COLTON
The air conditioning hummed at exactly sixty-eight degrees. Colton sat on the leather couch—Italian, expensive, chosen by a decorator he’d met once—and scrolled through his phone while the rain streaked down the floor-to-ceiling windows. Forty-two floors below, Manhattan went about its business, yellow cabs crawling through wet streets, pedestrians hunched under umbrellas, wearing coats as summer had turned to fall. September. A time he’d always thought was perfect for new beginnings.
His thumb stopped on a photo from June as he shamelessly stalked her on social media. Ally in her greenhouse, honey-colored light slanting through the glass, her dark hair escaping from its braid as she leaned over a frame of honeycomb. She wasn’t looking at the camera, but it was the concentration on her face, the careful way she held the frame, the absolute certainty of someone doing exactly what they were meant to do that hit him in the gut.
He hadn’t felt that kind of certainty in a long time, not since he’d played professional baseball. Coming to New York, jumping back in the celebrity lifestyle, he’d loved it at first, but the novelty had quickly worn off and he found himself missing a tiny mountain town, and the woman who called it home.
Colton swiped to the next photo. The lake at sunset, with the mountains behind it already starting to show hints of orange and gold at their peaks. He’d taken this one from the dock at Tara’s cottage before he’d left, the wood warm under his bare feet, the air smelling like pine and clean water and something he couldn’t name but recognized as the opposite of everything in this apartment.
Another swipe and he was on the page for The Blueberry Inn. The view from the inn’s front porch, still under construction in this shot, sawhorses and power tools scattered across the floor. He rubbed his wrist. The injury was a result of a skiing accident that shattered his elbow and wrist. This incident occurred during a promotional event where he was participating as a professional athlete. The injury had required multiple surgeries, and his arm, often referred to in the press as the “Golden Arm,” would never be the same. His arm had been a mess of pins and screws. The injury was so severe that it ended his career as a Major League Baseball star. His elbow ached now, the way it always did when the weather changed, as if his body remembered what it had lost, and it reminded him every time the barometric pressure dropped.
The sound of a key in the lock had him quickly closing the app. He set his phone face-down on the coffee table—glass and chrome, cold to the touch—and stood as Marco emerged from the elevator looking like he’d stepped out of a magazine spread. Expensive and understated, he was dressed in dark jeans and a cashmere sweater the color of storm clouds, his hair perfectly tousled in a way that took twenty minutes and three products to achieve.
“Are you moping?” Marco strode into the kitchen, getting a bottle of sparkling water.
Colton flipped him off. “You should talk. How many women have you dated this month?”
His friend ignored him. This incredible apartment with a view of Central Park was Marco’s. Colton and an actor named Liam all lived together, all busy, passing each other as they went about their lives. But it helped to keep the loneliness at bay, having all three of them sharing the same space.
Marco sat down and picked up Colton’s phone.
“Give me that.”
“You’ve been looking at pictures of her.” Marco didn’t hand it over. He was scrolling now, his expression shifting from amusement to something more thoughtful. “Lots of pictures. The mountains, the lake, that little town. And her, over and over. Ally.”
Colton snatched the phone back. “Mind your own business.”
“You are my business. You’re also the only friend I have who actually tells me when I’m being an idiot, which means I get to return the favor.” Marco drank half of the bottle and settled onto the couch. “Why are you here?”
“I live here.”
“Do you? When’s the last time you cooked in the kitchen? When’s the last time you did anything in this apartment besides sit on this couch and look at pictures of a woman who’s hundreds of miles away?”
Colton didn’t answer. He reached for his bourbon and let it burn down his throat.
“I’ve known you for what, six years?” Marco continued. “I’ve never seen you like this. Not after the injury, not after the surgery, not after any of the disasters you’ve survived. You go to the gym, you do your endorsement deals, you show up where you’re supposed to show up. But you’re just going through the motions.”
“Aren’t we all?”
Marco was quiet for a moment. Then he laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Fair point.”
“I went to three parties last week.” Colton set his glass down. “Same people at every one. Same conversations, same champagne, same models posing for the same photos. I could write the guest list before I walk through the door.”
“The Hendricks thing on Tuesday, the gallery opening, the rooftop at The Standard.” Marco ticked them off on his fingers. “I was at all three. Talked to the same actresses I talked to last month. Smiled for the same photographers. Went home alone and stared at the ceiling wondering what the point of it all was.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“It’s exhausting.” Marco stood and walked to the windows, looking out at the rain-blurred city. “The same circuit, over and over. The same women who know exactly who I am before I open my mouth. Everyone wants something—money, connections, their photo taken with a Castellano. I can’t remember the last real conversation I had.” He paused, a look on his face that Colton had never seen before.
“We’re having a real conversation now.”
“You know what I mean.” Marco’s reflection in the glass looked tired. “I met someone, you know. Last October. At a party at some new nightclub in Miami.”
Something in his tone made Colton pay attention. “Yeah?”
“She didn’t know who I was. Didn’t want to know. We spent one night together—no names, no life stories, just... being present in the moment. And I haven’t stopped thinking about her since.” Marco took a long drink of water. “I don’t even know her name. I’ve dated models and actresses and heiresses, and the one woman I can’t forget is someone I met and spent one incredible night with and will probably never see again.”
“That’s rough.”
