it tonight. Do you want to hear it? She sent it to me.”
Lauren put a pillow over her face, embarrassed. “I guess…”
“How did you know the lyrics anyway?”
“Angela.”
“Angela?”
“Yes. She saw me and brought them over. We had a kinda truce. She was really sweet, actually.”
“She is really sweet, Lauren.”
“Okay. I’m asking you to make love to me, but now I’m changing my mind, Colton! She’s really sweet? Just how sweet?”
Colton chuckled and played their song and began to kiss Lauren, first her neck and then lower down her belly, staying there while she squirmed a little, her body letting him know that she wanted him to go ever lower.
“Not as sweet as you,” Colton finally said and pulled Lauren’s shorts and then panties clear off.
She moaned and grabbed his face and pulled it up to hers and sucked his tongue into her mouth. Releasing him, she said, “No more talking.”
“I concur,” Colton agreed. “Arms over your head.”
She did as she was told, and he removed her top.
He was pleasantly surprised to see no bra. He found her breasts and found himself a bit too ravenous. He feared he’d rip her apart if he didn’t slow down.
“Yes. Colton. Yes,” she said.
She found him and unleashed his erection. He pulled on one nipple and then the other, then his mouth found its way between the top of her thighs. “So sweet.”
“Colton. Colton,” she panted. “I love you. I need you.”
He kissed and licked and found he couldn’t control himself, delving into her center with fervor. “The sweetest,” he said, driving her wild and mad, her climax upon her so fast, he wasn’t prepared to stop so soon, and so…he didn’t.
She heard the song in the background now for the first time, the rushing behind her ears ebbing from her orgasm, and then the rushing came back from the tears flowing down her cheeks, the emotion overwhelming and beautiful and bright as midnight stars performing only for them.
Colton rolled a condom onto himself and asked her gently for approval.
She whispered, “Fuck. Yes.”
Her words fueled a beast in him, as if it was his first time too, and he tossed the gentle to the wolf and found the same place she’d reached, saying her name with the breath of his climax, loud and feral, causing her to tremble in excitement and lust.
“Yes,” she said with him, and they came into each other, connecting as a river flows into the mouth of an ocean, and Lauren whispered, “Play only for me, Colton. Only for me.”
“Yes. Only for you.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Come here,” he said in a teasing tone.
“No. Stop making fun of me.”
“Oh, for god’s sake, Lauren, it’s a sliver.”
“It hurts.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to go to the ER. Look at how big it is?”
Lauren held up her foot for Colton to see. She’d slid on his back deck, and a huge sliver was lodged in the bottom of her upper foot.
Colton smiled. “Come here,” he said in that voice that always made her listen, made her...need him. He could get her to do just about anything when he used that dominant, husky voice. He laughed. "You're not going to have to go to the ER, for god's sake. Stop being so dramatic."
She huffed. “Be nice.”
“When am I not nice?”
She looked up into eyes, eyes she might drown in if she let herself, and inhaled his scent. She knew his not nice intimately.
"This reminds me of that first time we met," Colton said.
"How so?" She inched closer.
"The emotion in your eyes. And how I couldn't figure out if they were green or blue."
It had been six months that they were together, and Lauren rarely slept in her dorm room anymore. She stayed at his place five out of seven nights, and really, the only time she didn’t stay with him was when they were having one of their it’s-over! fights, where they’d then make up blissfully. Frankly, they were too in love with each other to do anything else.
“You don’t have to go to the ER because I’m going to take care of you,” he said, pulling her long, dark hair to the side in his fist and kissing behind her ear in that spot that always made her shiver. “Especially if you’re a good patient.” He smirked while continuing his assault on her neck.
“Colton.”
“Why don’t you go ahead and take off your clothes? No sense prolonging the inevitable. We’ll get you in the tub, soak your foot, and then it’ll come out easier. Okay?”
“Okay,” she agreed, a nervous shake to her voice.
It made Colton laugh out loud. “Oh, come on, Lauren. You really are a baby, you know that?”
She laughed too. “Why do you think I can’t be a nurse like my mom? I had to major in something as far removed from the health field as possible.”
“Lucky for me.” He kissed her. They may have never met if she hadn’t been in his Music Expression class last semester, Colton thought. How empty my life would still be.
He drew her lips to his and kissed her softly, his tongue finding its way into her mouth. She moaned into him, pressing against him, her body begging to be touched. But there was no contact between them except lips on lips. He never got over how every time he kissed her, she tasted better and better. He’d never tire of it. Of that, he was certain.
“I’ll go get you some wine.”
“Damn you, Masters,” she said under her breath when he began to walk away.
“We’re both damned at this point, baby.”
He came back with a glass of wine, grabbed her hand, and led her, naked, to the bathroom tub.
“Aren’t you coming in?” she questioned.
“No. I have some work to do for a bit. Relax in the tub, drink your wine, and I’ll join you when I’m done. Soak that foot. I have surgery to do,” he joked, placing her body in the tub, leaving her needy for him.
“Work? Like what?”
She didn’t want to get agitated, but she knew work could only mean writing music, which often led to calling Angela. His music was like an addiction to him. He had the obsessive tendency to write the moment it struck him. He couldn’t control it. When the fancy struck him to write, when he had an idea, when his mind got in the zone, there was no stopping him. She couldn’t deny how much she admired that about him. Passionate would be the first adjective every single person who knew him would use to describe him. And Lauren understood passion. She had a few passions of her own.
“It’s not what you think. I have to work on the bridge of one song. Fifteen minutes max. I promised Angela I’d have it by tomorrow. I can’t decide if I like what I’ve done with it. I promised her before I knew about this deadly sliver.” He cocked his head to look into her eyes with a feigned-serious look of concern. And that forced her to smile. Wide.
His eyes were so dark, so brown, so deep that she could see her reflection in them almost all the time if she looked closely. His long, dirty blond hair fell over them most of the time, and she constantly pushed it back off his face, whereby he would simply shake the hair right back down.
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“Okay,” she conceded, slipping into the tub. Lauren knew that fifteen minutes would easily be thirty, but she’d fallen in love with a musician, and temperamental was his middle name.
“Plus, I know you have dress rehearsal tonight, so I promise to be quick. Operate on that sliver and maybe something else.” He wriggled those eyebrows again. “So you’re fully focused tonight.”
Her belly tightened, and she laid back to relax, sipping her wine and soaking her sliver. She was excited about Les Misérables’ opening night. And utterly terrified.
*****
Colton didn’t lie. He was quick with Angela and operated on Lauren’s sliver and made love to her with such tenderness that it caused Lauren to weep. He always knew when she needed gentle and when she needed rough. He could read her emotions better than she could.
“I wish I could come watch the rehearsal tonight,” Colton said, lightly stroking her back.
“That would make me nervous,” Lauren said and stretched, looking at the clock. “But you’ll be there tomorrow night for me, right?”
“Yes. And every night of every performance. God, Lauren, do you know how talented you are?”
“Do you know how talented you are?” She reached for the jar that housed the sliver and held it up. “I mean, look at your handiwork here.”
They both laughed in unison. God did Lauren love these moments.
“Are you really going to keep that thing?” Colton asked incredulously.
“Yup. I am. Seriously. Look. Just look at how big it is.”
“That’s what she said,” Colton joked, and Lauren slapped him hard on the chest, but she couldn’t stop laughing.
“You’re too much!”
“Again…that’s what…”
“Stop it!”
They lay there quietly after that for a few moments, Lauren knowing she’d have to go soon.
“Colton,” she said, looking up at him. “Do you miss it? All the women? I mean, it’s been more than six months now.”
“Yeah. I do. I’m so…bored. I need bigger slivers, something to really challenge me.”
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