23. Colton

23

COLTON

“ W ow, that must have been a shock,” Cassie, our team therapist says, studying me closely from her spot on a couch opposite mine.

After we’d showered, I sent Kane home with Luca in the hope of calling in a favor Cassie owed me.

Chances were that she was in a session with another member of the team and I’d be out of luck, but apparently, even more things seem to be turning in my favor right now. She was sitting behind her desk, tapping away at her computer when I poked my head inside.

I’ve spent plenty of time with shrinks over the years. Most I’ve hated; many I’ve despised enough never to return. Cassie is different. I’m not sure whether she’s just used to grumpy, hard-headed football players or if she just gets me on a different level from all the others, but I don’t dread my sessions here with her. I actually…quite enjoy them, in a weird way.

“Yeah, you can say that again,” I muse, absently staring out the window as I relive the moment of finding Ella in the crowd at the game last night.

“And how did it make you feel, seeing her again?”

My fists curl, my stomach fluttering with something I’m not sure I’ve felt since before I graduated.

“Excited. Happy. No, fucking elated.” She studies me, searching for everything I’m not saying. “Terrified,” I offer up to save her from hunting for it.

“And why is that?” she asks, poking just as I knew she would.

I don’t know why I do this to myself. She’s not going to make it easy for me. And something tells me that if she took off her therapist hat, she’d be of the same opinion as Kane and Luca.

I get it; it’s romantic and all that shit. College lovers reunite after a few years, the reformed player makes her his one and only, and they run off into the sunset together to live happily ever after.

Hope stirs within me. I want it. I’ve always fucking wanted it. But unlike everyone else around me, it’s not as easy as just making her mine. I’m not going to be able to give her everything she deserves. And when shit gets bad, which it will, I’ll be no better than the prick she left behind in Texas.

“I’m not the man she thinks I am.”

“And what kind of man do you believe she thinks you to be?”

I sigh, slumping down on the couch and letting my head fall back.

“A good one. A reliable one. A…a strong one.”

“Colton,” Cassie sighs, her therapist hat slipping for a moment as her empathy shines through. “The illness you’re dealing with doesn’t mean you can’t be any of those things. Yes, you might have to work a little harder at times than others, but you are a good man, Colt. Week in, week out, your teammates rely on you. Allowing a girl—your girl—to rely on you isn’t much different. And as for strong, well, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone with your determination and tenacity. You?—”

“I can be replaced here. I can’t at home.”

“Who says you’ll need replacing? History doesn’t always repeat itself. And your illness is yours. There is no reason for it to follow the same path as?—”

“I know. I do know that,” I say, cutting her off. “But I also know there is a chance it can. What if something happens and I spiral? I can’t do that to her. She deserves so much more.”

“Don’t you think that’s for her to decide?”

I humph in response.

“Do you want a future with her in it, Colton?”

I don’t respond, but she must be able to see the answer in my eyes.

“You need to be honest with her. Your illness is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s nothing to hide from. Let her see who you really are. Let her support you if, and when, the bad times come. Something tells me that she can more than handle it. I may not have met her, but I think your girl might just be as formidable as you.”

“You have no idea,” I mutter.

“Then trust her, Colt. If she feels about you the way you feel about her, then she might just surprise you.”

I was hoping a visit to Cassie might give me some clarity, but since the moment I walked out of her office, everything is as much a mess in my head as it was when I walked inside.

Everything she said sounded so easy. Just tell Ella everything and allow her to really get to know me. Yeah, or watch her run in the opposite direction as fast as she can.

What she thinks she’s getting with me and what she’s really going to get stuck with if we embark on this are two very different things.

After leaving the facility, I drive around the city for the longest time, lost in my head, in my dreams of a future I’m not sure is possible for me. For us.

When I eventually pull into the underground parking lot beneath my apartment building and make my way up to the penthouse, the sun is beginning to set and my time is running out to get ready for our date.

Me. Colton Rogers going on an actual date.

I shake my head in disbelief.

It’s Ella, asshole. You’d give her the fucking world if you had the power. Why are you so surprised?

I haven’t heard anything from Ella since I left her at Kane and Letty’s earlier, so I can only assume that she’s followed orders and will be ready for a night out like she deserves.

Marching through my apartment, I abandon my empty drink cup in the kitchen with the intention of heading straight for the shower to get ready. But the second I step into my bedroom, my steps falter.

My bed is a mess, the sheets all twisted up. Both of the pillows have head dents in them, something that I have never seen here. This apartment is mine, and mine alone. The only other people who’ve been here are Kane and Luca. I even refused a housewarming with the rest of the guys when I first moved in. It’s not a home. It’s a house. Somewhere for me to be when I’m not at the facility working. There’s nothing here worth celebrating…

Until now.

Something poking out from the corner of the bed catches my eye and I stalk over, bending down to swipe it up.

My blood heats and my cock jerks as the softness of her panties threads through my fingers.

Fuck, last night was everything.

She was everything.

Lifting the fabric to my nose, I suck in a deep hit of her scent, my dick hardening faster than I can control.

Images of stripping her bare last night and feasting on her fill my mind, and my grip on her panties tightens.

It was everything I’d hoped it would be if we ever reconnected.

No, it was more. So much more.

Yes, I hated seeing her so unsure of herself, so self-conscious about her body. But only because I could see she was suffering. I love her body now just as much as I did back then. I just hope I can help her love it, too. Her old confidence is there—I saw little sparks of it. She just needs a little support to remember who she is.

I desperately want to be the man to do that for her. To reverse the damage that jerk in Texas did.

Anger surges through me, tamping down my desire as I think of him.

How could anyone treat such an incredible woman so badly?

Ella is…Ella is hands down the best person I’ve ever met. No one should have the power to bring her down like that. To dull her spark, her life.

My teeth grind and my fists curl so tight my short nails dig into my palms with my need to get my ass to Texas and find the motherfucker who hurt her.

My cell buzzes in my pocket, dragging me from my fantasy of plowing my fist into that asshole’s face. Pulling it free, I smile at the message waiting for me.

Kane: My girl understood the assignment…

“Fuck,” I hiss, scrubbing my hand down my face.

Taking Ella out tonight might be one of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made.

We should be staying in and getting takeout so no other motherfucker gets a look at my girl.

I’ve been without her for years; I want her all to myself for however long I get to keep her.

Ripping my eyes away from my messy bed, I throw myself into the shower. I shave, run some wax through my hair, and then grab a pair of khakis and a shirt.

With one last look in the mirror and then another at the bed, I head for the door.

I should probably smooth it all out in the hope we can mess it up all over again, but I don’t have it in me to remove the evidence that she was here this morning.

By the time I get across town and I’m pulling up at Kane’s place again, I’m almost as nervous as I was after the game yesterday.

It’s stupid. We spent all night and morning together. I had no idea what I was walking into. She might not have wanted me. She might have been sitting in there with her douchebag fiancé by her side. But now, I know she’s in there waiting for me.

Fuck. I think that makes it even worse.

I’ve never felt pressure to impress a woman before, but suddenly, I want to give her the world.

There’s so much weighing on everything I do with Ella.

If she loves it here, if she feels at home, then she might just want to stay.

Keep your fucking head, Rogers. She’s not going to relocate her entire life for your commitment-phobic ass.

Thankfully, the front door opens, revealing a smiling Letty, putting an end to my thoughts.

Killing the engine, I push the door open and jump out.

“I hope you’re ready for this, Rogers,” she taunts.

“That good, huh?” I ask, rubbing my jaw, the butterflies in my stomach rioting.

“Better,” she promises, her smile widening.

“Jesus.”

Opening the door wider, she allows me to step past her.

“Where is she then?”

“Out on the deck. She doesn’t know you’re here yet. Come on,” she says, wrapping her fingers around my forearm, dragging me along as if I don’t know their house almost as well as they do.

“This really isn’t necess—” My words cut off the second we round the corner and I’m able to see my girl past their open slider. “Fuck me.”

“Told you,” Letty says smugly.

Her blonde hair is mostly pinned up in a messy kind of style. There are a few locks left blowing in the breeze that call to me before my eyes drop down her body.

She’s wearing a Saints-blue dress that hugs her new curves to perfection.

My mouth waters and my cock swells.

It’s got a low back, showcasing her flawless, pale skin. It blows my mind that she’s just lived through a Texan summer yet there is no hint of a tan on her. Has she really kept herself locked away from the world that much?

The hem is short—short enough that I know she’s going to be feeling self-conscious about her scars. She has no reason to. They’re as beautiful as the rest of her. They’re just evidence of what I’ve always known. Ella Myers is strong and fierce, and everything every other woman on the planet should want to be.

I follow her bare legs all the way down to the shoes. And it’s those that make my chin drop.

“Gonna look good wrapped around your waist later, right?” Letty says, slapping my back like she’s one of the guys and heading for the kitchen. “El, your prince is here,” she calls, making Ella still.

Time seems to stop, although tension crackles between us even before she turns around.

Her shoulders lift as she sucks in a huge breath, and slowly, so fucking slowly, she finally turns around.

I almost choke on my own spit at the sight of the front of her. It’s unbelievable and only goes to prove that my imagination over the past few years has been shit.

When I’ve thought of her, I’ve always pictured the Ella I knew, the sassy little thing who used to bounce around campus with more energy than one person should be able to possess. But while that energy might be hiding, the woman staring back at me is so much more than that girl used to be.

And I want her even more fiercely than I did back then. I want to peel back the layers of armor she’s wrapped herself in and help her rediscover that fiery bombshell I fell for all those years ago.

I don’t notice that she’s got her eyes downcast until I make it back up to her head.

“El,” I growl, hating that she’s hiding from me.

She sucks in another breath, one that I assume is full of strength, because when she lifts her head, her eyes are sparkling with excitement.

My breath catches at the way they glitter under the last of the day’s sun, and my heart lurches in my chest.

“Ella,” I muse, my legs carrying me forward before my brain has registered I’m moving. “Fuck. You look…You look unbelievable.”

The second I’m in touching distance, I reach out, cup her cheeks in my hands, and slam my lips down on her red-stained ones.

And the moment hers part to let me in, everything seems to slot right into place. The chaos in my head settles and my fears ebb away.

This is what my life has been missing.

My girl.

My Ella.