Page 17 of Colt
“Yes, I’m aware of that,” he says. “I’m not stupid. But I’m not happy about it either.”
“You definitely don’t have to be happy about it.”
“Thanks,” he says. I’m not sure for a second if he’s thanking me for giving him permission to be mad or what. Then he continues. “For being there for all of this. You didn’t have to do that.”
I debate whether or not to tell him that I’ve been tasked with his further care and keeping, and decide now isn’t the time. “Of course,” I say.
“No. I get that I’m not… The most fun to be around right now. And hell, you’ve never been particularly excited to be around me.”
“That’s not true,” I say.
It’s not. There was a time when being around Colt Campbell made my entire week. When Gentry would bring him over for dinner, and I would just sit there eating meatloaf, staring at him. Until he became my stepbrother, and it ruined that.
“I expect you weren’t dying to have another older brother.”
“You probably didn’t want a younger sister.”
“No,” he says. “I always wanted a family. I mean, and everything was great with my mom, don’t get me wrong. But… Something was missing. Also, my mom has been a hell of a lot happier since she married your dad.”
“Same with my dad.”
We’re saying all these nice things, talking about the situation, but it doesn’t really touch us. The way that our relationship has always been kind of difficult.
But he and I don’t really do civil conversation, and we definitely don’t do deep dives into what makes each other tick.
I decide that it’s better now to just go ahead and tell him.
“Your mom asked me to check in on you. Because it’s really either me, or you move home with your parents, or the hospital sends people by.”
I look over at him, at his profile. The stitches on his forehead are gone, but there’s an angry red line remaining, and I wonder how bad the scar will be.
He’s still so handsome, and if anything, I think the scar is going to make him a little bit less pretty, add to the masculine, rugged energy that he has.
It’s really unfair. He’s perfect, even ruined. That’s quite something.
“Yeah, seems reasonable.”
I don’t think he thinks so at all. I can tell that he’s angry. But I have a feeling that it’s not at me. Or even at his mom. Just at everything.
He’s always had an intensity, just beneath the surface, and sometimes I feel like other people don’t see it. Hell, I know they don’t. Because everybody always talks about how nice he is. In fact, one of my friends called him a golden retriever once. And I can’t think of anything less true than that. Golden retrievers are happy to stay in their yard and play fetch. To chew on a ball unbothered, and to get scratched behind the ears.
Colt isn’t content. That’s one of the last words I would ever use to describe him. I don’t think anybody who's so obsessed with a career like his could ever be called content. The competitiveness, the danger, all of it, suggests someone striving for the next thing. And none of that happens by accident.
Nothing he’s ever done has been by accident.
It feels like his intensity is closer to the surface right now, though. Like almost anyone could see it, and that isn’t normal. That’s something I haven’t seen before. A way of being that just isn’t typical Colt. Of course, how could he be his normal self? I’vebeen so focused on whether or not he was going to survive that I guess I didn’t really sit with the reality of him having to heal.
He’s just not the kind of guy who’s going to ever want to sit and let grass grow beneath his feet, and he has to for a little while.
And I’m going to be his babysitter.
“So, you’re about halfway through school?”
I almost have whiplash from the switch in conversation. Now he wants to make small talk?
“Yes,” I say.
“That’s great.”
