“We’re going to a funeral,” I reminded him.

He looked at my face again but I could tell it cost him. “I take you to Costa’s, you ditch the jeans skirt and wear that.”

“This is too fancy, even for Costa’s.”

“Don’t care.”

“If I eat wearin’ this outfit, I’ll explode out of it like The Hulk.”

He liked this idea, I knew it because he smiled, slow and sexy.

In order to get a move on, I decided to throw him a bone. “I bought new boots for when we go to Costa’s.”

“Don’t care about that either.”

“You’ll like them, they’re high heels and, even bein’ a girl, I think they’re sexy.”

“Costa’s, tomorrow night,” Colt said instantly and I couldn’t help but smile.

“You’ll never get a reservation at Costa’s on a Saturday night.”

“Watch me.”

My smile got wider but I prompted, “Are we gonna go?”

His head tipped down to indicate the counter. “What’s this?”

“What?” I asked.

“Looks like a pile of your mail.”

“Mom, Dad, Jessie and I got a start on me movin’ in. I grabbed my mail while I was there.”

He looked down at the counter again and seemed to slip away to a place that he didn’t like so I walked to the bar.

“Colt?”

His head came up and he said, “We haven’t touched your mail, didn’t fuckin’ think of it. He could be communicatin’ with you.”

Although the specter of Denny was ever present, I still had managed to ignore it just enough to be able deal with it and I liked it that way. I peered over the bar at the stack of mail which had a small parcel in it. I hadn’t even sifted through it because I never got any good mail. I’d set it on the counter to go through when I had a bit of time. Now it seemed I was staring at a ticking bomb with a counter closing in on zero.

I looked back at Colt and asked quietly, “Can we deal with Amy first and that later?”

I needed him to say yes. I couldn’t face Amy’s parents and her funeral if I knew something from Denny came through the post. I could barely deal with it anyway.

“Yeah, baby,” he said and relief filled me. “Let’s go.”

I nodded and we went to his truck. I had forgotten about the truck and if I hadn’t I might have chosen a different outfit, something stretchy. As I stood in the passenger side door, my mind flew through strategies of how I was going to heft my ass into the seat without ripping the skirt at the seams.

“Feb, honey, get in,” Colt said from where he was standing in the driver’s side door watching me with mild irritation at another delay.

I looked at him and said, “I can’t.”

“Baby, we gotta –”

“No,” I cut him off, “I mean, my skirt’s too tight and my heels are too high, I can’t –” I stopped talking when he shook his head and moved out of the driver’s side door.

He approached me and bent, sliding an arm behind my knees, one at my waist, and he lifted me and put me in the seat. I held my breath while he did this for two reasons. One, it would hopefully suck in my flesh so the material wouldn’t tear and two, because I didn’t hold much hope it would suck in my flesh so the material wouldn’t tear. Hope won and the material didn’t tear.

“Thanks,” I said when his arms slid away.

He was looking at me and grinning and I knew he thought I was a nut.

“Do I amuse you?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he answered and then moved away.

He’d backed out and we were on the road when my mind went to places I didn’t want it to go. Places that would torture me and places that made my pronouncement of Colt and me being solid as a rock a lie. I knew this shit with Denny, all we’d learned and all that we’d lost, would fuck with my head. I just didn’t know how to fight it.

I was looking out the window, thinking of stuff I knew I should let go when I felt Colt’s hand take mine. He laced our fingers together and pulled them to rest on his thigh.

“What’s in your head?” he asked and I looked at him.

“Nothin’,” I lied.

“Bullshit,” he replied, it wasn’t mean, it was real and I wondered if there would come a day when I was able to lie to him successfully and I doubted it.

“It’s nothin’,” I said again and his hand squeezed mine.

“Amy?” he asked.

“No.” Even though it kind of was.

“The mail?”

“No.” Even though it kind of was that too.

His hand squeezed mine again and he prompted, “Feb –”

I sighed, he wouldn’t let it go and the days where I kept myself to myself were long gone and, I realized then, they should have been long gone a long, long time ago.

So, I said, “It’s just that… this is all a lot.”

“I know it is, baby.”

“It’ll take awhile to get used to it.”

“I know.”

“And get over what we’ve lost.”

He gave me another hand squeeze and said, “Honey –”

“Colt, you don’t really know me.”

“I know you.”

“Not really.”

“I know you, Feb.”

I looked out the passenger side window and tried to pull my hand from his but his grip just got tighter so I gave up.

Then I told him, “You got a good job, a home, a life. While I was gone, I didn’t create any of that.”

“So?”

I looked back at him. “So, doesn’t say much for me.”

“How’s that?”

“It just doesn’t.”

He let my hand go but only so he could maneuver the truck into the parking lot behind the funeral home and pull into an open slot. Then he turned off the truck and turned to me.

When he did, he asked, “How do I make this better?”

Yes, he asked, straight out.

“What?”

“You’re doin’ your own head in, how do I stop that?”

I shook my head, not certain how to answer.

“I… I don’t know,” I stammered.

“You know it and you aren’t gonna like me remindin’ you of it but twice this shit happened to me. You, dealin’ with shit in your head and not sharin’ and Melanie, dealin’ with her own shit and not sharin’. Both of you let it eat you and both of you pulled away from me. Now, I’m not dickin’ around with it again, tryin’ to figure out a way in. So, I’m askin’ the only person who can tell me, how do I stop this?”

“I don’t think you can,” I told him the truth even though it killed me to do it.

I watched him start to get pissed before he said, “So, you’re sayin’ I just watch it eat at you?”

“No, I’m sayin’, only person who can stop it is me.”

“What if you don’t?”

“I –” I started but he turned his head away to look out the window.

“Fuck,” he hissed to the windscreen and I was right, he was getting pissed but now he just plain was pissed.

“Colt –”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

“Colt –”

He looked at me again, clearly done with our conversation and I knew this with what he said next, “Do you need help gettin’ out?”

I leaned forward, the skirt bit in but I ignored it and put my hand to his neck.

“Babe,” I whispered, “it’d help me stop it if you don’t give up on me.”

I didn’t know I had the answer until I gave it to him. He had no reply, he just stared at me and I had no idea what was going on in his brain. All I knew was, I upset him with my shit, which was just what it was, shit, and for then I needed to let it go. He was facing Amy’s funeral too and he wanted to attend it just as much as I did, which meant not at all.

So I lifted my hand from his neck, ran my fingers around the curve of his ear before I settled them at his neck again to give him a squeeze.

Then I said, “I think I can hop down but it wouldn’t hurt if you were there to spot me.”

He closed his eyes, wet his bottom lip and when he opened his eyes again, they weren’t pissed anymore. Instead, they were telling me without words he’d always be there to spot me.

I gave his neck a squeeze and whispered, “Love you, babe.”

Without hesitation, his hand shot out and tagged me behind the neck, yanking me forward and testing the limits of the material of my outfit.

I didn’t care because he kissed me, it was a hard kiss, closed-mouthed but I liked it all the same. When he was done with my mouth, his lips went away but his hand slid into my hair, tilted my head down and he kissed my forehead before he pulled away.

“Let’s get this done,” he murmured, I nodded and Colt got out, rounded the hood, opened my door for me and I hopped out of the cab with his hands at my hips, spotting me.

* * *

Colt watched Feb work her magic the minute she hit the funeral home. Gone was whatever was eating her in the truck. She flipped on the February Owens light, the old one that he remembered so well and the new one that seemed to shine even brighter. It was a light that lit her from the inside out and she shone it on all around.

First was Craig Lansdon who was standing alone inside the door and caught their eyes the minute they walked in. Colt watched as Craig manned up immediately and headed to Feb and Colt, his eyes skittering between the two of them, knowing he needed to do what he did but not liking it all the same.

“Feb, I –” he started but Feb moved into him, put her hand on his shoulder and cut him off.

“He played you, same as Colt, Amy and me.”

“I shoulda –”

Feb interrupted him, “We were all young and stupid, Craig. None of us played it right.”

He looked away, his jaw tensing. “Lotsa people are dead.”

At that point Colt entered the conversation by asking, “And you coulda stopped that how?”

Craig looked back and replied, “I don’t know, I knew him better’n anyone.”

“He tell you, in a coupla decades, he was plannin’ on headin’ out on a killin’ spree?” Colt asked.