He stares me down, looking like he regrets opening his mouth in the first place, but he must have pity on my excited nerves because he rolls his eyes and relents. “I’d probably wish for hair gel and a comb or something,” he mumbles.
I toss my head back and laugh.
“Shh.” Colton puts a hand over my mouth. But he can’t cover the pure glee in my eyes. “You’re the worst,” he says with a small smile before he removes his hand.
I giggle. “Colton. Your natural hair looks fine.”
“This.” He points to his crazy hair that blows in the wind. “This is not fine.”
“No.” I reach up and pull his hand away from his head, getting a good view of his silhouetted hair. “No, really. It’s cute.”
He barks out a laugh. “Cute?”
“Yeah. Like, cute, like a patch of grass. Like some little dairy cow’s going to see it and wanna munch on it all day,” I say.
He covers his eyes. “Oh, that’s so much worse.”
The look of horror on his face makes me laugh, my full body erupting into little shakes. “But seriously, that, along with the whole beard thing going on? I mean, it’s something.”
“Something? Well, you can just bury me right here,” he says.
Truth was that if he knew what his carefree look was doing to my heart, I’d willingly dig a six-by-three-foot pit and jump in.
Our laughter tapers off, and I become immediately aware of how my hand is resting on his knee. How long has it been there? Since I’d pulled his hand away from his hair? Oh no, has he noticed? My cheeks burn as I decide my next move. Do I take it off, or will that draw more attention? Taking it off would be way more awkward. Or maybe he’s very aware that my hand is on his knee right now and is thinking about how awkward it is but doesn’t want to tell me just in case he thinks I really meant to put it there. Which I most definitely did not. I mean I did. But … Islam the brakes on this train of thought and instead yell, “Look, there’s a seagull.”
I instantly remove the offending hand and point to a spot in the air where there is, in fact, no seagull.
I hear the slightest chuckle and feel the rumble from Colton’s body. I’m just about ready to crawl to the depths of the ocean and count to a million.
“So, did you ever find a new lucky object?” he mercifully asks, saving me from drowning in my own cringe.
Not wasting the out he’s given me, I think back, remembering the two halves of my gorgeous lucky seashell with its sunrise pattern. Colton had been kind enough to bring it to me after the medical team had bandaged up and booted my foot. “Not yet, but I’ll find one,” I say, daring to make eye contact.
He sends me a soft smile, and I return it before training my gaze on the ocean. “Have you always had a lucky object?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No. My first lucky object was this little glow-in-the-dark star my mama gave me before I left Tennessee.” I eye him playfully, knowing he knows full well about my lucky star. He’d lost it our sophomore year of high school after he’d teasingly said he’d try its luck out during his chemistry test. Which he’d aced. That star had shed its luck on Colton only for him to misplace it.
Colton shifts uncomfortably, and I smile wider to let him know it’s just water under the bridge now, but he looks like he’s in pain. “Your lucky star was something your mom gave to you? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I didn’t think you and your mom were all that close.”
I blow out a deep breath. “We used to be.”
“Do you miss her?” He turns to look at me.
“I miss what we once were,” I say, wrapping my hands around my knees again.
“I’m sorry.” Colton furrows his brows. “Is that why you decided to leave Tennessee? Because you weren’t connecting with your mom like you used to? Or was your decision solely because you wanted to learn about the pageant world from your aunt and cousins?”
I open my mouth to speak but nothing comes out.
I think of Mama and the way I’d screamed her name from the back of Aunt Candice’s car, begging her to take me back. But she didn’t.
“I …” I press my mouth into a flat line, wondering what to tell Colton, but then I meet his earnest gaze and my words tumble out. “I didn’t leave her. At least, not by choice.”
He pulls back, looking confused. “What do you mean?”
I suck my lips between my teeth, willing my burning eyes not to cry. “She didn’t want me.” My chin begins to quiver.
“But I thought you said …”
