“She won’t answer my texts. Won’t answer my calls. She didn’t even so much as say hello to me at the show tonight. She hasn’t spent one f**king second with me since that…that cocksucker showed up.” He’s raging. “Eighteen years we’ve been best friends. Then just like that, poof, I’m f**king chopped liver—”
“Ben, listen—” I start, but he’s not paying attention, he’s venting, pacing and nearly shouting.
“She should be mine. I’ve been…waiting until she graduated. I’ve been saving and planning. It was always supposed to be me and her. She was never interested in anyone else, because she’s mine. My best friend. My girl. Not his. And now…now she’s as good as gone. She’s with him. She’s probably f**king him right now—”
“BEN!” I shout, shaking his shoulder. He finally seems to realize who he’s talking to. “That’s my daughter, kid.”
“Shit…” His eyes widen, and he backs away. “Sorry, sir. I just—shit.” He turns away, fists clenched behind his head.
“Ben.” I bark his name, a little harsher than I intended to.
He halts in place and turns around. “Colt, Mr. Calloway, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“Have you told her any of this?” I really like this kid. He has all the best qualities of both Jason and Becca. He’s athletic, smart, caring, and—usually—fairly even-keeled. I’ve never, ever seen him this agitated about anything. I feel like I have to help him somehow. “If she doesn’t know what you’re thinking, what you’ve—how you feel—how is she supposed to do anything about it? I’m not saying it’d change anything, ’cause it might not. But it can’t hurt to at least talk to her.”
“You’re right. God…dammit, you’re right.” He scrubs his hand through his hair again, his posture and mannerisms so much like Jason’s it’s scary. “Look, Colt, I’m sorry I blew up like that. I had no right to say any of that, especially to you, sir. So—I’m—I’m sorry.”
I slap him on the back. “It’s all right, kid. Women can f**k with our heads, man. I get it.” I squeeze the back of his neck, a little harder than strictly necessary. “Just—don’t talk about my daughter like that ever again, huh?”
He winces, ducks away from me. “Yes, sir. I won’t. I swear.”
I let him go, and I watch him go inside. This is shaping up to get messy, and I don’t envy Ben his position. I’ve seen the way Kylie looks at Oz, and I don’t think any amount of talking is going to change her mind. Unless, of course, Oz does something stupid. I honestly don’t know what to think.
It’s not until Ben’s in his house and I’m trudging up the stairs to my room that the realization hits me like a sledgehammer. I’ve only seen the two boys in the same place once, but now that my brain’s going, I’m realizing that there’s something similar about them. Not their personalities, but physically. Something…something I can’t put my finger on, but there’s a nagging sense of the familiar about Oz, and somehow that includes Ben. The thought doesn’t make any sense, but it strikes me as true nonetheless.
Nell is sitting up in bed, the blankets pulled up around her chest, reading an old paperback novel, a well-worn book she’s read at least a dozen times. “I heard shouting. Was that Ben?” She glances at me, setting the book face down on her lap, then looks at the clock on her bedside table. “And it’s past midnight. Where’s our daughter?”
“I’m not sure where she is. With Oz, I’m guessing.” I shed all my clothes except my boxers and climb onto the bed beside her. “And yeah, that was Ben. He’s all sorts of worked up.”
“About what?”
“Kylie. And Oz. Or, more specifically, the two of them being together.”
“He feels left out?” Nell slips a bookmark into her page and sets the book on the nightstand, turning toward me.
I shake my head. “No, more that he feels like Oz stole her from him. He just put it…more colorfully.”
“Oh.” Nell’s eyes widen. “Oh, boy. He likes her?”
“I think it’s more than that. It sounded to me like he’s had feelings for her for a long time, he just never told her. And now it’s looking like she’s with Oz, for all intents and purposes, and he feels like he’s lost out.” I grimace. “God, Nelly. What’s our girl gonna do? I told him to talk to her, and I’m not sure I should’ve.”
Nell nods. “Yeah. She’s goo-goo eyes for Oz.” She sighs. “This isn’t going to go well for anyone.”
“No. That’s my thinking.” I reach for her, and she shifts toward me. “What do we do?”
She shrugs the blanket away, and I realize she’s been waiting for me, naked beneath the sheets. “What can we do? She’s not a little girl anymore. She’s graduating in a couple of months, Colt. Going to college. I think we have to let her deal with this on her own.”
“Someone’s gonna get hurt.”
“Yeah. We can’t protect her from everything.”
“I know.”
“It sucks, though.” I roll to my back, and Nell moves above me, reaches between us, guides me to her entrance. I hiss through my teeth as she impales herself on me. “God, Nell.” I caress her ribs, her br**sts, her hips, her thighs, kiss every inch of skin I can reach.
She plants her palms on my chest and kisses me, moving slowly. The kiss ends, but our lips only barely part, and we exchange breath and whispers and sighs as we move together, and then she’s groaning, moaning, our foreheads touching.
“Colt…” She starts to lose her rhythm and moves with increasing desperation. “Oh, god…oh, god…oh, my god, Colt…”
“Fuck…Nell…”
We come apart at the same moment, collapse together. Nearly twenty years, and she makes me come as hard as the first time we slept together in that New York City apartment. Harder, if anything. I’ve learned every nuance of her body, learned every one of her secret desires, learned how to bring her to the cusp within moments, learned every curve and how to elicit every sigh and grunt and curse, and it never gets any less intense. The longer we’re together, the better it gets. I think it can’t get any better and then, every single time, it does.