Guilty Needs(20)

“Unfinished business,” he murmured.

A shiver raced down Bree’s spine as he echoed the words Alyssa had said to her so many times.

“I…” he licked his lips, leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. The material of his shirt drew tight across his biceps and shoulders and for a second, Bree was too distracted to follow him. Then she heard him say Alyssa’s name. “Would she have any reason to come back? She wasn’t exactly the type to start and not finish something.”

Except me, Bree thought ruefully. I’m her latest and last project. “Sometimes they don’t have much choice.” She didn’t want to ask him. It was too damn weird.

But she couldn’t not ask. “Is this about Alyssa?”

She could see the answer in his eyes. He’d seen her. When, though?

She might have even asked him, except, just like that, his features became shuttered, blank. With a shake of his head, he muttered, “No. Forget I said anything.”

The rest of the meal passed in awkward silence and Bree ended up leaving two-thirds of her spaghetti uneaten on her plate. By the time the waitress came with the check, she was damn anxious to get out of there and apparently Colby was in the same state of mind. They both reached for the check at the same time. “I’ll take care of mine,” she said.

He didn’t even look at her. “I brought you. I’ll pay.”

Arguing with him was only going to keep them trapped there longer and she needed to get out of there, get away from him.

He’d locked her out.

Again.

The pain inside him was a cancer and all she wanted to do was help, but he wouldn’t let her. He had disappeared for a year, no letters, no phone calls, nothing—it was pretty damn clear he didn’t want or need her help.

In her chest, her heart was a cold, icy knot. He doesn’t want me, Lys. I wish you could see that.

The drive to her house was another exercise in awkward, tense silences, but when she tried to make her escape, he hit the door locks just as she reached for the handle. “I’m sorry. I think I forgot how to act with people in public,” he said quietly. Sliding her a glance, he shrugged. “It’s been a weird day.”

“They happen.” She wanted to lean forward and wrap her arms around his shoulders. His eyes were so serious and he looked so worried, so miserable. But touching him? Not a good idea.

Instead, she forced a smile and said, “Don’t worry about it.”

Don’t worry about it? Oh, the irony.

For the next week, Colby did nothing but worry about it. Worry about her. Worry about Alyssa. Worry about the very weird day when he’d seen his wife’s ghost in the basement of her best friend’s house.

She hadn’t made a return appearance.

Even when he had another dream about Bree and woke up feeling sick with guilt. It had hit him hard, but instead of collapsing under it, he’d shoved back. “There’s nothing to feel guilty about,” he’d told himself. He mostly even believed it. At least now.

And that might be why Alyssa hadn’t made a repeat appearance.

He spent the week in his office going through paperwork. On Friday, he found a partially finished manuscript that he’d set aside probably four years earlier. Most of his stuff was in the urban fantasy scene, with a few more traditional pieces.

Darkness might have some urban fantasy aspects, but it was too dark, too macabre to be called anything but horror. Flipping through the loose pages, he found himself getting engrossed. A red pen, a tepid bottle of water—with his back pressed against the wall, he lost track of time, making notes in the margin, going back, rewriting a few passages in long hand then he got to the last page and realized the sun had set and he’d spent the past four hours doing rewrites on a piece that wasn’t even done.

But the story had turned into a song in his head, one that wouldn’t shut up. So instead of stretching out the kinks in his back and getting something to silence the growl in his belly, he pulled out the chair, booted up the computer and brought up the file holding the notes and partial manuscript for Darkness.

By the time the song in his head settled down to a quiet hum, it was dark outside. Dark in his office too, because he’d never bothered to turn on the lights. He didn’t bother doing so now, either. Instead, he just saved the updated file and made a backup copy on an SD card he found buried in one of the drawers.

His back was a mess of knots and aches. Exhaustion pushed at him but he didn’t head to the guest room where he’d been sleeping since he came home.

He headed outside, stripping out of his clothes, his goal the pool.

It had hit the high nineties today and right now, he’d bet the water would feel like warm silk. He was right. The water closed over him in an embrace. Holding his breath, he swam along the bottom until he had to surface. Then he started to swim laps.

His muscles warmed and he fell into a regular rhythm. Letting his mind drift, he toyed with the plotline for Darkness, taking mental notes and debating whether or not he should even try getting a proposal together for his agent. Hell, if she was still his agent. He hadn’t talked to her in a year and he wouldn’t be surprised if she’d decided to let him go. Yeah, he’d made her a decent amount of money but he was dead weight right now. Publishing didn’t allow for a lot of dead weight.

But the story wasn’t going quiet—he already knew that. He even had a glimmer of how it was going to end and unless he’d lost his rhythm during his twelve-month break away from the computer, he had a feeling he could wrap Darkness up in a few weeks.