He hisses out a loud exhale of breath, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. We stand there in silence for a few moments as I look at his back, and he looks at the city beyond. After a moment he turns around and holds his arms out, his eyes full of a nameless emotion I can’t decipher. “This is me, Rylee!” he shouts. “All of me in my fucked up glory! I’m not Max—perfect in every way, never making a goddamned mistake. I can’t live up to the incomparable standard he’s set, to the pedestal you’ve placed him on!”

I suck in a breath, his words hitting their target. How dare he throw Max and what we had in my face. Thoughts don’t process. Words don’t form. Tears well in my eyes as I think about Max and who he was and Colton and what he is to me. Confusion swamps me. Drags me under. Drowns me.

“How dare you!” I growl at him, hurt surrendering to anger before succumbing to grief.

Colton’s not finished though. He takes a step toward me, pointing his finger at his chest. “But I’m alive, Rylee, and he’s not!” His words rip into me. A tear slides down my cheek, and I turn my back to him, hiding from his words, thinking if I can’t see the plea and hurt in his eyes, I won’t have to accept the truth in his statement. “I’m the one here in front of you—flesh and blood and needing—so either you accept that it’s you that I want. No one else,” he rants, his voice echoing off of the concrete surrounding us and coming back to me twice as if to reinforce his words. “You need to accept me for who I am, faults and all...” his voice breaks “...or you need to get the fuck out of my life…because right now—right now—this is all that I can give you! All I can offer.”

I can hear the pain in his voice, can feel the agony in his words, and it tears at me until a sob escapes my mouth. I bring my hand up to cover it while I clutch my other hand around my abdomen.

“That’s enough, Colton!” Beckett’s voice pierces through the early morning hour when he sees my anguish. “It’s enough!”

In my periphery, I see Colton whirl toward him, fists clenched, emotion overwhelming him. Beckett doesn’t flinch from Colton’s imposing stare but rather takes another step toward him, taunting him with his eyes. “Try me, Wood,” he challenges, his voice hard as steel. “You come at me and I’ll knock you on that drunk, pretty-boy ass of yours in a heartbeat.”

My eyes meet Beckett’s for a fleeting second, the ice in his eyes surprising me before I turn to look at Colton. The features on his face are tight, and his dark hair has fallen over his forehead. The angst in his eyes is so incredibly raw. I study him as he glares at Beckett. His eyes flicker over to mine and whatever expression blankets my face holds his stare. I can see his pain and fear and uncertainty in them, and I realize that as much as his words sting—as much as they hurt me to hear—there is so much truth to them.

Max is dead and never coming back. Colton is here and very much alive, and he wants me in his life in some form or another despite his inability to acknowledge or accept it. I see the plea in his eyes for me to choose him, to accept him. Not my ghost of memories. Just him. All of him. Even the parts that are broken.

And the choice is so easy, I don’t even have to make one.

I step forward toward the eyes that flit frantically back and forth like a lost little boy. I glance over at Beckett and give him an unsure smile. “It’s okay, Becks. He’s right,” I whisper, turning back to Colton. “You’re right. I can’t keep expecting you to be like Max or compare you to what I had with him.” I take another timid step toward him.

“And I don’t want you to think that you have to be like Cassandra,” he says, taking me by surprise that his inference about my insecurity is spot-on. I reach out my hand to him, an olive branch to our argument, and he takes it, pulling me into him. I land against the firmness of his body as he gathers me to his chest, his strong arms wrapped around me a reassurance after the cruel and callous insults we’ve just hurled at each other. I press my face into his neck, the beat of his pulse beneath my lips. He runs a hand up my back, tunneling it into my curls and just holds my head there. He kisses the top of my hair as I breathe in his scent.

“You. This,” he murmurs in a ragged exhale, “it scares the shit out of me.” And my heart stops and breath catches as he falls silent, his pounding heartbeat the soundtrack to my thoughts. “I don’t know how to…I don’t know what to do…”

And if I hadn’t already known, the raw emotion in his voice would have pushed me over the edge. My heart starts again, tumbles inside of me, and falls gloriously. I only hope he’ll catch it. I fist my hand into the back of his shirt, his confession rocking me with hope and possibility. Offering us a chance. I close my eyes, taking a minute to score my memory with this moment. “Me too, Colton,” I murmur into the skin of his neck. “I’m scared too.”

“You deserve so much more that I’m capable of giving you. I don’t know how or what to do to give you what you need. I just…”

I grip my fist tighter into his shirt, the fear so transparent in his tone it wrenches my heart and tugs at my soul. “That’s okay, baby,” I tell him, pressing another kiss against his neck. “We don’t have to know all the answers right now.”

“This is just…” He chokes on his words, his arms tightening around me as the sounds of Vegas swirl in the air around us. In this city of rampant sin and immorality, I have found such beauty and hope in the man holding me tight. “…so much…I don’t know how…”

“We don’t have to rush this. We can just take our time and see where this leads us.” Desperation laces through my words.

“I don’t want to give you false hope if I can’t…” He shakes his head softly with an exhale to finish his statement.

I lean back and look up at the face of the man that I know has captured my heart. The heart I thought would never heal or love again. “Just try, Colton,” I plead. “Please just tell me you’ll try…”

Emotions war over Colton’s features, his resistance to need. So much unspoken swims in his eyes. He leans down and brushes a soft, reverent sigh of a kiss on my lips before burying his face in the crook of my neck and just holds on.

I hold him there in the depths of a concrete garage. Giving as much as I am taking from the man consuming every part of me.

And it’s not lost on me that he never answered my question.


The horizon is just starting to lighten to the east as we drag ourselves off of the plane and climb into the awaiting limo in Santa Monica. We are all exhausted from the whirlwind night.