“Don’t roll your eyes at me either, Ry,” she demands as we walk through the front door.
I drop my stuff by the tall table that stands against the entry wall. I skulk over to the couch in our front room and sink into it, wishing I could just close my eyes and fall asleep. But I can’t because Haddie sits down on the other end of the couch and curls her lithe legs beneath her.
“When were you going to tell me?” Her voice is chillingly quiet. This is not a good sign. The quieter she is, the more pissed she is.
“About?” I prompt, figuring if she gives me what she knows, I can at least get credit for telling her the rest.
“Colton freakin’ Donavan?” she sputters, eyes wide, trying to suppress a grin that threatens to break through her implacable façade. “Are you fucking kidding me? And you didn’t tell me?” The pitch of her voice escalates with each word. She grabs her glass of wine on the end table next and sips it, never breaking eye contact. “Why?” she says quietly but clearly hurt.
“Oh, Haddie.” I blow out, scrubbing my hands over my face, trying to bite back the tears that threaten to break free. I lose the battle and a single tear slips down my cheek. “I’m so confused.” I sigh, closing my eyes momentarily to gain control of my slipping emotions.
Haddie’s face softens at my confession. “I’m so sorry, Ry—I just—I’m hurt you didn’t tell me—I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay,” I tell her, slipping my shoes off, the grains of sand stuck to my feet, reminding me that I really was with Colton tonight. As if I need a reminder. The scent of his cologne mixed with the smell of him still fresh in my mind. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. How did you—”
“You didn’t answer your phone … like at all. I was excited to tell you about someone we confirmed for the big launch party tomorrow. I texted and called several times and didn’t get a response,” she says. “I was concerned. It's not like you to not give me at least a one-word answer if you're busy. I was worried so I called Dane.” My eyebrow rises. “I guess he just put two and two together.” She shrugs. “So what’s going on, Rylee? What are you hiding from me?”
“It’s just—I am just so overwhelmed with everything.” I continue to tell her the story, every sordid detail despite my embarrassment at our first ten minutes of interaction. Her face remains impassive during my replay of events as she digests everything.
When I’m finished, she is quiet for a few moments, staring at me with unconditional affection on her face. “Well,” she says, rising to get more wine and returning with a glass for me, “there are many things to say, to discuss, but first and foremost,” she grabs my knee, excitement vibrating off of her, “Holy shit, Rylee! Colton Donavan? Backstage at the theater! Woohoo!” She raises her arms above her head, and I mentally cringe, hoping she won’t spill her wine. “I’m so proud you finally got a little crazy. What’s gotten into you?”
I feel the deep crimson flush over my face as I bow my head and start twisting the ring around and around my finger. “I know,” I mumble. “I don’t get it either.”
“What?” she shouts at me. “What the hell are you talking about?” She shoves my knee vigorously. “I meant wow in admiration, not wow in why would he pick you. Snap out of it, Ry.” She snaps her fingers in front of my face, forcing me to look at her. “He is fucking gorgeous! All rebellious and smoldering bad boy …”
As if I need to be reminded.
Haddie looks back at me. I can see her giddiness rising to the surface. “Is he as good looking in person as he is on TV?”
I try to find the perfect word, but I say the first one that comes to my mind. “He’s breathtaking,” I say reverently, “and sexy and domineering and frustrating and his eyes are just … and his lips … ugh!” I am caught up in the memory of him, my mind drifting over bits and pieces. When I come back to the here and now, I find Haddie staring at me, a ghost of a smile on her mouth.
“You really like him, don’t you?” she asks quietly, sensing what I feel but refuse to say.
Tears pool in my eyes at the thought despite the smile plastered on my face. “It doesn’t matter if I do or don’t, he made it clear he only wants me for one thing.” I shrug, taking a long swallow of my wine. “Besides, I can’t do that to M—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” she yells, waving her arms in the air to stop me. “I’m going to take this discussion and break it up into two different parts—compartmentalize it for you and your anal ways, if you will—because both really need to be addressed.” She scoots closer to me. “Rylee, honey...” gravity in her voice “...who cares what the future holds when it comes to Colton. If he only wants you for your body and some earth-shattering sex, then so be it. Go for it. Just because it’s not what you’re expecting doesn’t mean it’s not everything you might need. And who better to do it with than a fucking Adonis like him?” She swigs another drink, amused. “Shit, I’d take that for a ride in a heartbeat,” she murmurs, her lips pursing in thought at what it would be like.
I laugh out loud. “You would,” I tease, slowly feeling my body unwind from the tension. “That kind of thing is easy for you.”
She shoves at my leg. “Gee, thanks! I’m not a slut!” she contemplates. “Well, unless I want to be.” She laughs.
“No,” I huff, “I mean you are so carefree and sure of yourself. Everything you do you’re sure about. No regrets.” I cock my head to the side. “And you sure are attracted to the bad boys.” I smirk at her.
“Hmm-hmm, I do love them naughty.” She laughs, momentarily lost in her thoughts. “But back to you. No need getting me all twisted up over a man that’s into you.”
I roll my eyes at her comment.
“Rylee, the guy can have any woman he wants, and he is busy chasing you around, paying thousands for dates, spending millions to make your dream come true, and taking you on impromptu romantic dates to the beach. At sunset.”
“According to him, he doesn’t do romance.”
She snorts loudly. “Well maybe he needs to redefine what romance is,” she rebukes, “because all of those things spell out a man in pursuit.”
I shake my head and her Haddie frankness. “He just wants me because I told him no. I’m a challenge to him in an otherwise willing world of women.”
“You were quite the challenge when he had you up against the wall backstage, huh?” She quirks her mouth, goading me.
“You know that is so not like me, Haddie! I haven’t been touched since …” The silence settles and I shake my head to clear it of the memories holding me hostage. “Besides, I came to my senses. It was just the adrenaline from being trapped—”
“You just keep telling yourself that, sweetie, because I’m not sure if you’re trying to convince me or yourself that it’s just a simple lapse in morality.” She shrugs, not breaking eye contact with me. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s okay to feel again, Rylee. To live again.”
Tears threaten again, and I dash them away with the back of my hands before they can fall. “And even though we aren’t done with item number one on our agenda, let’s visit item number two.” I level my eyes with hers, apprehension filling me. All of a sudden, her expression changes into understanding as the realization hits her. “You didn’t want to tell me because you didn’t want me to tell you that it’s okay to live again. That it’s okay to move on.” Her questioning voice is soft, soothing.
I nod slowly as I swallow the huge lump in my throat. She scoots close to me, wrapping her arms around me, rocking me slowly and making hushing noises. A huge sob escapes and I succumb to the tears that have threatened me for several days. It feels so good to let them out, cathartic really.
After a few moments I find a semblance of control and am finally able to speak. “I just—I feel like I’m betraying Max. I feel like I don’t deserve...” my breath hitches from my sobbing “...I feel guilty—”
“Rylee, honey...” she tucks an errant curl of hair behind my ear “...it’s normal to feel that way, but a
t some point you have to start living again. It is a tragic, horrific thing that happened to you guys. To him. To you. But it’s been over two years, Ry...” she grabs my hand “...and I know you don’t want to hear it, but at some point you have to move on. You don’t have to forget, but you—the wonderful, beautiful woman that you are—needs to live again. You too were once carefree. It’s not too late to find that again.”
I stare at her, tears blurring my vision, afraid that my next admission will make me a horrible person. I avert my eyes, afraid to look at her when I speak. “Part of the reason I feel guilty … I … the intensity, the desperation, the everything that Colton makes me feel is so much more, so much stronger, than I ever felt with Max.” I take a chance and look back at her face, finding the exact opposite expression than what I had expected. I find compassion rather than disappointed disgust. “And I was going to marry Max,” I choke out, relieved to have gotten this huge burden off of my chest and off my conscious. “I know it’s stupid, but I can’t help feeling it. I can’t help that it pops into my head in that moment when all I feel, breathe, and want is more of Colton.”
“Oh, Ry … why have you been holding all of this in by yourself?” She wipes one of her own tears before pulling me to her and squeezing me again. She rests her cheek on the top of my head. “Rylee, you were a different person then. Your life is different now. Back then, anyone that saw you and Max together—we just knew that you were perfect for each other—just as you knew.” I can hear the smile in her voice as she reminisces. “And now,” she sighs, “you’ve been to hell and back in a little over two years. You are not the same person you were. It’s natural to feel differently—to love deeper, feel stronger—no one is going to fault you for that. No one has touched you in two years, Rylee. Your reaction is going to be more intense.”
We sit there in silence as I absorb the truth in her words. I know she’s right, I just hope that I can believe it when the time comes. My contemplative silence is broken when Haddie suddenly starts laughing. She releases me from her hug, and I lean back to look at her perplexed. What in the hell is so funny? “What?”
She looks at me and I can see debauchery in her eyes. “He’s probably great in bed.” She smirks wickedly. “I bet he fucks like he drives—a little reckless, pushing all the limits, and in it until the very last lap.” She raises her eyebrows at me, her grin sassy.
Her words make me bite my bottom lip at the thought of him hovering over me, sinking into me, filling me. I relive the feel of his lips on mine, the firm muscles beneath his clothes flexing with me, and his raspy voice telling me he wants me. I break from my thoughts, my core dampening at the thought of him. I look back to Haddie, watching her watch me, her eyebrows still raised, as if she is asking me if I think her assessment is accurate.
Oh boy, do I. And then some.
“Since when do you watch racing? Know how he drives?” I shift the focus of the conversation.
“Brody watches it. I pay attention when they say Colton’s name,” she says of her brother and then smirks devilishly. “It’s definitely worth watching when they flash his face on camera.”
“The man can kiss,” I confess, grinning like a loon. “He can definitely kiss.” I nod my head in agreement.
“Don’t think about it, Rylee … just do it! Be reckless. Let your hair down,” she urges. “Do you want to wake up twenty years from now with a perfectly ordered life with everything in its proper place but never having really lived? Never really putting yourself out there?”
“Well, I like the everything in order part,” I kid as she rolls her eyes at me.
“Of course, that’s what you would focus on! Just think of the stories you can tell your grandkids someday—about the sordid affair you had with the hot playboy race car driver.”
I take a sip of my wine, contemplating her comments. “I know what you’re saying, Haddie, I really do, but the sex without commitment thing. Without the relationship thing … how do you do that?”
“Well you stick flap A in slot B,” she answers wryly.
“It was a rhetorical question, you bitch!” I laugh, throwing a pillow at her.
“Thank God! I was worried it had been so long that I was going to have to give you a sex-ed lesson.” She reaches over to the table and uncorks another bottle of wine, topping off both of our glasses. She settles back in the couch, and I can see her mentally choosing her words before she speaks. “Maybe it’s best that way?” When all I do is raise my eyebrows in question, she explains. “Maybe for your first guy since Max, maybe it’s best that he isn’t relationship material. You’re bound to have some hiccups—after everything you’ve been through—so maybe it’s best to throw caution to the wind and embrace your inner slut for a little bit. Have some fun and a lot of mind blowing sex!” She wiggles her eyebrows and I giggle at her, my overconsumption of wine slowly taking effect, smoothing over my frayed nerves.
“My inner slut,” I reiterate, nodding my head, “I like that, but I think she’s lost.”
“Oh, we can find her, sister!” she snickers. “She’s probably hiding behind the layers of cobwebs covering your crotch.”
We both laugh before we start giggling uncontrollably. My overwrought emotions from the week welcome this release. I giggle until tears seep from the corners of my eyes. Just when I think my laughter is going to subside, Haddie shakes her head. “You have to admit, Ry, the man is fucking hot!”
I start giggling again. “Scorching hot!” I confirm. “Man, I can’t wait to see him naked!” The words are out before my fuzzy brain has had a chance to filter them.
Haddie stops mid-laugh, a knowing smile playing over her lips. “I knew it!” she yells at me, pointing at my face. “I knew you wanted to fuck him!”
“Well, duh?” I respond before we collapse again in another fit of giggles.
“Let’s get you drunk tomorrow night at the event, and then we’ll drunk dial his ass for a booty call.”
“Oh God, no!” I blanch. What have I gotten myself into?
THE LIGHT FILLING THE ROOM is way too bright. The pounding in my head makes me groan out loud and grab my pillow from under my head, pulling it down over my eyes. I curse the numerous glasses of wine that Haddie and I drank last night but smile remembering our tears, and our laughs.
And Colton. Hot, delectable Colton.
Hmmm, I sigh at the memory of yesterday and him. He’s going to have to do something to take care of this ache he’s churned inside of me. I press my thighs together to abate it without success.
Since I can’t get him out of my head, my hopes of falling back asleep are now gone. I reach my hand out blindly and fish around for the cell phone on my nightstand, knocking over an empty bottle of water. It clatters loudly on the hardwood floor, the sound making me cringe. I lift the pillow slightly to glance at the screen of my phone, wanting to know what time it is.
I lift the pillow further when I see my screen. I have numerous missed calls and texts from last night. I scroll through them quickly noting Haddie’s texts getting more frantic as time passed. There are several from Dane and as I scroll to the next screen, the very last alert shows me there is a text from an unknown number. It was sent after I’d gotten home last night, during my discussion with Haddie. I open the text, and a smile spreads across my face. The text is from Colton:
Ryles—Thanks for the unexpected picnic. Since you seem most comfortable telling me what you think through music, I’ll do the same. Luke Bryan, “I Don’t Want This Night to End”—take it for what it is. *Ace
I smile at his words when I realize he heard the words I sang to him yesterday in the car. I’m unaware of the song he’s mentioned, so I scramble quickly, ignoring my hangover to grab my MacBook Pro. I pull it off my dresser and plop back on my bed, anxiously waiting for it to power up. I immediately Google the song and am surprised to find that it is country; Colton does not seem like a country music kind of guy to me, more hard rock or something with a thumping bass. I click on th
e link and within seconds the song is playing.
I lie back on my bed, close my eyes, and listen to the words of the song. A soft smile plays on my lips as the song washes over me. My first peek inside of Colton’s head—sure, he verbally tells me he wants me, but the gist of the words is that he enjoyed his time with me last night. That he didn’t want the night to end. I enjoy the little boost to my ego and the flutter in my stomach from the thought that Colton wants to get drunk on my kiss.
Don’t jump to conclusions. I warn myself. This is the same man who warned me off of him. Who tells me I need to research my dates to know who’s dangerous and will hurt me when I least expect it.
I sit back up and grab my computer. I immediately replay the song and open up another window to Google “Colton Donavan.” The search is immediately populated with page upon page of links referencing him: racing sites, the Speed Channel, fan-created sites, and so many more.
I decide to narrow the search and type in “Colton Donavan Enterprises.” I click on the company’s website. The opening page is a picture of what I assume is Colton’s racecar next to a picture of the office facility. I click through the menu and am led through a corporate mission statement, history, products, media, and race team information. It’s all very impressive, but I stop when I click on the tab “drivers” and Colton’s face fills the screen. It is a close-up, candid shot of him in his fire suit. He is looking intensely at something off-camera, and his green eyes are clear and intrigued. He has a half-smile on his face as if he is remembering a fond moment, the dimple in his right cheek winking. His hair is in need of a cut and curls over the neck of his suit.
I suck in my breath. My God, the man is sex on a stick.
I bookmark the picture for good measure before I force myself to change the page and search Google Images. I reluctantly type in his name, afraid of what I’ll see. The page refreshes and dozens of images of him pop up on the screen, most of them with a gorgeous woman draped on his arm or looking up in obvious adoration of him. I know I have no reason to be jealous—these pictures are dated—but I find myself rolling my shoulders to ease my agitation. Knowing I should close the page, I do just the opposite and find myself clicking on each picture. Staring. Comparing. None of the captions refer to the women as girlfriends, just dates or companions.