Page 85 of The Breaking Pointe
“Ah, shit!” he groans, laughing as he holds onto my arms while the spinning slows down.
“Oh my God, your head…” I laugh, starting to contain myself as I gently push some fingers through his hair to rub his head.
“I’m okay,” he says breathlessly, getting his last bit of laughter out. “I feel like a kid…” he adds.
“That’s a good thing, I hope,” I say, becoming keenly aware of how close our faces are.
“It’s a great thing. You’re great. You really know how to cheer a guy up,” he says, sorting a few hairs away from my face.
“I knew something was off,” I say, losing some of my cheer, sitting up to straddle him. “You were wailing on that punching bag like it owed you something. And bare hands means bruised knuckles. I do know that.”
“I’m having an off day.Which is most days but I’m not counting. I mean, hell, what does announcing it do? I’ve got a lot on my mind right now.A lot on my plate.Some days are hard,” he says, sliding a nervous hand along his facial hair.
“Mostdays?Colton…”Itakeadeepbreath.
“I’m trying to find ways to make this part of my life feel different, but the overview of it all is easier to withstand than the experience. Punching a bag is less challenging than talking about it, for me, okay?”He releases a soul-filled sigh, looking above us. “It’s not you.”
Yet you insist you don’t need any help.It’s textbook male
behavior.
“You don’t have to do everything alone, you know?I don’t knowiflonelinessisafeelingthatyouevenpossess,but if you think you’re undeserving of something as typical as general happiness, then you’re wrong.”I cross my arms, watching his eyes widen at my suggestion.
“A lot of people feel that way.Including me.But what I believe is that someone should get to be the one to be there with you to weather the storm,” I lecture him, softening my voice as I lean closer to him.“And you said yourself.Denying yourself love…and valuing loss and loneliness is the worst kind of poverty.”
He doesn’t say a word, softening his expression to a more content one.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” My voice becomes softer than the crickets chirping around us.
“Please keep talking…” he whispers, taking a handful of my cheek.
“Tell me what you’re thinking about.”I lean closer to him, my gaze jumping to his lips.
He bites his bottom lip, his eyes staring at mine in return. “I’m thinking about how you’re making me fall for you, harder and harder each time I get a glimpse of those emerald eyes.”A pause lingers between his words.“How badly it scares the hell out of me that whatever this is will pass, and that I’ll miss my chance.I don’t know how I’ve been dealing with life without this feeling you give me, Elle.”His voice startstogetraspy.“Iwannakissyoumorethananything,
rightnow.”
“So, do it. What’s stopping you?” I brush my lips against his.“I don’t think I’m letting any of this pass by, any time
soon.”
The very second I finish speaking, he kisses me, holding onto both of my cheeks now, freeing me from the torment of not having his lips against mine.
Within seconds, my freedom is stripped from me again, feeling our lips disconnect as his phone begins to vibrate between us.
A deep, disquiet sigh leaves his mouth after he releases his grasp from my face and substitutes it for his phone, the bright light from the screen shining over his face to highlight his abhorrence for whatever he is looking at.
“Is everything okay?”I ask, standing from his lap and tugging at his arm for him to stand with me.
He does, but not without words waterfalling out his mouth with anger.
“Look at this—look how he’s already slandering my name,” he protests, holding his phone to my eye level.
He repeats a video from the beginning, muted with sub- titles,advertisingDanielandafewofhisgroupies,galli- vanting in the living room of his home over multiple bottles of alcohol. With his co-signers in the back, he confidently states every reason Colton should drop his new contract,and why, to Daniel’s pitiful standards, he believes he isn’t deserving of a contract to begin with.
When the hell did Cole sign a contract?
I place a hand over his phone, covering the screen and squeezing the lock button to black out Daniel’s noisy tor- menting.
