Dark Sexy Knight (A Modern Fairytale)(33)

“No more little noises,” she promised, placing her glass back on the table.

“I didn’t say ‘no more.’ I said they’re killing me.”

“Well, I don’t want you to die,” she said, butterflies in her belly as she nibbled on an ear of corn.

He chuckled softly. “What do you want?”

To know you. To really know you, and for you to be as good and sweet and right for me as I hope you are.

“To feel safe again,” she said instead.

“Do you feel safe here?”

She nodded. “I do.”

“Then let’s consider that wish granted because nothing scary’s getting through me. What else?”

She’d taken her shoes off, and he’d kicked off his flip-flops while he was at the grill. Now she sought his feet under the table because his words made her heart gallop and sigh, and she wanted to touch him. She ran one toe over the bridge of his foot, watching him sit up a little straighter, hot awareness darkening his eyes.

“What else?” he asked again, his voice gravelly.

“For Ryan to fit in somewhere. You know, to have a job and be useful and—I don’t know—maybe even have a friend. Someone like him.”

Colton nodded slowly, stretching out his legs under the table until his feet were under her bench. “Like him?”

She lifted her feet and rested them on his legs. “Slow. Sweet.”

“Developmentally disabled.”

“Yeah.” She took a deep breath and sighed. “This might sound mean, but . . . I don’t want to be everything to him. I want him to have his own life, you know? Outside of me. I’ll always look out for him, but . . .”

“You’d like full-time care for Ryan? Like . . . in a group home?”

“No!” She cringed. “I’d never put him in a . . . a home. Never.”

“Wait. That’s not what I—”

“No, Colton. No way in hell.”

She shook her head, more and more emphatically, remembering the place she and her mother had looked at three towns over from Camilla after her father died. State-run and affordable, but filthy and outdated. Chipped light blue paint on cement block walls. Men like Ryan, zoned out, staring out barred windows while a game show blared in the background. No way. Not while she had breath in her body would Ryan end up somewhere like that. And honestly? It really bothered her that Colton even suggested it. He couldn’t possibly know what he was talking about, so it would have been better for him not to chime in.

“Verity, I’m talking about a nice place where he can live with—”

“Nice?” she said, drawing back her feet and sitting up primly. “Places like that don’t exist.”

“Of course they do.”

“You’re talking about locking up my brother like . . . like an animal, like a burden, like—”

“No. I would never suggest that. I just think—”

“Think what? What do you know about it anyway?” she snapped.

Instantly remorseful, she bit her upper lip, chagrined by her meanness when Colton had been nothing but kind. When she looked up at him, she rubbed her forehead and tried to soften her expression. “Hot button.” She took a ragged breath and sighed, trying for a small, conciliatory smile. “New subject?”

Though it looked like he had more to say, he nodded.

“Sorry, again,” she said softly.

He shrugged like her outburst didn’t bother him. “It’s okay.”

A small, awkward silence stretched out between them for a few minutes before he asked, “What else do you want? For you, not your brother.”

“Hmm,” she hummed, cutting another piece of meat and feeling relieved that he was trying to get their conversation back on track. “More steak.”

“Steak?” His grin returned—small but still there—and it made her happy, made it easier to put their patch of unpleasant conversation behind.

“I love it when you smile.”

“Only two people in the world make me smile, you know.”

She cocked her head to the side, trying to decide if he was being serious. “I’m one?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And who else?”

“Melody.”

Her heart lurched, but she worked to keep her voice even. “Who’s that?”

Colton took a sip of wine. “Remember before? The family member I mentioned who has seizures?”

“That’s Melody?”

His smile faded a little. “My cousin.”

“Your cousin,” said Verity, laying her fork and knife on her almost-empty plate and pushing it aside. She rested her elbows on the table and leaned forward, closer to him. “I’m staying in her room, right?”

He nodded.

“How old is she?”

“Four years younger than me,” he said. “Twenty-four.”

“Same as me. And her parents?”

“My aunt and uncle passed away.”

“I’m sorry,” said Verity. “She has epilepsy?”

He stared at her hard for a moment. “She has seizures, yes.”

“Before, when you mentioned a family member who’d had a seizure, I just assumed that she was older. Like a grandmother.”