“What?” Colson furrows his brow, “Why not?”
How do I even tell Colson what happened since the last time I saw him? It doesn’t even sound real. These things happen to other people, but not Barrett and I. It seems too wild, too ridiculous, and even though I saw the texts, I’m still second-guessing myself. Did I really see what I saw?
“She sent a topless picture to Bowen.”
Colson’s silent for a few moments, letting my words sink in, “Does that sound like something she would do?”
“What do you mean?”
“Does that sound like something she would do?” he repeats, but slower.
“Of course not, but that doesn’t matter, does it? I saw the picture and the texts,” I shake my head, feeling worse by the second, so I change the subject, “Tell me about your tattoos. You didn’t have them back in college.”
Colson looks down at the web of stars and lines that wrap around his left wrist and stretch up his arm until they disappear beneath the sleeve of his shirt, “You might not know this, but it’s easier to find your direction by the stars than a compass. These are all the constellations you can see in the northern sky.” He stops and motions for me to come closer. When I do, he turns me so the sun is on my left and I’m facing north, “You won’t be able to see all of them here because of the light pollution, but when it gets dark,” he stretches his arm over my shoulder and raises his hand, “these are the stars that you’ll see.”
“Wouldn’t the sky be different here than it is in Alaska?” I point out.
“Yes, but it’s not the sky in Alaska,” he lets his arm sink back to his side, “it’s the sky here, so I could find you again.”
I draw in a sharp breath, staring at his tattooed arm in astonishment. How can someone be that consumed by another person, someone they haven’t seen for years because the last time they did ended so horribly? How could he dwell on something—on me—for that long?
As if I can talk…
After a few moments, a smile creeps across my face, “What if I wasn’t here?” I turn to Colson, “What if I moved away and never came back?”
“Brett,” he cracks a smile, “I’ve tracked animals that evolved to survive where people can’t, I’ve found people who are lost deep in the wilderness where humans have never been—on mountaintops, in crevasses, hidden beneath dense forests a hundred miles from civilization. You think it would be hard for me to find you?”
“OK,” I concede, then point to his right arm, “then what do you need the compass for?”
Colson glances down at the inside of his arm where the sharp, black, four-tipped star points north toward his elbow and south toward his wrist.
His lucent eyes shift back to me, “In case it’s cloudy.”
I hesitate for a moment, dumbfounded, then a sudden whoop of laughter bursts from my mouth and echoes through the trees. It’s so loud and vibrant, it doesn’t even sound like my voice, and it doesn’t stop. I keep laughing as I stagger around the path. I don’t remember the last time I laughed like this.
When I finally catch my breath, I turn back to Colson, wiping the tears from under my eyes, “Cloudy…” I giggle.
He walks backward a few steps and then turns over his shoulder with a flash of his aquamarine eyes. I follow him down the path, chuckling to myself, for another quarter of a mile until the pavement reveals a small dirt pull-off in the trees only big enough for a couple of parking spaces. Colson’s blue STI is the only one there, the front bumper facing the tree line.
“Do you ever drive your Bronco anymore?” I ask, coming to a halt at his front tires.
“Sometimes,” he opens the driver’s side door and starts the ignition. When he does, the A/C kicks on as well as the radio, “but this one has better speakers.”
I meander around his open door, wandering along the edge of the car aimlessly while I bob my head back and forth, mouthing song lyrics as I go. When I reach the back bumper and turn on my heel, I realize he’s watching me from the driver’s side door.
“I like this song…” I say while averting my eyes.
With a mischievous smile, Colson reaches for my hand and pulls me close, catching me with his other arm and tossing my hand over his shoulder. His body is warm and his scent familiar, and I feel myself start swaying with him. The more I move with him, mirroring him like a shadow, the more I relax.
I remember every inch of him; the contours of his shoulders, the sweet smell of his skin, the exact place my head falls on his chest, the way his hands feel running down my back—every single movement unlocking a memory I hid away long ago. And now, I can’t help but climb back into the perfectly wrapped box I have for Colson and bask in those memories behind a wall of maples and honeysuckle.
“I think this is the most normal thing you’ve ever done,” I murmur into his shoulder.
“Don’t worry,” his lips brush my forehead, “I won’t make it a habit.”
I tighten my hold around his shoulders, “Maybe you should.”
“See?” Colson slides one hand further down the small of my back, “You want to know how it feels.”
“How what feels?”
He bends down and grabs the backs of my thighs, lifting me up to his waist. I tighten my arms around his shoulders as he strolls to the front of his car, and when he reaches the front bumper, he sits down on the edge of the hood, holding me on his lap.
“You want to know how it feels to be enmeshed in my life as much as I am in yours. When I’m not busy fucking with you—figuratively and literally—you want to know what it’s like to do simple things like brushing your teeth next to me or picking out granite for our countertops I’ll bend you over whenever I want. You want to walk into a room and see me there because I’m supposed to be,” Colson tilts his head with a smirk, “and you want to enjoy it.”
“Don’t you wonder what’s wrong with me like everyone else?”
“Quite the opposite,” Colson runs his hands up over the curve of my ass and lets them rest there, “nothing appears to be wrong with you right now.”
“No, you wouldn’t think that,” I roll my eyes, staring off into the distance as the rhythmic crescendo of cicadas ring in my ears, “I don’t know how it happened, but I feel like a hollowed-out shell that’s flaking away by the second, just like everything else.”
He reaches up and pulls my face back to his with his index and middle fingers, “You’ll never be hollow, Brett, and I’ll keep reminding you of that for the rest of your life. Because as long as you’re walking the earth, I’ll be wherever you are, and you need to square with that. But I promise,” he lowers his voice to a near whisper, “you’re never going to feel whole until you decide to come back home.”
Colson no sooner finishes the last word and I sink into him, pressing my lips to his. I feel his chest cave as the air leaves his lungs and, a second later, his arms cross over my back to pull me tighter against him. He tastes so good, like bad decisions laced with notes of pine, heat, and maddening suspense. I can’t turn away; I have to know what happens next. And the longer I hold him, the more I want to meld to him and see if I can feel a shred of what it’s like to be him.
Colson says he can never be as whole as I am, but I don’t think I can ever be as bold and unflappable as he is. The next best thing is to drink him in like I’ve been parched for days and breathe his air like I’m suffocating. And the more I do, the more his touch makes me feel like I’m coming back to life.
“Can I go home with you?” I murmur into his mouth.
