Falling into You (Falling #1)(28)

He caught me, of course.

He smelled of alcohol, cologne, cigarettes. His arms circled my shoulders and held me in place. The sobs rose and fell within me, brought up by guilt from finding pleasure and comfort, doused by the same.

I let my forehead rest under his chin, just for a moment. Only a moment. Just till I caught my breath. It didn’t mean anything.

It’s just a moment of comfort, Kyle. I found myself talking to him, as if he could hear me. It doesn’t mean anything. I love you. Only you.

But then he shifted, looking down at me. So, of course, I had to tilt my head up and meet his eyes. Damn his eyes, so soft, so piercing and bright and blue and beautiful. His eyes… they drowned me. Sucked me in. Dark sapphire laced with cornflower blue, sky blue, ice blue so many shades of blue.

I fell forward, into him. I tasted Jameson on his breath, heat on my lips, moist soft heat and scouring power of his lips. It was only a moment, the briefest instant of contact. A kiss, an instant of weakness like the inevitable pull of gravity.

Awareness rifled through me, struck me like a dagger to the heart.

I threw myself bodily backward, out of his arms, away from the drowning comfort of his arms, his lips.

“What am I doing?” I stumbled back, back. “What am I doing? What the fuck am I doing?” I turned and limped away as fast as I could, barely hanging on to my sanity, barely keeping the guilt from eating me alive.

Colton followed, ran around in front of me and stopped me with his hands on my shoulders. “Wait, Nell. Wait. Just wait.”

I wrenched free. “Don’t touch me. That…that was wrong. So wrong. I’m sorry…so sorry.”

He shook his head, eyes boiling with emotion. “No, Nell. It just happened. I’m sorry too. It just happened. It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay!” I was nearly yelling. “How can I kiss you when he’s dead? When the man I love is gone? How can I kiss you when…when I—when Kyle—”

“It’s not your fault. I let it happen too. It’s not your fault. It just happened.” He kept saying that, as if he could see the guilt, the secret weight of awful knowledge.

“Stop saying that!” The words were torn from me before I could stop them. “You don’t know! You weren’t there! He’s dead and I—” I chomped down on the last two words.

Thinking them, knowing them to be true is one thing; saying them out loud to Kyle’s brother, whom I just kissed, is another.

He was close to me again, somehow. Not touching, but only an inch separating us. That sliver of air between us crackled, sparked and spat.

“We’re not talking about the kiss anymore, are we?” His voice throbbed low, wired with passion, understanding.

I shook my head, my only answer for so many things. “I can’t—I can’t—I can’t…”

I could only turn away, and this time Colton Calloway let me leave. He watched me, I could feel his eyes on me. I could feel him knowing my thoughts, delving deep into my secret soul, where guilt and grief festered like an abscess.

I made it to my room, to my bed. My eyes closed, and all I saw was Kyle dying, over and over again. Between the images of his last indrawn breath, I saw Colton. His face growing closer, his mouth on mine.

I wanted to cry, to scream, to sob. But I couldn’t. Because if I did, I’d never stop. Never never. There would only be an ocean of tears.

Hot heart-blood leaked from my face. From my eyes and my nose and my mouth. Not tears, because those would never stop. This was just liquid heartbreak seeping from my pores.

The mountain of pressure, the weight of grief and guilt…it was all I could feel. It was all I would ever feel. I knew that. I knew, too, that I would learn to be normal once again, someday. To live, to be, to seem okay.

Okay would only ever be skin deep, though.

The note was under my pillow. I unfolded it, gazed at it.

…And now we’re learning how to fall in love together. I don’t care what any one else says. I love you. I’ll always love you, no matter what happens with us in the future. I love you now and forever.

I saw the splotch where my tear had fallen, staining the blue pen-strokes black in a sudden Rorschach pattern. Another wet drop splatted on the paper, just beneath the writing this time. I let it sink in and stain. The slanting downstroke of the ‘Y’ in his scrawled signatures blurred and became blotted.

Eventually the slow leak stopped and I fell asleep. I dreamed of brown eyes and blue, of a ghost beside me, loving me, and of a flesh and blood man sitting on a dock, drinking whiskey, playing guitar, and remembering an illicit kiss. In the dream, he wondered what it meant. In the dream, he stole into my room and kissed me again. I woke from that dream sweating and shaking and nauseous with guilt.





Part Two

The Present





Colton





Chapter 6: Old Man Jack

Two years later





I’m sitting on a park bench on the edge of Central Park, busking. I’ve got my case on the ground next at my feet, a few bucks as seed money bright green against the maroon velvet. I haven’t busked in months. The shop has been too busy, too many orders, too many rebuilds and custom jobs. But this, the open air and the lack of expectations, this is where I live. Where my soul flies. Like my weekly gig at Kelly’s bar, it’s not about the money, although I usually make a decent chunk of change.