“My past is always there, just on the edge of my memory. Always threatening to overwhelm me. To drag me back and pull me under.” I can hear the emotion thickening in his voice, and on impulse, reach out and grab his hand again. I squeeze it—a silent sign of support for the hell inside of his head. “Living inside of that blur is like living in a bubble. It allows me to control the speed I’m going…to slow down if I need a breather, but to never really stop. I’ve always been in the driver’s seat…always in control. Always able to speed up, push the limits, when things get too close…

“And then I met you…” The astonishment in his voice is raw and honest and tugs so deep within me that it causes me to sit up, so I’m now cross-legged with my knees pressing against his. His hands find mine again and squeeze them tightly. “The night I met you it was like a firecracker shot out of that blur of color and exploded above me. So bright and so beautiful…and so hostile...” he chuckles “...that I couldn’t look away even if I tried. It was like life slammed the brakes on me and I’d never touched the pedal. I was immediately drawn to you, to your attitude, to your refusal of me, to your wit…to your incredible body.” I can feel him shrug unapologetically at the last comment, and I can’t help the smile that curls up my lips or the hope that begins to bloom in my soul. “…to everything about you. That first night you were a spark of solid color to me in a world that’s always been one big mixed blur of it.”

Words escape me as I try and process what he’s telling me. Just when I’ve made up my mind one way, he says something so poignant and achingly beautiful that I can’t help but feel my heart swell with love for him. Colton accepts my silence and reaches out to cradle my head in his hands before he continues. The tenderness in his touch brings tears to my eyes. “That first night you created a spark, Rylee, and every day since then, you’ve allowed me the strength to slow down long enough to see into the blur I’ve always feared. Even when I don’t want to do it, your quiet strength—knowing that you are there—pushes me to be a better person. A better man. Since you’ve come into my life, things finally have definition, specific colors assigned to them…I don’t know…” I can hear his struggle, and I turn my face into the palm of his hand and kiss it there softly as he sighs. “I don’t know how else to explain it, but I know that I can’t go back to how I existed before. I need you in my life, Rylee. I need you to help me continue to see the color. To slow things down. To allow me to feel. I need you to be my spark …”

He leans in and brushes his lips so softly, so tenderly against mine. “Please be my spark, Ry…” he pleads as the words cause his lips to brush against mine.

I lean in and press my lips against his, instigating the kiss to go deeper by slipping my tongue into his mouth because the words and thoughts in my head and heart are so jumbled that I’m afraid to speak. Afraid that in this moment of his revelation—that if I pour out what’s spilling over in my heart—I will overwhelm him. So instead, I pour it all into my kiss. He gathers me to him, cradling me in his lap while he worships my mouth in the way that only he knows how. The reverence in which he breathes my name between kisses causes a tear to slide down my cheek.

“I might not be able to tell you the things you need to hear with the traditional words you need to hear them in, but I swear to God, Rylee, I will try. And if I can’t, then I’ll show you. I’ll show you with everything I have—anything it takes—where your place is in my life,” he murmurs to me, shattering every last form of protection I have guarding my heart.

He just stole it completely.

And I just more than willingly handed it over.

He wraps his arms around me and buries his face in my neck, holding me tightly for a long while, his vulnerability palpable. My mind thinks in sensations and emotions and shuts all sensibility out so that I can just enjoy this unguarded side of Colton that is such a rarity. I breathe in the scent of us mixed together. I feel the beat of his heart against my chest. The warmth of his breath against my neck. The strength of his arms as they hold me tight. The scrape of his scruff against my bare skin. The comfort his presence brings to me by just being near. So many things to absorb—to pack away for another day—so I can remember them when I need them the most.

Because I know that being with Colton—staying with Colton—loving Colton—guarantees that I will need these memories at the most random of times to help me get by in the trying ones I know will inevitably come.

“I’m drowning here. Your silence is killing me. Can you say something? Throw me a lifeline please?” he says and the comment has me immediately thinking of Beckett’s words on the way to Vegas and earlier to me.

“C’mon,” I whisper to him as I run my hands up and down his back. He pulls me tighter and nuzzles deeper into the underside of my neck. “You have a long day tomorrow. It’s late. You need to get some sleep.”

His head startles back and in our close proximity I can see the crystalline green of his eyes—their clarity, their utter shock, their acceptance—of my unspoken words. “You’re not leaving?” he asks so brokenly. “You’re staying?”

I catch the sob that almost escapes my throat with his words. That I think he’s worth it. His hands run over my face and down the curve of my shoulder and back up. Touching to make sure that I really am before him—flesh and blood and accepting of him. Accepting the journey that he wants to try and take with me.

“Yes, Colton. I’m not going anywhere,” I’m finally able to say once the burn in my throat dissipates.

He holds my head with both hands and leans in to press a sigh of a kiss against my lips before wrapping his arms around me and pulling me tightly into him. “I don’t want to let you go just yet,” he murmurs against my temple. “I don’t think I ever will.”

“You don’t have to,” I tell him softly as I lay down on the bed and pull him down with me. He shifts so that we are both on our sides, bodies pressed together, arms wrapped around each other, and my face nuzzled in his neck now.

We’ve been quiet for some time, the silence around us not so lonely anymore, when Colton sighs out a soft sound of contentment and then murmurs, “A chance encounter.” He plants a kiss on the top of my head and clears his throat. “I don’t know what it meant before me, but to me, now, it means a chance encounter. One that’s changed my life.”

I snuggle in closer to him, planting a soft kiss at my favorite spot beneath his jaw, my heart overflowing with love and my soul brimming with happiness.

After some time of just absorbing each other and our new found balance, his breathing slows and evens out. I sit there for some time, just breathing him in, feeling his warmth, and my heart lodges in my throat when I realize that my decision was never really mine to make. It was made the minute I fell out of that damn storage closet and into his life.

I turn onto my side so I can watch him. My chest physically hurts as I stare at the beautiful man he is inside and out. He looks so peaceful in sleep. Like he can finally rest from the demons that chase him so frequently while he’s awake. So much like the dark angel I think of him as that’s breaking through the inescapable darkness to grasp and hold on to the light. His spark of light.



For the first time in a month, the riot in my head is quiet as I sleep. Nightmares are non-existent. The events of last night flicker through my head as the morning hour pulls me from slumber.