At Whit's End (Wells Ranch, #4)(107)
“Ah, yes. I understand.” I twist my purse to show him the raccoon pin, my free hand reaching to rub the back of my neck. It feels like I’ve just exposed myself to him, proving he was right; there was—maybe still is—a connection between us that extends beyond the chemistry in the bedroom and him knowing how I take my coffee.
His eyes ignite. “You got the pin.”
“I did.” The pad of my index finger traces the raised edges. “Thank you.”
“We’re like superheroes with these fun secret identities.”
“Or members of a weird underground raccoon gang,” I say, walking alongside him across the gym, reveling in the way a simple graze of his arm against mine makes my entire body tingle.
“That gang would have so many snacks. Sign me the hell up.”
Reaching the auction table, Colt writes a number down below Sarah’s name. And I quickly scan the table in search of Theo, reaching blindly for a pen. When my fingers tap against Colt’s rough hand, we both freeze in place. Caught up in the moment, I let my pinky ghost over the back of his hand once, then twice, before arduously pulling away.
I clutch the pen so tight my thumb cramps as I delicately draw the number twenty next to my name on an otherwise empty bidding sheet. “So…um—”
At the same time my mouth begins to form something resembling a sentence, Colt blurts out, “You look beautiful tonight.”
My cheeks heat, and I give a half-shrug of modesty. “Oh, thanks.”
“You complimented me earlier and then I got talking about raccoons like a total dipshit, and I meant to compliment you first but I don’t have the vocabulary to tell you…The way you look right now…” His husky voice goes quiet, sharing a secret in a room too loud and crowded to mind what we’re saying anyway. “You’re all the colors and sounds and light, and before I saw you tonight—whenever you’re gone, really—everything was cold and dull and dark. Anyway, that sounds stupid…so let me just say, you’re so fucking pretty, Whit.”
Colt’s words stoke the eternal fire in my core, send flames of lust licking up my spine. I lick my lips, admiring the way his eyes drift over my body.
Jonas and Theo bound toward us, sneakers squealing across the gym floor as they skid to a stop. They’re out of breath, with rosy cheeks, as if they’ve been working out.
My nose scrunches. “Why are you guys so sweaty?”
“No reason,” Jonas clips.
Bullshit.
I lower my tone. “Jonas.”
“We didn’t do anything. We were…well, we were gonna do something, but…”
“Seriously? You’ve been doing so good lately, and now…”
Theo coughs into his sleeve and gives Colt a pointed look. “It’s Logan.”
I turn to Colt. “Wait, you know about this?”
“Well, I don’t know about this. But I know about the kid who’s been bullying Jonas, yeah.”
Bullying Jonas?
With my index finger dug into my temple, I exhale loudly. This isn’t a conversation that can wait until we get home tonight. Looking around at the sheer number of people in this room, it’s also not a conversation that’s happening here.
I press my fingertips to the space between Jonas’s shoulder blades, gently encouraging him to start moving toward the exit. “Let’s go talk about this somewhere else.”
Theo takes that as his cue to leave, scurrying away while the three of us head out of the gym and into a quiet hallway. We walk down the dimly lit, narrow corridor. It’s lined with lockers and posters promoting school functions, the entire place has a faint odor of sweaty socks, and it feels like forever before we come across somewhere to sit. A bench that’s fittingly outside the principal’s office. A bench Jonas has spent a lot of time sitting on.
He and I plop down onto the slatted wood, and Colt sinks to the floor, stretching his feet out in front of him. If he lay down on his back, he’d probably reach clear across the small hallway.
“Okay, what’s going on? I feel really out of the loop. I’m your mom, and I should know when someone has been bullying you.”
Jonas shrugs.
“Please don’t shut down on me. Maybe I can help, if you tell me what’s going on.”
“You always believe the other kids, so why do you care now?”
“What do…Oh…Logan’s the kid from the park, right?”
The weight of my head rests in my hand, but it’s the heaviness in my heart that’s unbearable. It’s harrowing to know I’ve been right about something I knew in my heart to be true, though I hoped endlessly that it wasn’t—I failed at the only job I’ve ever wanted to be good at.
I sniffle at the sting in my nostrils. “Jonas, I’m so sorry I assumed. I’m…I should’ve heard you out. I always wanted you to talk, but you’re right…I wasn’t listening.”
With a wary glance in my direction, Jonas scratches his head, mussing up his blond locks. “Logan wrote something on Theo’s desk today. He, uh, stopped picking on me after what Colt told me to say to him at the fair.”
I look over at Colt, who’s now leaning back on his elbows, listening intently to my son. Nodding along as Jonas gives me a synopsis of Logan’s bullying the night of the fall fair. He already knows all of this, because he’s gotten to know Jonas better over the past few months than his own dad does. Better than I know him.