Colt meets my eyes and mouths ‘she’s okay,’ and I pull up a seat on the opposite side of them.
“Look at that mess on your plate!” I say, pointing to Macie’s horrifying cavity-causing breakfast.
She gives me a big, wide grin, her two front teeth missing, and says “Mr. Colt made pancakes!” Thoughmistersounds more likemitherthrough the empty space in her smile that she has yet to master speaking with.
“Did you sleep?” Colt asks and grabs a plate to stack some pancakes onto, then slides it toward me.
“Yeah. Thank you,” I tell him. I hope he knows everything I’m thanking him for with those two small words; I don’t think they could ever actually hold the weight of everything I’ve stuffed into them.
Colt’s eyes stay glued to me as I add my own selection of toppings – just the classic butter and syrup combination, and even as I eat, I feel those eyes on me. Evenwhen I’m finished and we all work to clear the table of the mess we made, which is a glaring contrast to the immaculate cleanliness in the rest of the house.
It’s honestly a little hard to look at, and I feel like we blew in here like a tornado and turned his pristine, fancy house upside down literally overnight.
In the kitchen, Colt leans against the dishwasher after closing it and crosses his arms over his chest.
“You know, you two can stay here. As long as you need.”
“Oh. Thank you,” I tell him, “but we have that apartment waiting. All our boxes are there.”
The veins on his arms flex. “Yeah, the place in Ridge Park?” I nod and he shakes his head in response. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean,” he shoves off of the dishwasher and crosses the kitchen to get a glass, “that’s a shitty part of town, Rowan.”
My turn to cross my arms. “And I worked hard to get it.”
“I’m not discrediting that,” he agrees, “but you shouldn’t be out there. You could stay here. Or in another one of my places, if you’re not comfortable here.”
“Rent is eight hundred for two bedrooms and utilities there,” I scoff. “In one of your places, it must be—”
“Nothing,” he says, cutting me off. “They’re not rental properties, and I bought them with cash. I wouldn’t charge you rent.”
“We’re already practically moved in,” I tell him. “First, last, security. I signed a lease, Colt.”
“I’ll handle it.” He takes a drink and sets his glass down on the counter. “You’re not moving in there.”
“Is that final?” I challenge.
He takes a long stride toward me until my chest practically touches him, and he looks down at me to say, “It’s final.”
“In that case, can I use your shower?”
The hard, commanding look he’d plastered to his face cracks as a surprised laugh slips out of him. I’m sure he expected me to put up more of a fight, but the truth is, I’m glad he offered – insisted.
If he hadn’t shown up last night, if he hadn’t come when I called… I don’t want to think about it. I feel better when he’s around. Like someone is there who will drop everything to protect me, and by extension, my sister. Even after everything I said to him and the distance I put between us, he still showed up. That doesn’t just count for something, it counts for everything.
“Of course you can,” he says. “There’s one attached to my bedroom, or you can use one of the others. They’re straight down that hall, and there’s another upstairs.”
He gestures in the general direction and I chuckle, shaking my head. One of the bathrooms. My house hadone. There was no choosing which shower spoke to your soul on that particular morning. You either got in when it was available and got clean, or you were SOL.
I make the long trek back to his bedroom, smiling as the faint smell of his cologne meets my nose again when I open the door. There are two other doors on either side of the room, I assume one of which is his closet and the other his bathroom.
I make a lucky guess, opening the first door to find a massive bathroom, a bathtub buried into the ground which is covered in cream-colored mosaic tiling, and a shower separated from the room only by panes of glass that reach from floor to ceiling. The lighting makes me feel like I walked into a museum, as if the room itself is a work of art to be appreciated.
I start to lift the big baggy shirt I’m wearing over my head just before Colt’s deep voice carries past me into the bathroom.
“You told me he didn’t hit you.”
