Page 119 of Brim Over Boot
“He was blowing up my phone first,” my uncle says, full of sass. “Now get.”
Jesus.
I push out of my seat in time to hear the unmistakable sound of Colton’s voice ringing loud and clear.
“Noah fucking King! Get your ass out here!”
When I pull open the front door, there he is. Colton Darling, standing only a couple dozen feet in front of me on the lawn. The light from inside the house barely illuminates him, but I can see the pain around the corners of his eyes. And…is that a shoebox under his arm?
“Colt,” I start, heading down the porch stairs, an apology poised on my tongue.
The man storms forward before I have a chance to utter a word of it, stopping in front of me and dropping to his knees in the grass.
My breath whooshes from my lungs.
“Now you’re gonna listen,” Colton says, voice stern. “Because there are some things I needa say.”
I nod numbly as he opens the top of the shoebox, tossing it aside. Inside are…pieces of paper?
“What is all this?” I ask, bending down and picking up one of the papers. The words on the clipping are familiar. “Are these…my ads from the newspaper?”
“Shush,” Colton says, not answering my question. “You said I didn’t remember you, but Ido. I remember you. And I know exactly who you are. You’re the dick who made me strive to be better just so I could say I’m the best farrier in town.”
Colton tosses some of the clippings my way, the thin papers fluttering to the grass.
“You’re the one who’s been under my skin since the very first time I met you. I liked you then, Noah. I did. And I like you now.”
He throws another handful of papers angrily.
“You’re the guy who’s been haunting me for years.Years. Don’t you get it?”
Colton upends the box, the rest of the clippings falling at my feet, his blue eyes flashing in the limited light.
“Against all goddamn sense and reason, you made me fall brim over boot, Noah King. And now I don’t know which way is up unless it’s with you.”
“Colt…” I say, my voice nearly lost, the vise around my chest so tight it physically hurts.
He shakes his head, dropping the box beside him and pressing his hands together in front of his face. “I’m down on my knees, willingly, because I just got you. Ijustgot you, and I can’t lose you. I’msorryI didn’t recognize your face from back then. I am. Butyou, Noah…the boy who asked to ride horses at my ranch.” The sound he makes is wounded. Involuntary. “I know you deep in my bones. And I was so fucking scared of that when you showed back up in town. Because Isawthat man. I saw you, and you wouldn’t see me back.”
I drop down in front of Colton before I have the conscious thought to move. I clasp his face in my hands, and he latches on to my wrists, holding tight. “Fuck, Colt. I see you. I do.”
“I know that now,” he says, his eyes wet. “You see me better than anyone. I don’t know why the fuck all of this happened. Maybe in another life we could’ve been friends from the start. But…we’re here now. We made it here. Sopleasedon’t hold it against me, Noah. You look so fucking different than you did then.”
My laugh is pained. He’s not wrong. I was heavier as a teen. Add on to that the muscle I put on in college and the ink on my skin, and I’m a different person entirely.
“And I swear I didn’t do it,” he goes on. “I never wanted to turn you away. I never tried to hurt you back then.”
I rub my thumbs over Colton’s jaw, the prickling against my skin the best sort of pain. “I know,” I tell him. Colton was horrified when I recounted what happened. As caught off-guard as me. I know he’s telling the truth. “I’m not mad at you, Colt. I’m mad at…everything else. At myself. At Eddie, apparently. At all these fucking years I blamed you when there was no blame to be had.I’msorry. You didn’t deserve that.”
The noise he lets out is full of confusion. “You’re…notmad at me?”
“Do you want me to be?” I ask, my hands stroking over his skin. I can’t seem to stop myself now that I’ve started. How did I ever think this man cold when he’s fire and heat beneath my fingertips?
“Well, no,” he says. “Butfuck, King. I’m not used to you not being mad at me.”
I let out a breath, skating my palms down to Colton’s neck, my thumb rolling gently over the column of his throat. “None of this is your fault. And I’m sorry I left like that. I just… I needed a minute to think so I wouldn’t blurt out something I didn’t mean. I made assumptions from the start, Colt, and that’s on me. All of this is on me. You simply reacted in kind. Forgive me for that?”
“Jesus Christ, you asshole,” he says, humor—of all things—in his voice. “If it’s not my fault, it’s not yours. How could you have known? For all intents and purposes, I was the dick who tossed horse shit on your head. I wouldn’t have been friendly either in your place.” He lets out a breath, one hand planting on the top of my thigh. His other moves to cover the back of my hand, shifting my grip to the front of his throat. “You hold my reins, King. So please. Tell me where we go from here.”
