Colton
“Shit,” I mutter, placing a new ice pack over Remi’s forehead as my brother curls in on himself.
“Bad one?” Ash asks from the doorway. I nod, and he says, “I’ll make some tea.”
I appreciate it, but I don’t think Remi is resurfacing anytime soon. Not even for Ash’s ginger tea.
I card my fingers through my brother’s hair as Ash heads down the hall. I wish I could take away Remi’s migraines. I wish this wasn’t the norm for him.
I hum softly, some song I don’t know the name to. Remi doesn’t say anything, but his hand squeezes my foot in acknowledgement, his head resting in my lap.
When there’s a bang from downstairs, like the slam of a door, I pause and listen.
I hear Ash first. “What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”
“Where is he?” comes another voice.
Is that…
I groan, reaching for my phone to check the time, only to realize I don’t have my phone on me. Ash says something to Noah I can’t make out, and then there’s the stomping of footsteps up the stairs.
Noah King comes to a halt in front of the doorway, his eyes sweeping inside and landing directly on me. He steps forward, his hand shoving the door open so hard it knocks into the wall. I wince, knowing the sound won’t bother my brother, but he’s sure to notice the vibration of it.
“What in the ever-loving fuck, Colt?” Noah demands, more angry than I’ve seen him in quite some time. “Do you know what time it is? I—”
He cuts off abruptly, his eyes finally having trailed down to Remi. Confusion flashes across his face, followed by some sort of understanding and then immediate remorse.
“Remi has a migraine,” I explain calmly. “I didn’t realize how much time had passed. I’m sorry.”
Noah heaves like a popped balloon. “I…”
“I know I should have called,” I go on, keeping my voice low. “But like I said, I didn’t realize. If you’re staying, could you please wait in my room? It’s the one next door.”
“Colt, I—”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” I tell him firmly, not wanting to disturb Remi any more than we already have.
Noah rubs a hand through his hair, the dark strands flying every which way. With a jerk of his head, he walks down the hall, and Ash gives me a worried look from the doorway.
“What was that?” he asks.
“I’ll explain later,” I say, feeling utterly wrung out. “Would you mind sitting with Remi?”
“Of course,” Ash says. “Let me just move the teapot off the stove.”
I nod, and when Ash returns a couple minutes later, we swap places. Remi lets out a confused sound when I set his head on a pillow, but then Ash is holding the ice pack over his forehead and rubbing his back, and he goes quiet.
I take a deep breath in the hallway, shaking out my hands. When I push open my partially closed door, I find Noah waiting in front of the window, his fingers intertwined behind his head. He spins to face me, dropping his arms, looking both torn up and frustrated, like his residual anger is still rolling over.
Seeing the man standing inside my bedroom is beyond strange, but I don’t focus on that right now. I shut the door and motion to my bed. “Wanna sit?”
Noah plops down, his big frame making the mattress squeak. “I’m sorry,” he says immediately. “I shouldn’t have rushed in here like that. I just…”
He blows out a breath, and I sit down next to him, feeling incredibly turned around right now. Usually, I’m the one freaking out, and Noah is the one gently talking me down. The reversal is throwing me.
“Guess that answers the question of whether or not your threats to come collect me were real,” I point out.
Noah huffs what might be a laugh. “Very real.”
He drops his elbows to his knees, looking far smaller than usual.
“Is that normal?” he asks. “The…migraines?”
I nod. “They’re bad. I know he doesn’t need me to stay by his side through them anymore. He’s a grown adult, but…”
“But he’s your brother,” Noah fills in. “And it helps if you stay, which is why you do it.”
The simple fact that he gets it has me blinking fast. Fuck .
“You were really upset,” I note.
He doesn’t say anything to that, only looks down at his hands, which are clasped now between his knees. His leg is bouncing, and it strikes me that he’s seriously upset. A lot more than I first realized.
“Jesus, Noah. Are you okay?”
He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.
I’ll admit I’m the last to understand whatever the fuck is going on between us. I don’t know the right way to help him. To soothe him. I’m still learning. Learning who Noah is and who we are together.
But I go on instinct, tugging his shoulder around, not letting him hide because I have a feeling that’s what he’d do for me. “Come here.”
He doesn’t need telling twice. The second I touch him, Noah all but falls over me, taking me down to the mattress and pressing his body over mine. There’s nothing remotely sexual about it. It’s…possession. Like covering your favorite toy so no one can take it away from you.
His face presses to my neck, his arms on the mattress above my head like he’s blocking out the world.
“Okay?” I ask him, my heart beating double-time, my voice muffled in the cocoon I’ve found myself in.
“Better,” he mumbles.
“What happened? You thought I blew you off?”
“Well, yeah,” he answers. “But more than that, it was the goddamn barn, Colton. It messed with my head.”
I frown. “The barn?”
“I know I overreacted,” he goes on. “But I just…”
He lets out a big, huffing breath, and I rub his back. “I’ll try my best to call or text next time. I promise. I’m sorry, Noah. I didn’t realize…”
I didn’t realize he was this serious about me. About us . To be nearly shaking as he all but pins me to my bed like he’s terrified I’m going to, what—vanish right before his eyes?
“I’m sorry,” I say again, a scared Noah scaring me .
I don’t know when this fucking man switched the narrative, but the last thing I want is to pain Noah King.
Jesus . The Colton of a year ago would have been aghast.
“Not your fault,” Noah rumbles against me. “I’m sorry, too. Just…please try not to leave me hanging like that, Colt. I thought, for a minute…”
“You thought what?”
A small tremor wracks through him. “I thought you were going to hurt me again.”
I still. “What?”
“When you didn’t show up at the barn,” he continues, his nose pressed to my neck. “It was the same place, and… You just can’t hurt me like that again, Colt. I know we were kids, but—”
“Hold up,” I say quickly, trying to see his face. “What are you talking about?”
He rolls his head toward me, blinking. “When I moved here. We were seventeen, and—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Um, what? You moved to town when you were twenty-two.”
“No,” he says slowly. “I was seventeen, nearly eighteen. Our senior year of high school.”
I try to sit up, and Noah lets me, looking as confused as I feel. “What…the actual fuck?”
“Are you serious right now?” Noah asks at an even clip, his voice turning hard. “You know exactly what happened, Colt.”
“Um, I most certainly do not. So I’m gonna need you to explain. Like, right now.”
He scoffs, scooting away from me. “Senior year,” he repeats. “I was the new kid at school. We hit it off talking about horses, and you invited me over. I came.”
“And?” I prompt, even as my head reels.
“And you dumped a bucket of horse shit on me through the hayloft door.”
I jump off the bed, my pulse racing. “What. The actual fuck, Noah. I did not .”
“You did.”
I let out a laugh that’s entirely devoid of humor, and Noah seems to realize I’m serious.
“Are you kidding me?” he says, voice incredibly low. “You don’t… remember me?”
My breath puffs out, and I bend at the waist. “Start over.”
“ Jesus Christ . I moved to Darling after my parents died. Stayed with Walter and finished out my senior year in school with you . I thought I’d met a friend, but instead, you made your thoughts on the matter very clear.”
“I don’t…” I shake my head. I would’ve remembered him, wouldn’t I?
“I went by Junior back then,” Noah says woodenly. “It’s what my parents called me because my dad… His name was Noah, too.”
Oh, fuck .
Junior.
“You looked different,” I wheeze.
“Yeah, well… No tattoos back then. Hair was longer. Hadn’t quite grown into my body yet.”
I look at Noah now, his expression like stone. It’s such a far cry from the kid who showed up for a few months at the end of my senior year, his cheeks rounded and a shy, if not troubled, smile on his face. I get that now. He’d just lost his parents, hadn’t he?
He looks nothing like that boy.
“I don’t understand,” I tell him, my chest aching. “You ignored me.”
He scoffs. “After you dumped a pile of horse shit on my head, yeah, I did.”
I let out a pained sound. “I didn’t. I didn’t do that.”
“You invited me over,” he says.
“Yeah, I remember that part now.”
“And when I got here…”
“No,” I say again, trying to remember but knowing I didn’t do what he said. I never would have. He was nice . And even if he wasn’t, I wouldn’t have.
It comes to me in fits and starts.
“Eddie,” I realize aloud. “He said you couldn’t make it or something? We played video games instead.”
Noah’s expression doesn’t change.
“Jesus, you really think I’d do that?” I ask him, frantic now.
“Like I said, we were just kids.”
As if that would excuse it. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“When would I have?” he all but shouts, standing up. “When I moved back to town? What for? What good would it have done, Colt? Should I have said something when I kissed you? When I jerked you off for the first time?”
“Oh my God ,” I groan, sucking in a breath. “That’s why you hated me? Because you thought I…”
I can’t even say the words. Bullied him? Assaulted him? Noah shakes his head harshly, heading for the door.
“Where are you going?” I ask in alarm, following after him.
He stops so abruptly, I have to pull up short so I don’t ram into his chest. “All this time, and you had no fucking clue who I was. Unbelievable.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?” he asks, the hurt in his eyes palpable. “I needa go.”
“Wait.”
Noah opens the door, stomping down the hall as I trail after him.
“Noah, wait .”
“I need to fucking think, Colt.”
“But I didn’t do anything.”
He stops at the foot of the stairs, looking up at me, his jaw set in a tense line as he swallows heavily. “No,” he says, voice deceptively soft. “All this time, you didn’t do anything, did you? You simply hated me…for me.”
I pull in a breath as Noah walks down the hall. Jackson’s head peeks out from within the dining room, a frown marring his face, but I barely see it. I follow Noah to the front of the house, watching through the open door as he storms out of sight.
“Fuck,” I mutter, pulling in another breath and then another. “Oh fuck, oh fuck.”
“Colt,” my brother says, his hand landing on my shoulder.
I shake it off, turning and heading for the stairs. I keep my steps light as I make my way back past Remi’s room, only pausing for a moment to make sure he’s all right. Ash is still with him. I find my phone lying on my nightstand and pluck it up, searching for Eddie’s number.
I have no clue if he still has the same one. I haven’t talked to the guy in over a decade, not since he moved out of Montana. Luckily, he picks up after the third ring, sounding curious but not unhappy to hear from me.
“Colton Darling? Is that you?”
“Eddie,” I say on a gasp. “I need to ask you something.”
“Yeah, all right,” he says slowly. “What’s up?”
I ease out a breath, feeling as if I might just jitter out of my skin. “Back in high school. Senior year. Do you remember a kid named Junior?”
There’s a long pause. “Sure, I remember.”
I look up at the ceiling as my vision swims. “You told me he didn’t show up.”
Another pause. Longer this time. “Yeah. I did.”
“Did you…” Ah, God . “Did you really do that to him?”
I don’t even need to spell it out. Eddie sighs, long and low.
“Why?” I ask, my voice catching.
“Christ, Colton. Isn’t this ancient history by now?”
“No, Eddie. It’s not. I’m dating the man.”
He sucks in a harsh breath. Fuck , I hope I’m still dating the man.
“Are you serious?” he finally asks.
“Yeah, I am. So explain to me why you did that because…”
Because I’m terrified I might have just lost Noah? Because all of this shit that’s been between us for the last fifteen years—the tension, the animosity, the goddamn rivalry—was from a conflict that never even happened in the first place?
Because he thinks I hated him. And I did. But I didn’t. I never hated him . I hated the way he saw me. The way he refused to see me at all.
“Eddie,” I prompt, the both of us having fallen silent.
“Colton, fuck. I had a thing for you, okay? I liked you back then, and I didn’t want new competition hanging around.”
What ? “I…I never realized.”
“No, I know,” he says a little harshly. “You were pretty oblivious, man.”
I shake my head. Still oblivious, it would seem. “What you did to him… Eddie, that was so shitty.”
He lets out a sigh. “I know. I do, okay? Believe me. I’ve regretted it plenty.”
That sure doesn’t help me now.
“Do you want me to call the guy?” he asks. “I can call and apologize.”
“No,” I say weakly, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. “It doesn’t matter.”
“For what it’s worth, I am sorry. And…congratulations, I guess?”
I huff a pained laugh. “Bye, Eddie.”
“See ya, Colton.”
I hang up, letting my phone fall to my bed. Following it down, I press my face into my sheets and scream.