“Colt,” I heard Susie say.

“What the fuck’re you doin’ here?” was Colt’s not-so-friendly response.

This surprised me. I thought he’d ask her outside to go sit in his GMC or take her to the back office. That was Colt’s style. Not confronting her in the bar.

“Having a drink,” Susie replied.

“Bullshit.”

“Now, Colt –”

“You want this, let’s do it,” Colt invited and I kept right on rotating, pulling the old bottles out, setting them aside, putting the new bottles back, setting the old ones in front of them.

“You aren’t answering your phone,” Susie told him.

“I am, I’m just not doin’ it when you call.”

Oh Lord. Maybe she wasn’t his girlfriend anymore, what did I know? Colt, nor Morrie, nor anyone kept me in Colt’s romance loop.

“What’d I tell you?” Susie said, her voice now nasty. “Wound up with February. Three days it’s been and she’s already in your house.”

Fuck, I just knew this was about me.

I decided that was my cue to escape. I stood up and closed the fridge with my foot, preparing to make good on my plan.

“Don’t you move,” Colt ordered, his voice hard, my eyes went to him to see he was addressing me.

“What?” I asked.

“This is your place. It’s not hers to make you feel uncomfortable in it,” Colt said to me.

“Thinkin’ you two should take this into the office.” Dad was now there.

Susie ignored my Dad. “Tina Blackstone called, said she saw you carrying her cat and her bag into your house.”

I also forgot Tina Blackstone was Colt’s neighbor and Susie’s friend (though Susie probably didn’t know that Tina tried it on with Colt on a variety of occasions). And I forgot Tina wasn’t only a bitch, she was a busybody and she drained her ex dry which meant she didn’t have to work but part-time which meant she had time to spy on Colt for Susie.

“And this is your business because…?” Colt asked.

“This is my business because I don’t want to see you make a fool of yourself. Not even a week, Colt, and you’re publicly gagging for it. It’s sad.”

I felt my head get light while visions exploded in it of my fist connecting with Susie’s face.

I knew Morrie felt the same way because he suggested, “And I’m thinkin’ that our soda’s flat, Susie. Maybe you should go to Frank’s, see if you like his soda better.”

Susie ignored Morrie too. “So let’s see if my guess is correct, Colt. Ask her. Ask her to get down on her knees and suck your cock. She’ll be over that bar so fast–”

I moved in, so did Morrie and Dad and the whole place went quiet, already listening, now they were doing it openly but Colt put his hand up, palm out, toward me never peeling his eyes from Susie’s face and for some reason me, Dad and Morrie froze.

“Daddy’s gone Susie,” Colt said in a voice that rang loud in the big, silent bar, “so you got only your money to protect you and since I don’t give a shit about your money then I’ll give it to you straight. I fucked you because I was drunk and actin’ stupid and you reminded me of February. I kept doin’ it because I could keep pretending that was true until you proved yourself to be the bitch you are and I couldn’t ignore it anymore. Puttin’ up with your shit wasn’t worth getting off. I gave you too many chances to turn my mind to you and you never took a single one. So like I said three days ago, it’s over. I’m done. You wanted a scene, there it is. You got it.”

I was trying not to think of the fact that Colt just told me, my brother, my Dad, his ex-girlfriend and around twenty citizens in our town he fucked Susie because he could pretend she was me but it was impossible not to think about it because he did it. Right then, right there, right in front of me.

Susie leaned toward Colt. “You’re a fool.”

“Only one thinks that is you. Fuck, probably half the guys who’ve fucked you think of Feb when they’re doin’ it,” Colt replied.

Morrie laughed at this, so did others, several of them, I just didn’t see who they were because I couldn’t tear my eyes off what was happening in front of me.

Susie had no ready retort because there was none to be had. She’d played out a faulty strategy and right then she knew it.

Finally she tried another faulty strategy, false bravado and she hissed, “Don’t think after this Alexander Colton, you can come crawling back to me.”

“As ever, you got a creative memory, Sooz. Wasn’t me who did the crawlin’. I figure, I asked, it’d be you who got down on your knees.”

“Go to hell.”

“You’re in my space, means I’m already there.”

Colt was good and I made a mental note not to get in verbal fisticuffs with him. Susie had made an art out of being a bitch. I was surprised he’d bested her. He’d wipe the floor with me.

She slid off her seat, hitching her bag on her shoulder and throwing a glare at Colt as she went.

I decided not to remind her she owed us for the soda. Colt had already rubbed enough salt in her wounds, we could do without the buck fifty.

She exited with her head held high and a flounce of her hair. Joe-Bob breathed an audible sigh of relief. All eyes in the bar swung to Colt and me.

“In the office,” Colt clipped at me and then started walking toward the office.

I figured my best bet was to follow him so I did. I closed the door behind me and leaned my back against it. Normally distance from Colt was paramount though lately this wasn’t working for me. But after what just happened and what he’d said, distance was fundamental.

“Sully and me have managed to keep the town from talkin’ about the notes, The Feds and your involvement with all that shit. People seein’ you and me comin’ in and out of this office, what happened at the Station and Tina Blackstone’s big fuckin’ mouth, we got no control over. With all that’s goin’ on, you gonna be able to deal with this?”

Colt had evidently decided to ignore what he said to Susie which I thought was a good play and I let him have it.

“Yeah,” I told him.

“They’re gonna jump to conclusions.”

“They always do.”

“I need to know you aren’t gonna lose it.”

“Lose it?”

“Lose it.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Go off half-cocked.”

I stared at him then I repeated, “What do you mean?”

“You’re not exactly known for havin’ a level head, Feb. You got a lotta stress. Shit’s gone down before and it didn’t involve murdering psychos and bitches like Susie and you disappeared for fifteen years. Can’t keep you safe if you haul ass.”

Now I was losing my temper and that mental note I made not to get into verbal fisticuffs with Colt got lost somewhere in the flutterings of my brain.

“How did this get to be about me?”

He ignored my question. “I need your assurance you’re gonna be able to ride this out.”

“I can’t believe this shit.”

“Just promise me, it gets too much, you’ll talk to Morrie, your Mom, Jessie, Mimi, whoever the fuck and you don’t just take off.”

It was then I lost it. Covering the distance between us in three pissed off steps, I got right in his face and when I spoke I did it loud.

“Colt, I was twenty-five and had just been beaten to shit and humiliated by my husband when I took off. Half the town feelin’ sorry for me, the other half thinkin’ I’m an idiot. I couldn’t hold up my head. You have no clue how that feels but, let me tell you, it feels shit. You hear me?” I shouted. “I had nothin’ to keep me tied here and so I left. Now I got ties. I got this bar. I got my respect for my brother. I promised him I’d pull my weight as a partner and that’s what I’m gonna do and I don’t fuckin’ appreciate you insinuating I’d do anything different.”

His voice got low and conciliatory when he spoke again but he didn’t back down or move out of the space I’d taken. “I appreciate that, Feb, but you gotta appreciate that I know you aren’t exactly known for sharin’ and they don’t make a break in this case soon this shit is only gonna get worse before it gets better.”

“I’m not an idiot, Colt, I realize that.”

“Then you can’t think you’re gonna go it alone. You try, you’re gonna collapse under the weight of it or you’re gonna feel that pressure and disappear.”

“You don’t know me well enough to say that.”

His voice lost its conciliatory tone when he said, “You know I do.”

“I’m not who I was, Colt.”

“Fucking hell, Feb, I know that too, been livin’ that nightmare for a long fucking time.”

“Poor you,” I spat, so lost in my anger I didn’t even begin to think what I was saying or if I should be saying it, “try livin’ my nightmare, you asshole.”

It was his turn to get in my face. “You’d share it with me, I’d take that shot.”

“Why are you doing that?” I shouted. “I don’t need to share what you damn well know.”

“That’s your constant refrain, Feb, is it sinkin’ in yet that maybe I’m not lyin’ and I have no fuckin’ clue?”

“Not even for a second!”

“Christ,” he bit off but I was done and I took a step back.

“This is so over, why we’re still talkin’ about it is beyond me.”

“Maybe because it means something?”

“To who?”

“Fucking hell,” now Colt was yelling, “you think two people don’t give a shit about something would be shouting about it?”

I had no answer to that mainly because I had no intention of even thinking about that.

He read me and closed the distance I’d gained, getting back in my face. “There’s a lot of people we both care about tied in this shit and now it’s in their face. Again. We need to talk it out so we can finally shut it down and move, the fuck, on.”