Page 45 of Crazy for You
Stella slinked over and rubbed against my bare leg.
“I know, girl. Crazy night.”
After ten quiet minutes, the cops got back into the cruiser sans Mr. Caldwell or Colton.
I tiptoed over to the other window facing Colton’s room, my nerves on edge, hoping and praying that he was all right. As if he knew I was watching, his head swiveled in my direction.
I waved like an idiot, not sure if he could see me.
For the longest beat, he just stood there, blood under his nose, hair disheveled, jaw hard, and his eyes were riveted to me until something made him flinch. Then he started piling clothes into a bag. His movements were violent, rushed, and frantic.
He’d said he wasn’t a good person, but I didn’t believe that. He could’ve hit his father, but he didn’t. Instead, he took each blow stoically and without flinching. I wasn’t saying that made him a good person, but in my mind, he had a heart.
He gave his room a once-over before hiking his bag over his shoulder.Oh my God.He was leaving. Surely, his parents wouldn’t throw him out in the middle of the night.
For whatever reason, my birth mother popped into my brain. I knew giving me up for adoption wasn’t the same as Colton’s predicament. Yet I was beginning to understand the feeling of not being wanted.
I watched the guy who had wriggled his way into my heart and psyche walk out his door.
I sprinted down the stairs as if on a mission to stop a bomb from detonating. A door slammed, shaking the walls of our house. I raced out my front door and onto the porch just as Colton stalked toward his truck.
His mom chased him. “Son, please don’t go. Let’s talk,” she cried.
“Mom.” Colton’s tone was caustic. “I need some space, and so does he.” He stuck a finger at his house. “The cops should’ve taken his drunk ass to jail.”
I wondered for a second why they hadn’t. Colton was a minor as far as I knew, or maybe he was eighteen. I honestly didn’t know, and it didn’t matter.
“Where will you go?” She hugged her herself as she wavered on the top step of her porch.
I slinked into the shadows and out of the rays of the porch light.
“Grady’s,” he said as thebeep, beep, beepof his truck unlocking blared in the quietness of the humid night air.
Bonnie wiped her face with a tissue as she returned inside, seemingly giving up on her son.
I knew I shouldn’t be sticking my nose where it didn’t belong, but he didn’t need to go to Grady’s.
I was walking down the steps before I could think. “Colton.” My voice was barely audible.
He whirled my way.
I waved as I stood rooted to the bottom step, afraid that if I moved, he might blow me over with one stern look or that annoying blank expression.
He threw his bag inside his truck, and for a mere second, I thought he was about to get in until he came toward me with his fists at his sides, hair wild around his face, bloody nose, and probably a bruised jaw.
His sense of purpose was both unnerving and exciting, and his body language was screaming that he could kill or devour all that pent-up rage he’d bottled up.
I held my breath, searching for words that I was sure wouldn’t come, and if they did, they wouldn’t make sense.
He towered over me like an ethereal gorgeous creature, andpoof, I forgot the reason I was even outside in the dead of night.
My witless brain decided to take a nap. My body, though, was a completely different story. Every vein in me was burning with a pulsing need for him to do things I had yet to do in my teenage years. My fingers twitched to run through his hair or feel how soft his lips might be.
His gaze took a long, slow, and sensual hike up and down my body.
My nipples hardened instantly, poking against the thin fabric of my tank top. Suddenly, my heart kicked into an all-out sprint. I wasn’t wearing a bra, and I was standing outside in only a pair of short shorts beneath my top.
I should have covered myself, but when his eyes landed on my chest, I became an ice sculpture. My breathing increased. My lower region ached, and out of nowhere, a dose of bravery hit me, and my hands were on his chest, sliding up, up, and up.
