“Good luck, Rylee.”
“Thank you, Quinlan. For everything.”
I hear her chuckle as she clicks off the phone.
Quinlan’s advice still rings in my ears as I lie in bed the next morning. The pain in my chest and ache in my soul is still there, but my resolve has returned. I once told Colton to fight for us. For me. Now it’s my turn. I told him he is worth the risk. That I’d take the chance. Now I need to prove it.
If Quinlan seems to think I matter to him, then I can’t give up now. I have to try.
I drive up the coastline, Lisa Loeb playing on the speakers, and my mind a whirl of thoughts―what I’m going to say and how I’m going to say it―as the clouds above slowly burn off and give way to the morning sun. I take it as a positive sign that somehow when I see Colton face-to-face, he’ll see it’s just him and me, how it was before, and that the words mean nothing. That they change nothing. That he feels the same way and that I act the same way. And that we are us. That the darkness I feel will dissipate because I’ll be back in his light once again.
I steer down Broadbeach Road and pull up to his gate, my heart pounding a frantic tattoo and my hands shaking. I ring the buzzer, but no one answers. I try again, and then again, thinking maybe he is asleep. That he can’t hear the buzzer because he is upstairs.
“Hello?” a feminine voice asks through the speaker. My heart drops into my stomach.
“It’s Rylee. I...I need to see Colton.” My voice is a tangle of nerves and unshed tears.
“Hi, dear. It’s Grace. Colton’s not here, sweetie. He hasn’t been here since yesterday afternoon. Is everything okay? Would you like to come in?”
The rush of blood into my head is all I hear. My breath hitches as I rest my head against the steering wheel. “Thanks, Grace, but no thank you. Just tell…just tell him I stopped by.”
“Rylee?” The uncertainty in her voice has me leaning out the window of the car.
“Yes?”
“It’s not my place to say it...” she clears her throat “...but be patient. Colton’s a good man.”
“I know.” My voice is barely audible, my stomach lodged in my throat. If only he would realize it.
My drive back down the coastline is not as filled with hope as my drive up it was. I tell myself that he probably went out with Beckett and was too drunk to drive home. That he went out with the crew and grabbed a hotel in downtown L.A. after partying a little too hard. That he decided it was time for another trip to Las Vegas and is on the plane home right now.
The endless scenarios run through my head but do nothing to alleviate the ripples of fear that ricochet within me. I don’t want to think of the one other place that he could be. The townhome in the Palisades. The place he goes to be with his arrangements. My heart races and thoughts fly recklessly at the notion. I try to justify that he crashed there. That he’s alone. But both Teagan’s and Tawny’s comments flicker through my mind, feeding the endless stream of doubt and unease churning within me.
My mind fills with the many warnings he’s given me. “I sabotage anything that resembles a relationship. I’m hardwired this way, Rylee. I’ll purposely do something to hurt you to prove that I can. To prove that you won’t stick around regardless of the consequences. To prove that I can control the situation.”
I don’t remember steering the car in that direction, but before I know it, I’m turning down his street from memory. Tears spill over and down my cheeks as I grip the steering wheel tightly. The need to know outweighing the agony of acknowledging what my mind fears. What my heart worries. What my conscience already knows.
I pull up to the curb, a small sigh escaping my lips in momentary relief when I see that none of Colton’s cars are there. But then I see his garage door and wonder if it’s inside. I have to know. I have to.
I push my hair out of my face and suck in a deep breath before I slide out of my car. I walk on weak knees up the pathway and into the cobblestone courtyard. My heart pounds so loudly that its thundering is all hear, all I can focus on besides telling my feet to place one foot in front of the other.
My fucking head. I groan as I roll over in the bed. Stop pounding on the fucking drums. Please. Somebody. Anybody. Fuck me.
I shove the pillow over my head, but the goddamn throbbing continues in my temples. My stomach rolls and twists, and I have to concentrate on not getting sick because my head really doesn’t want me to get up just yet.
Fucking Christ! What the fuck happened last night? Bits and pieces come back to me. Becks coming to get me to shake me out of the voodoo pussy funk. A funk I’m not really sure I want to be shaken from. Drinking. Rylee—wanting Rylee. Needing Rylee. Missing Rylee. Tawny meeting us at the bar for some signatures. A lot of fucking alcohol. Way too much fucking alcohol according to my head right now.
Pleasure to bury the pain.
I struggle to fight through the fuzz in my head to remember the rest. Snapshots of clarity amidst the haze. Coming back here. Palisades house closer than Malibu. Drinking more. Tawny not comfortable in her business suit. Getting her a shirt of mine. Standing in the kitchen looking at the fucking Tupperware container of cotton candy on the counter. Memories of the carnival making the ache burn.
“Oh fuck.” I groan as the next recollection flickers through loud and clear.
Sitting on the couch. Becks, the fucker looking no worse for the wear even though he’s gone drink for drink with me, sitting in the chair across from me. His feet propped up and his head angled back. Tawny next to me on the couch. Reaching over her to the end table to grab my beer. Her reaching up. Hands around my neck. Mouth on my lips. Too much alcohol and a chest still burning with need. Hurting so bad because I need Rylee. Only Rylee.