23. Colton

Something had changed between Colton and Lucia since Thanksgiving, and he couldn’t be sure if he was the only one who felt it. By the end of the evening, he’d known he was screwed, but he hadn’t known the extent. Then, later, when Isa had told him he needed to leave Lucia alone because she deserved better than to be used as a pawn in his game against Clark, he’d snapped. He’d confessed feelings he hadn’t even had an opportunity to work through on his own.

“Lucia has divided the timeline of my life in two: before she came to Charleston, and after,”he’d said. “Nothing has been clearer to me than the fact that she deserves far better than I could ever give her.” He cringed at the memory, remembering how he’d quieted his words so Lucia wouldn’t overhear. Who was he kidding? Isa had most definitely told her every ill-conceived word of his admission, and clearly, she didn’t feel the same way because she hadn’t made any mention of it since.

And that was okay. He was content with whatever she was willing to give him, even if the thought of their imminent breakup made his hands sweat and his heart splinter. But they’d agreed to the break up because it was what was best for their careers, and he needed to get on board. The Sabers had enough wins to go to the playoffs, and if he wanted another chance at the Super Bowl, he needed to prevent any and all distractions. Especially beautiful, brunette ones who he would willingly give up football for so he could spend the rest of his lifetime worshiping at her feet.

Regardless of her feelings, to keep up appearances, they continued their outings together. Cooper had invited them to double date, stating that he felt he hadn’t hung out with Colton as much as they usually did during the season. Colton had given Lucia an out—many, actually, because he really didn’t want to go—but she’d convinced him it would be fun.

Unsurprisingly, Cooper had pulled out all the stops. When he wanted to enjoy a night out, he truly made sure he did. The restaurant he’d chosen was completely empty, and at Colton’s questioning look, his best friend admitted that he’d reserved it for the evening so they wouldn’t have to deal with any press or fans.

Colton refrained from reminding Cooper that the woman on his arm was, in fact, a fan. Colton had no idea where his friend found these women, but this one hardly spoke, eyes sparkling and grin wide like she’d won the lottery.

Lucia smiled over at her as they looked through the menu, their very excited server standing a few feet away. “Have you lived in Charleston long?”

The woman—whom Colton referred to in his mind as Bouncy because he’d been too busy watching Lucia smile when she’d introduced herself—clapped her hands together.

“Since college! I decided to stay when I got a job here.”

“Oh, what do you do?”

“I work in advertising.”

Lucia set her menu down, and Colton noticed the way her finger stayed pointed at what he assumed she wanted to order. He smiled.

“Do you like it?”

“It’s okay. It gets really fun around the Super Bowl when everybody wants ads with the Sabers.” She patted Cooper’s hand. “That’s how we first met, actually. My agency had a client who wanted Cooper here for an insurance ad.”

Cooper grinned at Lucia. “Not looking into a new profession, I hope. Colton won’t survive if you leave the Sabers. He needs his emotional support Lucia.”

Colton kicked his friend under the table. “Dick,” he muttered.

Lucia’s laugh was melodic, echoing around the empty restaurant. She inched slightly closer to him, her leg resting against his in the booth. “I don’t know why everybody says that. Colton is the most capable quarterback in the league right now, he doesn’t need me anymore. I’m not sure he’s needed me since the third or fourth regular season game. All he needs to remember is to scramble his feet a little better and not release the ball early.”

Colton whipped his head to look at her, frowning. “That’s ridiculous. You’ve helped me through every single game this season.” He didn’t know how many times he’d told her so, not sure why she was selling herself short. He’d tell her for as long as it took for her to understand that he was being honest.

Cooper all but guffawed. “See? I told you. This guy’s life just flashed before his eyes at the thought of you leaving.”

Colton was going to kill his best friend. For real.

Lucia rolled her eyes like she didn’t believe it, turning back to Bouncy. “How fun about the ads, though! I bet they’re gonna have a lot of calls asking for them after the Super Bowl this year.” Colton’s heart soared to hear she believed in him and his team enough to place them back in the Super Bowl this season.

“Actually, yeah, I heard that after last season, there were a lot of calls asking for Cooper and Colton to shoot together.”

Their overzealous server walked over and asked for their orders. When he’d taken them down in his little pad, he grabbed their dinner menus and set a beverage and dessert menu in front of them.

Colton tensed when Lucia’s hand found his thigh, his dick shooting up to attention at her touch. She stifled a giggle when she noticed the way he shifted. He knew she loved torturing him, especially in public, and dinner with his best friend and his date was no different.

“So, is it true you guys got together in college?”

Lucia stiffened at Bouncy’s question. “Uh, what?”

Even Cooper seemed to have tensed. “You shouldn’t listen to everything you hear, Liv.”

“Where did you hear that?” Colton asked.

Bouncy—Liv—seemed less sure of herself as she responded to Colton. “Oh, people at the agency were talking about it. All of those silly news articles talk about how you guys both went to school in Los Angeles.”

Lucia shook her head, and Colton’s heart sank as she removed her hand from his leg. “Um, no. We didn’t know each other very well back then. Different colleges.”

Colton knew the topic was sensitive because she’d been with Clark in college, and obviously, those memories were still bothering her. But he wondered if there was more. If she was still upset about his accusations that Isa had slept with Vinny, used his friend to get information.

How miserable had he made her life back then? Everything he’d done and said in the name of school spirit and rivalry had been aimed at Max, but he wondered how much of it had affected her, too.

A hand reached inside him and squeezed his heart tightly. He’d have to talk to her about that, because the last thing he wanted was for him to still be the cause of any strife for her.

A few minutes of silence later, Lucia seemingly still inside of her head, Liv reached over to her. “I’m sorry I said anything. I’ll be sure to straighten out the story at work. How did you two get together, then?”

Colton jumped in, hoping to save Lucia. “We were spending a lot of time together for work, and we started to realize…” What had they started to realize? That they didn’t actually have any reason to hate each other? That they were uncontrollably attracted to each other? He didn’t know how to end the sentence, but luckily, Lucia did.

“We liked each other. And then the media was all over it even though we wanted to keep it silent, and now here we are.”

Liv nodded somberly. “Yeah, unfortunately Colton and Cooper are far too important in this city for any gossip to fly under the radar.” That was an understatement.

Their food arrived quickly, and they remained mostly silent as they ate besides the occasional question from Lucia, who tried her hardest to make Cooper’s date feel welcome and included.

When their waiter came back to ask if they wanted dessert, Liv whispered to Cooper, who shook his head once. “I don’t know about y’all, but we’re gonna head out.”

Colton took in Lucia’s barely slumped shoulders and the sad look in her eyes which had lingered there since the topic of Max had come up, even as she did her best to smile at Cooper and his date. Colton shook his head as well. “No, we’re ready to head out too.”

The waiter deflated but smiled as he brought them the check and thanked them for the night.

The car ride from the restaurant to Lucia’s house was silent. He wasn’t sure if she was thinking or angry with him, but he wanted to make sure they talked through it. It wasn’t until they reached her porch, his body shielding her from the guy who seemed to stand outside of her house perpetually with a camera, that he spoke.

“Can we talk about what happened?”

Her eyes searched his face, and he hated the pained look in them. She nodded wordlessly, and he followed her inside her house for the first time.

He knew her house was a haven of sorts for her, which is why they were always at his, and he was thankful they were finally at the point where she trusted him enough to let him in.

It was decorated exactly the way he’d imagined it would be, whites and tans and browns with greens splashed here and there. It was very her, down to the wine bottle open on the counter and the blue-light glasses resting next to her tablet.

She sat on her couch, and the look she gave him seemed to ask him to join her. He sat beside her, giving her some room in case she wanted distance.

“Luc?” he asked uncertainly.

“I’m sorry that you…that you felt like we cheated you out of your senior season. But sometimes, I remember how horrible you were to Max, and how he’d—” She sniffled, swiping at her face angrily. “How he’d react to it. And I know he was just as bad, maybe worse, toward you. And I know he probably deserved it. But I was always stuck dealing with the consequences.”

Blood rushed into his ears at her words, wanting so badly to reach out and comfort her. His jaw tightened. “What do you mean ‘how he’d react to it’?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes, when you said something particularly nasty on TV or your team fucked up our practice field or our mascot statue…he got really angry. But he usually couldn’t rage at you, so he raged at me and kind of…I don’t know. He’d get loud, and it was just hard. He’d be in a mood for days. Weeks, even. And I had to just pretend everything was good, but I was honestly scared sometimes.”

Colton closed his eyes, trying to gather his bearings before he said or did something impulsive. “Did he ever…hurt you? Did he ever put his hands on you?” He only realized his fists were balled at his sides when he felt the bite of his nails in his palms. He opened his eyes at the sting.

She shook her head. “He never did anything physical. But if I was late to see him or did anything that even kind of bothered him in that time, he’d scream at me, and sometimes I thought he might.” She wiped at her face again. “I sometimes struggle to understand how that Colton and this Colton are both you. I know you were younger and you’ve matured. And it’s not like you did anything to hurt me. How could you have known what was going on?”

“Luc…”

“I don’t blame you, not really. It was Max. But when I first came here, it was on my mind. And then we had fun together and I realized I liked you and you weren’t this horrible person Max had made you out to be. And I kind of just forgot about it, you know? We spend so much time together that all I usually see is this side of you. This great guy who obviously cares about me in some capacity if he’s willing to put his love life on hold to date me and save me the humiliation of…I don’t even know what.” She sighed heavily.

Put his love life on hold? He hadn’t had a love life before her. He hadn’t cared about anyone the way he cared about her. The fact that he had ever, even indirectly, been the cause of her pain made him want to go back in time and change everything. He swallowed over the stone in his throat, trying to formulate a coherent thought, wanting nothing more than to take her in his arms.

“And normally, I can compartmentalize. Separate that time from whatever it is we’ve been doing recently. But when she said that, for some reason, I just couldn’t. I remembered it all, the way it felt in college, and it just…it just came crashing down on me that it had been you. And that it really did happen.”

He couldn’t hold himself back any longer, not when she was sitting so close to him, her head in her hands. He moved closer to her on the couch, his arms inches from picking her up.

“Luc, can I…?”

She looked up, realizing his closeness, eyed his arms, and then nodded slowly. He picked her up, setting her on his lap and wrapping a blanket around them. He pressed her head to his chest, his cheek resting on top as he ran a soothing hand through her hair.

“Luc, I don’t think there are words in this world that can express how sorry I am that you got caught in the crossfire of our shitfest. If I’d known—god, Luc, if I’d known, I would’ve called a ceasefire so fast. I never would’ve done anything to piss him off ever again. If I could go back in time and change it all, I would.”

If he could go back in time, he’d have found her first and made her his. Because she should have had someone infinitely better than Max Clark.

“Luc, you have to know that you deserved so much better than that. That you deserve so much better than that. The next time I see him, it’s going to be tough not to beat him until I’m behind bars for assault, because the thought of him yelling at you? Of him taking any of his anger out on you? Makes me want to sink my fist into his face until he can’t smirk anymore. Nobody should ever be treated that way, especially not you, Luc. God, you…” He sighed, pulling her tighter to his chest, trying to rein in the anger coursing through his veins. “You are”—Intoxicating. Exquisite. Perfect—“amazing.”

She wrapped an arm around his neck as she snuggled closer to him. “This is exactly what I meant. I can’t understand how you could be so kind now but also have done all those things back then.”

He continued running his fingers through her hair soothingly. “I’m sorry,” he whispered again.

She sniffled. “You’re forgiven…if you put The Bachelor on until I fall asleep.”

He held her even as he reached for the remote, clicking on the show. He wondered if, after everything, he should come clean to her about how he really felt. About how his heart couldn’t rest in her presence. About how his body ached to have her against him, warm and cuddled up in his clothes. About how every second he’d spent with her since she’d joined the Sabers had been exceptional. About how she’d changed his life so much, all for the better.

“Luc, I—” He cut himself off when he realized she was already sleeping in his arms, almost thankful that his bravery would have to wait for another day.