Hold On (The 'Burg #6)(6)

I was about to turn the corner to the back when I heard a familiar voice that came from a familiar man, this man being Alec Colton, that voice raised and irate, saying, “What the f*ck, Merry? Jesus Christ. Did you bang Cher?”

Holy f*ck.

How could he know that?

I stopped dead, out of sight at the corner of the building.

“Colt.” I heard Merry rumble.

“Feb went in this morning to do paperwork. I dropped her. Cher’s car there. Empty bottle of whisky you like on the bar. I get to the station, see your truck in the lot where it was parked yesterday. I walk up to the bullpen, you can’t meet my eyes.”

Shit.

Cops.

They figured out everything.

“Sorry, brother, gotta get Mike. Greetin’ you like a happy puppy was not top of my priority list,” Merry returned, voice not raised but instead sarcastic and also irate.

“Bullshit. Darryl walked in before I left Feb, said he left Cheryl with you, you drunk, her lookin’ to mother hen you. You take advantage of that?”

I peeked around the corner and saw them both in front of Colt’s truck. They were in standoff mode. Merry was pissed. Colt was more pissed.

“You need to stand down,” Merry warned.

“You take advantage of that?” Colt repeated when Merry didn’t answer, and I watched around the corner as Colt got an inch closer to Merry, and Merry’s already taut and alert frame got more of both. “You f*ck your cares away, Mia gettin’ a ring on her finger not yours? You bury that shit in Cher?”

I watched this going down having no clue what to do.

Normally, I would charge right in. Take Merry’s back.

But I’d never had anyone but my mom take care of me the way Alexander Colton, his wife, February, and their family and friends took care of me when my life turned to shit. Took care of me. Took care of Ethan. Didn’t do it from guilt or pity; they did it out of kindness and then love.

In my life, I had a great mom, a shit dad, made an awesome kid, and there was not much else.

Until I hit that ’burg. Until Colt talked me into moving there, working at Feb’s bar, and turning my life around.

Then I got it all, worked to keep it good, and handed it right to my boy.

And there Colt was, taking care of me again. It wasn’t the first time. It was just that it was new this time, and straight up, even if years had passed, I still wasn’t used to it.

No doubt about it, the man had no sisters, but Colt made me one. He did not f*ck around doing that. He took care of me. He spent time with Ethan, quality and quantity. He did everything a big brother would do.

I had no idea if this was true. I had no brothers or sisters.

But Colt did everything a big brother would do, the kind of brother you had in your dreams.

“Careful, Colt.” Merry’s deep voice wasn’t a warning now, it was a threat.

“This is Cher we’re talkin’ about, Merry,” Colt fired back. “You know I’m not gonna be careful, a man, he’s my brother or not, walks all over her. So you better stand there tellin’ me you did not drown your sorrows in her kindness and now you’re gonna walk all over her.”

“Cher and I are gonna talk it out,” Merry replied.

“And how’s that gonna go?” Colt pushed.

“Colt, you know Cher knows how it’s gonna go. And you know it’s gonna be good. She and me, we’re tight. Woman she is, she knows. She isn’t gonna have a drunken f*ck with some * who was hung up on his ex-wife and not know how it’s gonna go. We’ll talk it out and go back to what we had. Fuck, she’ll probably be the one who suggests it, thinkin’ she’s letting me off the hook for kickin’ my ass for the exact shit you’re spewin’ at me right now.”

I pulled my head from around the corner and leaned back hard against the stone of the station behind me. It was cold and I felt that cold instantly start seeping through my sweater.

At the same time, I didn’t feel it.

I didn’t feel anything.

“You take care a’ her, man.” I heard Colt demand, losing some of the pissed from his voice.

“You know me better than that,” Merry returned, still fully pissed. “I get you. I get you’re lookin’ after her. But you know what she and me got, so when you calm the f*ck down, you’ll understand that this is a kick in the teeth you wished you didn’t deliver because I’m gonna take care of her and you f*ckin’ know it.”

He would.

He’d take care of me like he took care of me by not sneaking out of my house and making me feel like a stupid slut.

Merry would take care of me.

Just not the way I wanted.

Never that.

He could kiss me how he’d kissed me. He could move inside me, his eyes locked to mine, watching his work build, watching it explode. He could sit on the side of my bed and brush his lips along my cheek, wrap his hand around my neck, and tell me he’d call me.

But he’d never give me what I wanted.

I forgot.

I forgot I wasn’t the kind of girl who got what she wanted.

Not once.

Not in my whole f*cking life.

Yeah, I’d forgotten that.

And as I walked down the side of the station to the sidewalk, heading toward J&J’s to get my car, passing a garbage bin and tossing the coffee and muffins in it, I reminded myself of that fact.