Dirty, Reckless Love

by Lexi Ryan

  “I think he hasn’t touched me in two months and barely talks to me, but he’s up at all hours on the phone with her and can’t keep his damn eyes off her. You do the math.”

  “What did he say when you asked him about all the calls?”

  She bites her bottom lip and folds her arms.

  “You did ask him about it, right?” She avoids my eyes—in the same way she’s obviously avoiding this conversation with Colton. I shake my head. “El . . .”

  “I mentioned I’d heard him on the phone late at night,” she says. “He said, ‘Sorry. I’ll be quieter next time.’” She squeezes her eyes shut. “I haven’t asked more directly because I’m scared of the answer.”

  “Do you want me to talk to him?”

  Her eyes fly open. “I want you to cut off his dick.”

  I grimace, resisting the urge to cover my own equipment. “Is there an option B?”

  “You’re right. Ugh.” She shakes her head. “I should go back out there and get Colton home before he’s too trashed to talk. Apparently, it’s time to face my fears.”

  “Maybe it’s not what you think. Maybe there’s an explanation for all of this.”

  “Yeah, like he’s not attracted to me anymore.”

  “I’m sure that’s not it.”

  “Do you have any idea how quickly you feel ugly when the person sharing your bed never touches you? And I’m not just talking about sex. There’s been no kissing or cuddling or anything. It’s like I’m suddenly repulsive to him.”

  “You’re anything but repulsive, Ellie.” My words are nearly a whisper, as if crossing this line is less of an offense if I do it quietly. “You’re as gorgeous now as you were the day you started dating him—hell, probably even more so. If Colton isn’t touching you, the problem is with him, not you.”

  A blush creeps up her cheeks, and she swallows. “Thanks, Levi. I needed to hear that tonight.” The pink strapless dress she’s wearing is short as sin, creeping up her thighs as she scoots forward to jump off the counter. The less evolved part of my brain wants to look at those thighs again, maybe see if I can catch a flash of what she’s wearing beneath her dress. I don’t. “I promise to try talking to him before I start sharpening my knives.”

  “Good. Orange isn’t your color.”

  “I’ll see you around.” She hops off the counter and squeezes my shoulder.

  Nodding, I shove my hands in my pockets and watch her go. Ellie gives me restless hands. Hands that want to touch, to take, to steal what isn’t mine. I’m not that guy anymore, and no matter what I feel for her or how long I’ve felt it, I owe Colton way too much to betray him like that.

  Ellie

  Colton is quiet on the drive home. I’m behind the wheel, completely sober, and he’s slumped in the passenger seat, somewhere in that la la land between buzzed and drunk.

  “Molly’s really moving home?” I ask.

  His jaw hardens, and he nods, looking out the window and not at me. Not looking at me has become his specialty lately.

  “Do you think that’s weird? Her moving home after all these years of hardly even visiting?”

  “Brayden offered her a good opportunity.”

  “Yeah, but there’s gotta be a reason she didn’t want to be here, and now she’s suddenly changed her mind.”

  Colton shrugs. “It’ll be good for her to be closer to her mom. She’s had it hard for the last few years.”

  Is there anything you want to tell me, Colton? I swallow back the question. I’d planned to ask Levi but changed my mind at the last minute. I’m not sure Levi would even know, but either way, I want to hear it from Colton instead. “Have you ever met her kid?”

  He shakes his head, but that angry line of his jaw ticks. “I didn’t even know he existed until a few months ago.”

  “When I was in the bathroom, I heard a couple of girls talking about Molly. Maybe they went to high school with her or something? They were really gossiping hard.”

  He looks at me now. “You can’t believe the shit people around here say about Molly. Bitches like that aren’t going to make it any easier for her to come back.”

  “It sounds like it’s pretty important to you. Her living here, I mean.”

  “Yeah,” he says, “I can’t take care of her or help her with the kid when she’s so far away.”

  That twists something inside me. Part of me wants Colton to worry about taking care of me and our kid, even though he doesn’t know I’m pregnant. That part is curling up into a ball, pulling a blanket over her head, and hiding from this conversation. The other part of me is sitting up and demanding answers. “The girls said Noah is yours,” I blurt.

  He stills. When he finally nods, it’s so weird, as if I’m watching this from the other side of a TV screen. His reaction is more as if I’m delivering news and he’s processing it, and not like he’s confirming something that could change our whole lives. “Yep. Kid’s mine.”

  Nausea lurches in my stomach, and I pull the car over and throw it into park so I can rest my head on the steering wheel.

  “Don’t be dramatic,” he mutters.

  “Kid’s mine. That’s all you’re going to say?” What a fucking screwed-up time to find myself knocked up. “Is this why you two have been spending so much time on the phone? Talking about Noah?”

  He nods. “Noah, and how we’re going to get her to move home.”

  My eyes burn with tears, and Colton just looks irritated that I’m bothering him with my questions. “How could you keep this from me?”

  “Ellie, don’t make this about you. It’s nobody’s business but Molly’s.”

  I straighten. “You don’t think that your baby mama moving back into town with your four-year-old son affects me at all? Your life is about to change. What happens when she moves back, Colton?”

  “What do you mean?” He sounds tired. He’s checked out of this conversation. I know he’s buzzed and it’s not fair to talk about our future at this moment, but I’ve reached a breaking point.

  “You never even told me you slept with her, and now I’m supposed to just be cool with that fact that she has your kid? A kid you found out was yours months ago but never told me about? None of this makes any sense. You’re not behaving like a normal human being.”

  “How do you want me to behave? You want me to throw a fit? To scream at her for not telling me sooner? To bitch her out for not letting me protect her?”

  I frown. “Protect her from what?”

  He shakes his head. “It’s just been a lot for me to process. Get off my back.”

  “You should have told me.”

  “I just did,” he mutters. He glares at me. “Are you going to drive us home, or do I need to do it?”

  I stare at him for a long time, and when I realize I don’t have the energy to get more from this conversation, I signal to pull back onto the road. I wipe the tears from my eyes and head home. I know without a doubt that if I weren’t pregnant, Colton wouldn’t be sleeping in my house after the way he’s ignored me the last two months, let alone after that conversation. But I am pregnant. And I’m terrified of raising this baby on my own.

  “Listen, I’m sorry.” He reaches across the console and brushes my arm with his fingertips. The touch is so rare and so desperately craved that I practically melt under it. “I’m sorry. Molly and I wanted to tell you together. We were going to do it tomorrow. I just have a lot of other shit on my mind, too.”

  “Is there anything else you need to tell me?” I ask. He’s already pulled away, cut off the contact as soon as it began.

  “Nah. You’re good.” He looks out the window again, and I can tell by the tense line of his shoulders and the set of his jaw that there is more. Plenty more. But he has no intention of sharing it with me tonight. Will he ever? Or have I become nothing more than a nosy roommate?

  We go home, and I get ready for bed in the saddest silence I’ve ever experienced. It’s the kind of quiet that makes your thoughts too loud and your bo
nes ache like a cold day. I wait until he’s done in the bathroom, then brush my teeth and change into one of his old T-shirts. The cotton is soft and smells a little like him.

  Colton’s in the living room. I can hear him on the phone, but instead of the silky whispers of his more recent late-night phone calls, his low voice is angry. “You’re going to listen to what I have to say,” he growls into the phone. “Oh, you think I’m scared of you now? No. Try the other way around.”

  I frown and step into the living room just as he ends the call. “Who was that?”

  He mutters something under his breath before replying. “No one. Just some asshole who thinks he can screw me out of money.” He waves a hand. “Business stuff, you know.”

  “Business stuff? At eleven o’clock at night?”

  He folds his arms across his chest. “Like I said. An asshole.”

  More secrets.

  Colton has always been private. Only a very small circle of people get to know what’s really going on in his life. I’m not sure when I got pushed out of that circle, and I’m wondering if Levi’s been pushed out too. Maybe it’s just Colton and Molly against the world now. “Are you coming to bed?”

  “Grant wants me to meet him for a beer,” he says.

  “At this hour? Are you even sober enough to drive?”

  “I’m a grown-ass man, Ellie. Quit mothering me. I’ll be home later.” He stomps out of the house, and when he slams the front door behind him, it reverberates all the way through my spine.

  I close my eyes for a beat. This problem can’t and won’t be solved in one night. We can tackle it tomorrow. Together.

  When I crawl into bed, I promise myself that everything will be better in the morning. The calls were about Colton’s son. The looks he was throwing Molly at the bar were about this giant new responsibility in his life. Everything is going to be okay.

  The next time I wake up, it’s two in the morning and I’m still alone in bed.

  I sit up and grab my phone off the bedside table to check for messages. Nothing. I text him. Where are you?

  I climb out of bed and pace the bedroom. When he hasn’t replied twenty minutes later, I pull on my jeans and shoes and race to the garage.

  Rain pummels my car the moment I back out, and I have to turn the wipers on high to see anything. I grip the wheel so tightly my hands hurt, but I can’t relax.

  “Where are you, Colton?” I whisper into the darkness, but part of me must already know the answer, because I drive straight to the Tiffany Hotel. Colton’s truck is parked in front of the converted Victorian, and I yank the wheel, parking in the first available spot before jumping out of the car.

  I’m not an idiot who believes they’re just talking in there after two a.m. He lied about where he was going. Grant wants to meet for a drink, my ass. And who does Molly McKinley think she is? Coming to town and swooping in to steal Colton right out from under me?

  I storm up the stairs onto the dark porch but freeze when I see the silhouettes in the window to the right of the door.

  I’d recognize those broad shoulders anywhere. Colton carries himself with the posture of a fighter. Molly stands close, and they’re talking, but I can’t make out their words or even see well enough to read their lips. But then he pulls her into his arms, and all the rage that propelled me here drains away, pushed out by fear and despair.

  I didn’t want to be right.

  He strokes her hair and lowers his mouth to her ear.

  I back up. One foot. Then another. Then another. I tumble sideways down the steps and hit the sidewalk. My cheek stings. My elbow aches.

  I close my eyes and pull my knees into my chest. The rain is cold and feels like tiny needles of ice slicing into me. My phone buzzes, and I sit up to pull it from my pocket, wiping the rain from my face so I can read the words on the screen.

  Colton: Drank too much. Gonna crash at Jake’s.

  I squeeze my eyes shut. I want to scream. To cry. To throw the phone and his lie right through the window. To pound on the door and tell him he can fuck himself.

  But mostly, I want to go home and pretend this night never happened.

  I grip the phone so hard that I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter in my hand. “Get up, Ellie. Get the fuck up.”

  When I do, it’s on wobbly legs that can barely hold me. I slide my phone back into my pocket, grip my keys in my hand, and start walking.

  Levi

  The loud rap on the front door of Jackson Brews makes me roll my eyes. “We’re closed!” I shout.

  In a quiet town like Jackson Harbor, we don’t typically have people begging to be let in after last call, but when they do, they’re always trashed, and the last thing they need is another drink.

  The knock comes again. Louder this time.

  I curse, drop my mop, and spin to the door. “I said we’re . . .”

  Ellie’s standing in the rain with her hand pressed against the glass. She’s soaking wet. I run to the door, flip the bolt, and pull it open.

  From the light of the streetlamp, I can see blood streaming down the side of her face. “What happened?” I scan the street behind her for her car or Colton or any clue as to why she might be at my brother’s bar in the middle of the night, soaked through and bloody.

  “I’m sorry. I know you’re closed. I’m sorry.”

  “Jesus, don’t apologize.” I take her by the wrist and pull her inside, then close and lock the door behind her. “What happened? Are you okay?” I step closer and wipe the blood from her cheek.

  Her eyes go wide, and she stares at the blood on my hand. “I fell.”

  “You fell?”

  She nods, and I force myself to take a deep breath. I want answers and I want them now, but she’s got that deer-in-the-headlights look in her eyes, and I know she needs my patience more than the protective rage rising in my chest. If Colton hurt her, I fucking swear I’ll go after him so hard he’ll never be able to do it again.

  “Come on. Let’s clean you up.” I take her hand and turn toward the kitchen, but I hesitate for a beat when she threads her fingers through mine. The gesture is nothing and everything. It’s instinct, and it means she trusts me. She needs me.

  I push away the pinch in my chest and lead her back to the kitchen, positioning her on a stool by the long stainless-steel counter. Here, the fluorescent lights are burning bright and I can slowly take her in, survey the damage. The blood looked worse in the low light out front, but in here, I can see it’s all coming from a small cut on her forehead. There’s an abrasion on her cheek and her elbow, and she’s shaking—probably because she’s soaked from head to toe.

  “Where does it hurt?” I ask softly.

  Her wide eyes fill with tears. “Everywhere,” she whispers. “I thought he loved me.” Tears slip from her eyes and roll down her cheeks, mingling with the smears of blood.

  “Colton did this?” Tension shoots up my spine, and my fists clench at my sides. “He hurt you?”

  Ellie blinks at me, as if trying to understand my anger. She touches her cheek, wincing when her fingers skim over the wound. “I’m stupid. I fell.”

  “You’re not stupid.”

  “I back-pedaled down a set of stairs and landed on the sidewalk.”

  The anger boiling my blood cools a notch and I nod, reaching for Jake’s chef’s coat and wrapping it around her shoulders. I find the first-aid kit and pull out some sterile cleansing pads for her face. “Explain, please.”

  “Colt said he was going to meet Grant for a drink, and he left.”

  I frown. “Grant Watson? He’s in Cincinnati this weekend.”

  “It was a lie, obviously.” She lifts her chin, her brave face making me want to throw a punch at Colton all over again. “I woke up a couple of hours later and he still wasn’t home. He wasn’t replying to my texts, so I went looking for him.”

  “This might sting.” I carefully lift the cloth to her face, and she hisses when it touches her cheek. “Sorry.”

  �
��He was at the Tiffany Hotel.”

  Frowning, I pull the cloth away. “Why?”

  “With Molly. I saw them through the window.”

  What a fucking idiot. He has Ellie in his bed, and he sneaks out to go to Molly’s hotel room. “What did he say?”

  She shakes her head. “He didn’t know I was there. I fell off the porch, and then he texted to say he was staying at Jake’s.”

  We turn to the stairs at the back of the kitchen that lead to Jake’s apartment above the bar. We both know he’s not up there, and most likely doesn’t plan to be.

  “He was never going to marry me,” she whispers. The words shake, delivered on a trail of heartache. “I think that’s why he’s been pulling away the last couple of months. I’ve been dropping hints, and he . . .”

  She closes her eyes, and since I don’t know what to say, I return to cleaning up her wound, wiping away the blood before applying antibiotic ointment and bandaging to the cut on her forehead.

  “How’s that?” I ask.

  She nods. “Good. Thank you. I’m okay.” But her occasional trembling turns into full-body shaking, and I step between her legs and pull her against my chest. She clings to my shirt.

  “Let me take you home.”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t want to go home.”

  “You can stay here. Jake’s at Ava’s. He won’t care.”

  “A little ironic,” she whispers.

  I nod. “I guess it is.” Releasing her, I step back. “Come on. I’ll find you some dry clothes upstairs.” I lead the way to the stairwell at the back of the kitchen, aware of her behind me with every step.

  Over the years, Jake has slowly turned the utilitarian loft above the bar into a nice one-bedroom apartment. It’s got that industrial look to it, with the rebar spindles around the stairwell and the exposed brick walls, but it’s still warm and feels like a home. He redid the kitchen last summer, swapping out the aging white appliances with stainless-steel models, and installing a big island between the kitchen and living area.

  She follows me into Jake’s bedroom, watching as I open a drawer and pull out one of Jake’s T-shirts. He’s been slowly moving his stuff into Ava’s, so there’s not much here. A stack of Jackson Brews shirts and a couple of pairs of jeans. I pull open the other drawers, just in case Ava has clothes tucked away, but come up empty. I consider grabbing a pair of his boxers out of the top drawer but stop myself. Imagining Ellie in my brother’s T-shirt with nothing beneath it is bad enough. I’ll be damned if she’s going to wear his boxers too.