For You (The 'Burg Series) (63 page)

I finished with my hair and was gunking it up with shit that cost a fortune but was worth every penny because it did wonders to my hair when I heard Mom and Dad call out their good-byes. I shouted mine back and wondered what they’d been doing while I was getting ready. I figured, knowing Mom, there weren’t any boxes left and the new towels were probably in the wash in preparation to be used. Hell, by this time, they were probably in the dryer.

I walked into the bedroom and saw Colt’s blazer was on the bed but the rest of the clothes he wore that day were on the floor. This might have irritated me normally, but since he was wearing a pair of suit trousers in dark gray, a tailored shirt in a gray only two shades lighter than the suit, had a tie hanging around his neck that was black but had a subtle pattern of lighter gray, blue and green and he looked really good in all this, I didn’t mention his clothes on the floor.

He looked at me, saw me staring at him unmoving and said, “Feb, get a move on.”

“Right,” I replied, walking to the dresser where I’d commandeered two drawers which meant serious reorganization since it was apparent that Colt had collected t-shirts since he was fourteen and never threw a single one away. After some time spent on this endeavor, I managed the task of fitting his t-shirts into two drawers rather than the four he used because, folded neatly, rather than shoved in in bunches, they took a lot less room.

I pulled out undies and a bra and tugged on the panties under the t-shirt, then yanked off the tee, tossed it on the bed and put on my bra.

I was spritzing with perfume when Colt’s hands hit my waist, slid in, crossed paths, and went up, one palming my breast, the other one wrapping around my side, his fingertips trailing along the bra line under my armpit. I stopped moving except to shiver, mainly because I liked his hands on me and I felt it necessary to concentrate on that feeling.

“Is it sick you can make me hard before we go to a funeral?” he asked in my ear and showed me what he meant by pressing his hips into my ass.

I figured weddings and funerals put you in the mood. The first, because they were romantic and hopeful. The last, because they reminded you that life was short and you should spend as much of your time on the good stuff as you could while you had that time.

“I’m thinkin’ it’s natural,” I told him, the flat of his palm did a circle against my nipple and it felt so good, without me willing it to do so, my head fell to his shoulder. Still, I said, “Colt, remember? We’re runnin’ late.”

“Fuck,” he muttered into my neck and let me go.

He walked to the bathroom while I started the process of getting dressed. I watched through the door as he stood in front of the mirror and did up the last buttons of his shirt at the collar then lifted up his chin and tied his tie. I had to quit watching because this seemed weird to me in a glorious way and it struck me just then that all those years, this was what I was hiding from. The knowledge that I’d lost a life where I could watch Colt casually getting dressed in the bathroom. I’d never needed a romantic fairytale of princes and castles because I always knew my prince was Colt and I didn’t need a castle. I’d be satisfied anywhere, a crackerbox house or a cardboard box, just as long as Colt was there.

And, through those years, Colt wasn’t there.

I shook off these thoughts in order to get dressed and had successfully smoothed on a pair of black hose, something I hadn’t worn in so long I forgot how much I detested them
and
the act of putting them on, and shimmied into the pencil skirt of Jessie’s I chose mainly because it fit, but barely, when Colt walked out of the bathroom. I was shrugging on the black, satin blouse, which also fit snug, when Colt got close.

“Meet you in the living room,” he said and I nodded at him.
 

His eyes watched me doing up buttons for awhile before he walked to the closet, nabbed his suit jacket and headed out the door.

I finished dressing and wondered how long it would be before my new spike heels would start killing my feet. I got my answer two seconds later when they started killing my feet. I put on my watch and a pair of diamond stud earrings that Reece bought me on what I thought, at the time, was a lark. I thought this because Reece made his usual show of acting like it was no big thing, even though they cost some serious cake. Now I knew it was a sign neither he nor I cottoned onto until it was too late.

I hit the living room and saw Colt, now wearing his suit jacket and looking even better than before, through the opening over the kitchen bar. His eyes were aimed at the counter but his head came up when he caught my movement and I nearly slid off the side of my heel when his gaze hit me.

“Ready,” I announced and he grinned.

“I can see that.”

I stopped in the living room but he didn’t move nor did he take his eyes from me.

“We going or what?”

“Give me a minute, Feb. Don’t get this view very often. In fact, never.”

“It’s just a skirt,” I said.

“And heels.”

“It’s just a skirt and heels.”

“A tight skirt.”

“Jessie’s smaller than me.”

“And high heels.”

“Colt –”

“Sexy as hell high heels.”

I put my hands to my hips which made the blouse stretch tighter at my breasts and I knew Colt saw it because his eyes moved directly there.

“We’re going to a funeral,” I reminded him.

He looked at my face again but I could tell it cost him. “I take you to Costa’s, you ditch the jeans skirt and wear that.”

“This is too fancy, even for Costa’s.”

“Don’t care.”

“If I eat wearin’ this outfit, I’ll explode out of it like The Hulk.”

He liked this idea, I knew it because he smiled, slow and sexy.

In order to get a move on, I decided to throw him a bone. “I bought new boots for when we go to Costa’s.”

“Don’t care about that either.”

“You’ll like them, they’re high heels and, even bein’ a girl, I think they’re sexy.”

“Costa’s, tomorrow night,” Colt said instantly and I couldn’t help but smile.

“You’ll never get a reservation at Costa’s on a Saturday night.”

“Watch me.”

My smile got wider but I prompted, “Are we gonna go?”

His head tipped down to indicate the counter. “What’s this?”

“What?” I asked.

“Looks like a pile of your mail.”

“Mom, Dad, Jessie and I got a start on me movin’ in. I grabbed my mail while I was there.”

He looked down at the counter again and seemed to slip away to a place that he didn’t like so I walked to the bar.

“Colt?”

His head came up and he said, “We haven’t touched your mail, didn’t fuckin’ think of it. He could be communicatin’ with you.”

Although the specter of Denny was ever present, I still had managed to ignore it just enough to be able deal with it and I liked it that way. I peered over the bar at the stack of mail which had a small parcel in it. I hadn’t even sifted through it because I never got any good mail. I’d set it on the counter to go through when I had a bit of time. Now it seemed I was staring at a ticking bomb with a counter closing in on zero.

I looked back at Colt and asked quietly, “Can we deal with Amy first and that later?”

I needed him to say yes. I couldn’t face Amy’s parents and her funeral if I knew something from Denny came through the post. I could barely deal with it anyway.

“Yeah, baby,” he said and relief filled me. “Let’s go.”

I nodded and we went to his truck. I had forgotten about the truck and if I hadn’t I might have chosen a different outfit, something stretchy. As I stood in the passenger side door, my mind flew through strategies of how I was going to heft my ass into the seat without ripping the skirt at the seams.

“Feb, honey, get in,” Colt said from where he was standing in the driver’s side door watching me with mild irritation at another delay.

I looked at him and said, “I can’t.”

“Baby, we gotta –”

“No,” I cut him off, “I mean, my skirt’s too tight and my heels are too high, I can’t –” I stopped talking when he shook his head and moved out of the driver’s side door.

He approached me and bent, sliding an arm behind my knees, one at my waist, and he lifted me and put me in the seat. I held my breath while he did this for two reasons. One, it would hopefully suck in my flesh so the material wouldn’t tear and two, because I didn’t hold much hope it would suck in my flesh so the material wouldn’t tear. Hope won and the material didn’t tear.

 
“Thanks,” I said when his arms slid away.

He was looking at me and grinning and I knew he thought I was a nut.

“Do I amuse you?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he answered and then moved away.

He’d backed out and we were on the road when my mind went to places I didn’t want it to go. Places that would torture me and places that made my pronouncement of Colt and me being solid as a rock a lie. I knew this shit with Denny, all we’d learned and all that we’d lost, would fuck with my head. I just didn’t know how to fight it.

I was looking out the window, thinking of stuff I knew I should let go when I felt Colt’s hand take mine. He laced our fingers together and pulled them to rest on his thigh.

“What’s in your head?” he asked and I looked at him.

“Nothin’,” I lied.

“Bullshit,” he replied, it wasn’t mean, it was real and I wondered if there would come a day when I was able to lie to him successfully and I doubted it.

“It’s nothin’,” I said again and his hand squeezed mine.

“Amy?” he asked.

“No.” Even though it kind of was.

“The mail?”

“No.” Even though it kind of was that too.

His hand squeezed mine again and he prompted, “Feb –”

I sighed, he wouldn’t let it go and the days where I kept myself to myself were long gone and, I realized then, they should have been long gone a long, long time ago.

So, I said, “It’s just that… this is all a lot.”

“I know it is, baby.”

“It’ll take awhile to get used to it.”

“I know.”

“And get over what we’ve lost.”

He gave me another hand squeeze and said, “Honey –”

“Colt, you don’t really know me.”

“I know you.”

“Not really.”

“I know you, Feb.”

I looked out the passenger side window and tried to pull my hand from his but his grip just got tighter so I gave up.

Then I told him, “You got a good job, a home, a life. While I was gone, I didn’t create any of that.”

“So?”

I looked back at him. “So, doesn’t say much for me.”

“How’s that?”

“It just doesn’t.”

He let my hand go but only so he could maneuver the truck into the parking lot behind the funeral home and pull into an open slot. Then he turned off the truck and turned to me.

When he did, he asked, “How do I make this better?”

Yes, he asked, straight out.

“What?”

“You’re doin’ your own head in, how do I stop that?”

I shook my head, not certain how to answer.

“I… I don’t know,” I stammered.

“You know it and you aren’t gonna like me remindin’ you of it but twice this shit happened to me. You, dealin’ with shit in your head and not sharin’ and Melanie, dealin’ with her own shit and not sharin’. Both of you let it eat you and both of you pulled away from me. Now, I’m not dickin’ around with it again, tryin’ to figure out a way in. So, I’m askin’ the only person who can tell me, how do I stop this?”

“I don’t think you can,” I told him the truth even though it killed me to do it.

I watched him start to get pissed before he said, “So, you’re sayin’ I just watch it eat at you?”