Chapter 25

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

T ully

I woke up deliciously sore, mostly from good old-fashioned hard work at my job, but also from the shenanigans in the back seat of my car. I didn’t know when we’d lost the flexibility, but that location for future nookie was officially off the list. Twisting my head to wake up Colson, I discovered cold sheets. I frowned, sitting up and pushing my curly hair off my face. Where the hell did he go? We’d planned to sleep in on our day off, have a slow morning together, and then go meet Gabi and Joey at the farmer’s market downtown.

Getting up and splashing water on my face in the tiny bathroom, I was irrationally irritated that he was gone. I’d somehow gotten addicted to his arms around me while we slept. We still hadn’t made love in his bed, but every night that he wasn’t working, he’d snuggled up to me all night long, creating this cocoon of safety and comfort that I now craved.

Throwing on a clean pair of jeans and a blouse that gave a little lift and push to the small breasts genetics gave me, I stepped outside and saw that Colson’s truck was gone.

“Come on, Tully. Don’t be this pathetic.” I had to give myself a pep talk as I walked over to Mama’s house, trying to ward off the disappointment of him being gone.

What I should be doing was using this time to come up with a plan. I couldn’t keep sleeping with Colson and not tell him how I felt. But I couldn’t just blurt out that I loved him. For one thing, he probably wouldn’t believe me. I’d said that many times before and then I’d gone and left him. But I also couldn’t not tell him how I felt.

The rocks crunched under my feet as I walked toward the lawn area in back of the main house that Colson kept trimmed up for Mama. The days were getting warmer and I knew it was only a matter of a few weeks before the afternoons were scorching. Dips into the river would become a necessity for cooling off. The seasons were changing and I was still here in Blueball.

I’d seen the look of fear in Colson’s eyes when he asked me about Joselyn’s phone calls. It wasn’t fair of me to keep living in this limbo with Colson when he clearly had trust issues because of our divorce. If I wanted to be with Colson, which I most certainly did, I needed to put down roots. Prove to him that I intended to stay. Hell, I needed to do all that for myself too. I deserved to live in a place I loved that loved me back. LA had been fun for awhile, but it had lost its luster long before I got fired. It was cutthroat in an underhanded way that took you by surprise when you let your guard down. Here in Blueball, I didn’t have to have my guard up at all. People were exactly who they claimed to be and everyone looked out for each other. Case in point, look how many people told me to leave Colson’s heart alone. They had his back and I wanted some of that connection.

“Mama?” I called as I headed inside the back door of the house.

“In here!” she called out from somewhere in the house.

At this hour, she’d probably be just finishing up breakfast. I headed for the small dining room off the kitchen, the one I’d wallpapered and painted, adding in a chair rail and updated furniture when the girls worked on the kitchen. I screeched to a halt when I found Colson sitting with her, sipping a cup of coffee from Crazy Beans. Mama had an identical cup of coffee in her hands.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Colson drawled. “’Fraid your coffee might have gotten a bit cold.” He gestured to a third cup on the table, along with a small paper bag that probably held my beloved egg bites.

I kissed Mama on the top of her head and then did the same to Colson before my ass hit the chair. How had I missed these little green flags all those years ago? Colson had always taken care of me and my mama in a way that just wasn’t common out there in the world.

“Thank you,” I said softly, tucking into my breakfast before I did something crazy like propose marriage for bringing us breakfast.

Mama shoved her chair back and rose. “Well, I need to get dressed and get busy baking. Crazy Beans said my lemon bars sold out before noon yesterday, so I need to make a triple batch.”

“That’s because your lemon bars are out of this world,” Colson agreed, standing up briefly when Mama did, always the perfect gentleman.

I swallowed my bite of egg and assessed the man across from me. He was handsome, sure. Probably one of the most good-looking men I’d seen, and I’d seen a lot of Hollywood hopefuls in my time there. But Colson was so much more. He had a heart that he buried deep in his gruff chest. Once someone got in there, it was all over. He loved you for a lifetime. And I’d shoved that love in his face in exchange for the shiny object of Hollywood. A fickle lover, indeed.

“Why do you love my mama so much, Colson Wolfe?”

Colson tipped his head to the side, like that was an odd question. “Because she made you. You and your family have always been my true north.”

My ribs squeezed painfully tight. My gaze dropped to the constellation tattoo on his ring finger that had faded quite a bit over the years but was still visible. I loved Colson so much I wanted to cry over the sheer depth of it.

“You know I love you, right?” I said quietly, making sure I held his gaze so he understood how much I meant those words.

His lips quirked in an almost-smile. “And you know I’ve always loved you, right? That it hasn’t stopped just because of some signed court documents?”

Tears flooded my eyes and his image wavered. I nodded, biting my lip to keep from crying. “This isn’t just sex for me.” I had to make sure he knew that. I was the idiot who’d suggested we could actually do that and not develop feelings.

Colson shifted on his chair, the wood creaking below him. His big, scarred hand covered mine, a warm comfort. “I know. It’s not for me either. Hasn’t been.”

I gripped him back tightly. “I need to get my life together.”

He dipped his head in understanding of what I was saying. “I’ll wait you out, then.”

He was giving me space to do what I needed to do, while also loving me. It was everything I knew he couldn’t give me before when we were younger and less flexible. He gave me hope we could actually make this work this time around. I stood, my chair scraping behind me. I rounded the table and plopped down on his lap, throwing my arms around his neck and laying a kiss on him he wouldn’t soon forget. He got over his surprise in a quick second, his hands skimming up my back to tangle in my hair.

“Oh, would you look at that?” Mama’s soft voice interrupted us with a tinkling laugh. She didn’t sound surprised at all, considering I hadn’t moved back into the main house with her when the renovations were done.

We came up for air, but I kept my forehead pressed to Colson’s to get my bearings. His hands smoothed down my back, respectfully not grabbing my ass like he normally would.

“Your daughter says she loves me, Sofia,” Colson said on a smile that lit up every dark corner in my heart.

I pulled my head back and grinned right back. Mama just blew a raspberry.

“As if we didn’t already know that…” she muttered, starting to slam cabinet doors back in the kitchen as she got out ingredients for her baking.

I rolled my eyes. I got off Colson’s lap and held out my hand, feeling like I could take on the world. “Let’s go buy things we don’t need at the farmer’s market.”

Gabi held up a blue-and-white muumuu to her chest. “What do you think, Joey? Should I start wearing nightgowns to bed instead of concert tees and boy shorts?”

Joey wagged his eyebrows and pulled my friend into an embrace. “How about your birthday suit? That doesn’t cost anything.”

Gabi jabbed him in the stomach and then kissed him when he let her go. “My grandpa got Grandma pregnant like nine times when she wore one of these things.” She put the muumuu back on the table, but ran her hand over it, like she was actually considering buying it.

Joey looked stricken. “We have teenagers, babe. We can’t be tempting the pregnancy gods with nightgowns.”

Gabi snatched her hand back. “You’re so right. I don’t want to bring another human being into this world just for them to call me bruh.”

Colson slung his arm around my shoulders and pulled me in close to whisper, “Is it weird to say I’m glad we didn’t have kids? I’m not sure I could handle teens.”

I shivered in the warm afternoon sunshine. “No. I get it. I’m not sure I was cut out to be a mom.” I turned in to him, my hands going to his muscled torso. “Wait. You always said you wanted kids. It was like get married and have kids was your personal mantra.”

Colson shrugged, dipping his head down to kiss my forehead. “It was. But then it didn’t happen and now I’m glad for it. I like being an uncle, but having my own?” He shook his head, looking into the distance like he just couldn’t picture it. “Mom was always so disappointed I didn’t give her grandbabies, which makes me happy Warrick married a young wife who’s giving her all the little critters her heart desires.”

I pulled back enough to study him. I was having a hard time reconciling this new side of Colson. For so long, he’d talked about us getting married and having a family. It was strange to hear that kids wasn’t even on his radar anymore. Which was a good thing. I didn’t want to even think about getting pregnant in my forties. I’d be sixty before the kid even graduated high school! Maybe some people would be fine with that, but it just wasn’t for me.

“Do I have powdered sugar on my face?” Colson asked, letting me go to swipe at his face. We’d splurged on beignets when we first got here, drawn into the heavenly scent wafting right to our noses.

“No!” I laughed. “Just realizing again how much we’ve both changed.”

Colson stilled, his hand dropping to my hip where his thumb swept back and forth. “We got some things right and a lot of things wrong back then. Maybe we spend some time shoring up the things we got wrong so we don’t fuck ’em up again, huh?”

I nuzzled in closer. “Mhhm. I like the sound of that.”

Colson dipped his head again, this time aiming for my lips. He barely brushed a kiss across my mouth before a throat clearing had us separating. Gabi and Joey had moved to the next booth set up in the park, debating the merits of the different seasonings and rubs the man had for sale. Muriel Gayle, the owner of Gin/Tan/Laundry, one of the weirdest yet most popular businesses in Blueball that had started up after I moved away, stood there on the grass with a flask in one hand and a dark tan that rivaled the old ladies retired in Florida. She pointed back and forth between us with a long red fingernail.

“So, are you two a thing again?” She practically shouted the question. I could feel heads swiveling in our direction. “I mean, we all knew you could do better than Benicio Lazar. That guy kind of gave me the creeps.”

She was referring to a man I’d stepped out with in Hollywood a few times, garnering a couple mentions in the gossip columns for B-list actors.

A man with thick messy hair and a lopsided grin grabbed my attention, sticking his hand out toward me. I shook it, giving him a practiced smile. “I’m Benny Campbell. Nice to meet you, Tully.” He gave Colson a head nod, but shifted his gaze back to me quickly. “I always wanted to know if Benicio Lazar did his own stunts. Like, he held his breath for over a minute in that one movie. What was it called?” He snapped his fingers. Muriel barked out the title of the movie, the two of them pressing closer to me. “Yes! So did he?”

I shook my head, feeling a little uncomfortable talking about a guy I barely knew when I just wanted to meander through the market with my boyfriend-slash-ex-husband. “I, uh, I don’t know. He didn’t tell me those kinds of things.”

Muriel wiggled her shoulders suggestively, giving me a knowing grin like we were two girlfriends sharing a secret. “You probably had other things in mind when you were with Benicio. That man has abs for days. Did you get to see if he’s well-proportioned elsewhere?”

My face flamed hot, but I didn’t want to be rude. Not when I could feel other people listening in. Colson had stepped away from me, and I didn’t like it. I held up my hands, refusing to lose the forced smile on my face. “I have no idea about any of that. Sorry.”

I stepped back, trying to get closer to the direction Colson, Gabi, and Joey had gone. Muriel’s face sagged into a pout that matched Benny’s.

“Have a nice day,” I said, spinning quickly and grabbing Colson’s hand once I got away from those people. His jaw was locked tight and he didn’t exactly squeeze my fingers back. Fuck.

Gabi began talking animatedly about the salads at Grass, saying we should head over there and have some lunch to soak up some of the sugar from the beignets. I loved her for trying to smooth over the awkwardness that had descended on our group. Unfortunately, Colson wasn’t swayed by her manic sudden interest in salad.

“Hey,” I said, pulling him to a stop underneath a jasmine tree and letting Joey and Gabi walk ahead of us, toward the far side of town where Grass was located. “We just said we wanted to work through some of the things we got wrong. Clearly, what Muriel and Benny said made you upset. Talk to me.”

Colson finally met my gaze, a hot anger simmering in those eyes. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to watch the woman you love move on without you? I had to watch you on television. See your pictures in the newspapers with other men. They have a fucking cardboard cutout of you down at the hardware store, for shit’s sake, Tully.”

I squeezed his fingers, hoping for the right words, while also knowing there was nothing I could do to take back all the hurt I’d caused. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how all that feels. I imagine it would be insanely hurtful. But I also want you to know that Benicio and I weren’t even dating. Our agents set us up as some kind of mutually beneficial publicity stunt. He had a movie, I had a new product being released in connection with my show. There’s literally nothing to be jealous of. I promise you.”

Colson’s jaw didn’t release as he gazed down at me. But he did finally let out a long breath. “Okay.”

It wasn’t much and it certainly didn’t instill confidence that things were actually okay between us, but it was something. He turned, tugged on my hand, and we walked to Grass in silence.

All that optimism I’d felt earlier today, that Colson and I could work through everything after all these years, faded a bit. So many wounds between us, so many years we’d let them fester. It would take a lot of time and a lot of candid conversations to get on the path to finally healing.