“Daddy . . . “ His voice cracked, and he forced a swallow, licked painfully dry lips. “I can’t.”
“You don’t have to.” Daddy squeezed his knee, pressing in, steadying, holding him. “But might help you if you did.”
Lord, theidea, opening up and spilling out how he’d gone against everything he’d been taught.
D would never look at him the same again. He could take a lot — Tick hating him, having the past haunt his life, hating himself — but not that.
But letting D think he was the man he wasn’t . . . that was a lie. Hiding who he was? Fine. Lying to D? Nope. That was anathema.
Eyes closed, he pinched the bridge of his nose. If he pressed hard enough, maybe he’d suffocate himself. “He caught me with his girlfriend.”
D’s hand didn’t move. “Right around when Will was killed?”
Tears scalding the back of his eyes, Colt nodded. “The night before.”
He couldn’t breathe, his nose stuffing up, his lungs constricted like barbed wire coiled around his chest.
A delighted bark hurt his ears, jerked through him like a shotgun blast. Blinking, he stared down at Ralph, the dog’s joyful gambol at his feet a foreign language. Small paws clawed at his jeans above his knees, but didn’t dislodge D’s firm hold.
“Come here, buddy.” Setting his mug on the concrete before he dropped it — Sue would kill him since it came from her favorite set — he scooped Ralph into his lap. The wily canine wriggled sideways to lick his jaw. Colt dashed a hand over his damp cheek, rubbing tears away with the heel of his hand. He stared down at Ralph’s ropy white fur, unable to meet D’s eyes. “We’d both been drinking, me and—”
He couldn’t say her name. Instead, he cleared his throat.
“Laurel dumped me, and my feelings were hurt.” It sounded so stupid when he said it out loud now. “Wally and I showed up at a party, and she was there.”
Silence wrapped around them, broken only by the crackle of coals in the smoker, some kids playing across the fence, and Ralph hassling.
“I went into an empty bedroom with her.” He closed his eyes, images flashing through his brain, blurry, disjointed sensations. “Kissed her.”
That was right, wasn’t it? He remembered her mouth on his, her heavy lipgloss, a thick strawberry taste warring with cheap rum. Maybe the rum was in his nose?
“Touched her.” At some point, her shirt had disappeared — she’d stripped off the t-shirt, but maybe he’d helped her? But she’d shaped his fingers over her breast, and her tongue slipped between his lips. Then the rum had been inside his mouth.
His stomach folded in, twisting. He pressed Ralph closer to his chest.
He’d had a hand between her thighs, but it felt more like seeking leverage, pushing himself up, away. That wasn’t right, though, was it? Maybe that had come after the door opened and Tick’s wounded noise slammed into him.
“He walked in on us.” No point in telling what came after — tripping over his own feet, trying to catch up with Tick, laughter and shocked whispers not drowned out by heavy music, fury and loss wrapped up in a trembling finger in his face when he’d expected, deserved, a fist, and Tick’s raspyWe’re done.
Ralph wriggled, twisting in a bid for freedom, and Colt leaned forward to set him loose. The barbed wire moved into his throat.
Swallowing hard, staring at D’s hand on his knee, scarred wedding ring gleaming in the sunlight, Colt shrugged. “So that’s it. I can’t fix it, so I just leave him alone as much as I can.”
The moment stretched out, about like his nerves, then D cleared his throat, fingers flexing in a squeeze, a slight shake of Colt’s thigh. “I’m sorry, son.”
He wassorry? The sympathy slammed into Colt’s chest, shoving a strangled gasp from his lungs. He jerked a sideways glance at D, whose mouth twisted in fond humor not belying the sorrow in his dark eyes.
“What?” D shook his knee again. “You expect me to beat you up or punish you? Seems like you have that covered all on your own.”
The shallow breath he’d managed to suck in whooshed back out, transforming into a rough sob. D’s expression softened, and he finally moved his hand, hooking the back of Colt’s neck and dragging him sideways into a heavy hug. Another broken breath wracking his chest, Colt buried his face in the curve between his daddy’s neck and shoulder. The pain and confusion fought free, clawing out in harsh sobs, and D sighed, patting his back, holding his nape.
“That’s right, son.” Strong fingers caressed his hairline, and D pulled him closer, the lifeline of a hug awkward with the chair arms between them. Stroking his neck, Daddy pressed a kiss to his hair and held him safe. “I’ve got you. You let that out, just like that.”
A gasping sob scraping him raw, Colt rested his fists on D’s thighs, squeezed his eyes shut, and cried.
By the time evening rolled around, Colt had himself together, as much as he was ever together, anyway. Throat sore and eyes gritty, he’d spent the afternoon with D, then showered off the smoke upstairs in the bathroom he’d been meant to share with Nicole.
The door to her room remained firmly closed. Mama had turned his old room into a guest room that never really got used unless he was over and needed to change clothes or Uncle Bill and Kevin visited because Bill and D were close and his uncles preferred staying here rather than in the B&B. Nicole’s room was just . . . empty.
