Then he went to the coffeepot.
I flipped the toast while he poured.
“I’ll have to pull back,” he said, shoving the pot back in and turning to lean a hip on the counter beside the stove, “I don’t, I’ll put on fifty pounds.”
I turned to look at him. “You don’t get it, darlin’. I’m givin’ you the energy so you can work it off.”
He laughed again and moved away. I slid a piece of toast on a plate and started slathering it with cream cheese I’d beat up with powdered sugar, vanilla, slivered almonds and the zest of an orange.
“For the record February,” Colt said to my back, “I’ve had bad. I’ve had good. A couple who were great.” I slid the second piece of toast on top and turned to him, curious myself even though I didn’t want to be. He was sitting on the counter behind me and when my eyes hit his, he finished in a soft voice. “Now, I’ve had the best.”
I turned away quickly when I felt the heat rush my cheeks, ignoring the curl in my belly at his words that indicated what they meant to me. I dumped a pat of butter on top of the toast, slid it around while it melted and covered the whole thing with maple syrup that I’d nuked with a bit of orange juice mixed in. Then I turned to Colt again and handed him the plate.
“Now that we’ve established we’re sexually compatible –” I started, reaching to the side to pull out the cutlery drawer and grab him a fork.
“Sexually compatible?” he asked.
I shoved the drawer back in and handed him his fork.
“Extremely sexually compatible,” I amended.
He smiled and forked into his toast, muttering, “That’s better.”
I moved to lean a hip against his knee and asked, “What now?”
He took a huge, man-bite of toast and said around it, “What now?”
“This.”
His brows went up as he chewed.
“Us. Now. You and me,” I explained.
He swallowed and asked, “We gotta plan this shit out?”
“Well… no, not exactly,” I said as he forked in another bite.
I said that but I meant, yes, definitely.
Colt chewed, eyeing me like he knew what I meant wasn’t what I said then swallowed again. “How ‘bout we take this a day at a time, fix it so you don’t have some whack-job on the loose wreaking havoc for you and then we’ll see. Deal?”
That sounded like a plan.
I smiled at him. “Deal.” I watched him fork up another piece and asked, “You gonna want another?”
“Yeah.”
I made him more toast and then cleaned up after as he ate, liking his kitchen and moving around it while he was sitting on the counter eating food I cooked for him.
He finished, rinsed his dish and put it in the dishwasher while I was wiping down the counters. I tossed the sponge into the sink and dried my hands thinking he needed new dishtowels. Something yellow, bright and cheery.
“Feb, baby, got somethin’ to tell you.”
I turned to him and he moved into me. His face was serious and something about it made me brace. Bad news was coming and there were no longer thoughts of cheery, yellow dishtowels in my head even as he pulled the one I had out of my hands and threw it on the counter beside me.
He put both his hands to my neck, settling them where it met my shoulders and he gave me a squeeze.
“Suicide last night,” he said and stopped talking.
“Yeah?”
“It was someone you know.”
Oh no. No. Nonononono.
“Who?” I whispered.
His hands gave me another squeeze before he pulled the earth right out from under me.
“Amy Harris.”
For a second that lasted an hour, I couldn’t think.
Then I asked, “What?”
“Amy Harris. She hanged herself Monday. Her friend found her yesterday.”
Amy Harris. Shy, pretty, sweet Amy Harris. Shy, pretty, sweet Amy Harris who had, twenty-two years ago, taken everything from me.
Now I had it back and she hung herself.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
“Feb –”
My eyes lifted to Colt’s. “It’s because of me.”
His brows snapped together just as his face grew strangely dark. “What?”
“Because of me,” I repeated then lifted a hand and pointed at myself then at him then back at me while saying, “because of me, you and me.”
“Why would you say that?”
I felt my own brows snap together. “And why would you ask that?”
His hands gave me another squeeze. “Fuck, Feb, we’re not goin’ there again.”
Then it dawned on me. Post-coital talk. Put the past behind us. Move forward. The whole while he knew Amy had offed herself.
I lifted my other hand and used both, pulling them up and separating them to rip his hands off my neck and I took a quick step back.
“You prick!” I screeched then turned on a foot and stomped out of the room.
He caught me in the living room with a hand on my arm, swinging me around to face him.
“Don’t walk away from me,” he clipped, edging toward angry.
“Fuck you!” I shouted, already beyond angry, twisting my arm from his grasp.
“What the fuck’s the matter with you?”
I felt my eyes get wide. “Now?” I asked. “Now, Colt? Are you still gonna play this game now? Now that Amy’s dead, dead because of you and me?”
“I don’t know how you figure that, honey, maybe you’d like to share.”
Sarcasm.
I felt my head explode and it exploded by me screaming, “You take the cake, Alexander Colton! You take it and eat it and go about your merry fucking way! A woman is dead!”
“I know that,” he shouted back, “I saw ‘em cuttin’ her down!”
“And you’re still playin’ this game?”
“Gotta know the game before I can play it, Feb.”
That’s when I let it loose. “Sherry and Sheila Eisenhower’s party, Colt. Cast your mind back. That was the night I caught you fucking Amy Harris!”
And after I said that, that’s when I watched a change come over Colt. A change that was terrifying to witness. A change that froze every centimeter of his body. A change that told me I still had earth under my feet, it had to be there because my world was about to rock.
Colt stared at Feb, even heard her call his name, but his mind was somewhere else.
It was at Sherry and Sheila Eisenhower’s party. A party he remembered clearly and at the same time didn’t remember at all.
It was like a lot of parties he’d been to in high school, in college and, before Feb grew out of them or, more precisely, broke up with him, a little while after college.
Sherry and Sheila’s folks were away. The girls got a couple six packs and asked their friends around. Their friends asked their friends who asked their friends. It was out of control within hours. A couple of people brought kegs. Some scored hard liquor. Others brought weed. Necking, fighting, laughing, puking, passing out, everything happened.
Colt remembered it because he woke up the day after alone in Sheila and Sherry’s parent’s bed. He didn’t remember getting there. He’d been drunker than he’d ever been in his life, before or since. So drunk, he didn’t remember a thing. He felt like an ass. It wasn’t a high school party but he’d been one of the few who was of age and waking up in someone’s parent’s bed was high school shit.
He’d been clothed when he woke up though, he remembered that, and hungover. Nasty hangover, again the worst he’d had in his life, before or since.
He remembered it too because the next day, Feb, cold as ice, broke up with him. She didn’t say why, she just said it was over. He felt such shit he remembered getting angry but not much. She could get in a snit, though she’d never broken up with him. He knew he’d talk her around.