Page 17 of No Apologies
“Uh huh.”
“That’s what all the cold shoulder stuff has been about? You’re making a point. You want me to apologize for being an asshole?”
“Yeah.”
“Sky, you know that’s just who I am.”
“No, it’s not, it’s just who you want me to think you are.”
He snorted to cover his wince because she had hit the mark with that comment, “You know me better than that.”
“Yeah, I do.” She tilted her chin up and he could feel her watching him but didn’t dare look down to meet her gaze.
If he did, he might be tempted to say the words she wanted to hear and he couldn’t do that. Calling her angel out loud. Admitting that he would always be there for her. Crawling into this bed and holding her. He was already treading far too close to the line and if he looked down and saw anything in her big blue eyes that suggested she wanted more from him than just an apology, he’d probably give that to her too.
They fell silent and he began to breathe a little easier when he realized she was going to let it go, at least for the time being. She had to know she wasn’t going to get an apology. Did that make him an asshole? Yes, undoubtedly, but he wasn’t going to say the words and take that barrier between them down.
He thought back to that night and felt his muscles tense with the memories. It had been a shitty day. Dealing with Decker always turned a good day bad but it had only gotten worse when he returned home and faced off with Skylar.
His father liked to get drunk and then start fights. It was so common that Sherriff Trebly had come up with a system to deal with him. He tossed Decker in the drunk tank, called the twins, and they came and hauled him out to the little shack in the middle of nowhere he still called home so that he couldn’t hurt anyone else. Colt had hated doing it but Cash had insisted and so he’d gone along with it, for years, instead of leaving Decker in jail to sober up. That night had been particularly bad because drunk Decker loved nothing more than attacking his sons.
Cash had learned to deal with their father’s abuse over the years. Maybe deal wasn’t the right word because he didn’t deal with it but he did separate himself from him. Cash had built a wall inside of himself and he stacked all of that hurt on one side of it and didn’t let it destroy the better parts of him.
It was a skill that Colt had never developed. The only way he had been able to survive his father was to put distance between them. When he was forced to face him, face his hate and his threats, he broke every time. All of his own pain and anger boiled over and he lashed out, at his father, at Cash, and unfortunately, that night, Skylar had gotten in his way too.
She’d come over with Jemma to check on them that night. It had been a sweet gesture. He could see that now. She’d been worried about them. About him. But that night he’d been hurting and on edge, far too close to letting his darkness swallow him whole, and he hadn’t trusted himself to be anywhere near her.
With Skylar, he had to be in control. Always. He cared about her too much to risk her safety and nothing about him was safe. He’d yelled at her that night, told her he didn’t want to see her, didn’t want her around. He’d pushed her away physically and emotionally and he didn’t think that deserved an apology.
He’d done it for her own good. He wasn’t sorry for that. The only part he was sorry about was that he’d hurt her feelings, that he couldn’t tell her why it was he’d done it in the first place. So no, he couldn’t apologize and he wouldn’t.
All he could hope was that she would get over her need to hear the words. Accept him for who he was and let it go. Because when he thought of the last few weeks, of that strange, aching emptiness that had taken up residence in his chest when he realized she was avoiding him, he didn’t like to think about that lasting forever. She would forgive him and they would go back to their improbable and complicated friendship.
If that was all he could have of her, he wanted it back.
Colt held her for a long time in the dark even after he felt her breathing go even and knew she’d fallen asleep. He knew he needed to get up. He had things to do. But still he stayed.
Usually, before a fight he liked to work himself up. He would work out if he could, get his muscles revved for the occasion. It also helped to spend some time alone with his thoughts. It was the only time he let the memories come, the darkness that he tried so hard to ignore and pretend didn’t exist. He let it come before a fight, knowing he needed the anger and the unrestrained violence to win with his fists.
He’d never lost a fight in the cage. Hell, he’d never lost a fight in his life if he didn’t count the blows Decker had leveled on him when he was too small to defend himself. He didn’t count those. They weren’t fights. They were beatings.
What he did in the cage wasn’t the same as that, it was two men, similar in size and strength that chose to use their fists. He did it for Lincoln, for the debt he owed. The other guys he’d met there did it for the money, or the pain or the simple fun of getting back to their base instincts. But the point was they all chose it and despite his own misgivings about it, he knew it was something he was good at.
He supposed he had Decker to thank for that. Chrissy. Remy. All of the Bomars really. They’d made him violent and then they took advantage of it for their own purposes.
But he wasn’t feeling violent right now. He wasn’t feeling angry. He was edgy but not in the way he needed to be. He was edgy because tonight he didn’t want to be the guy that used his fists to fix his problems. Not when he could stay here, with Skylar, and simply hold her. Even though he knew he had no right to the feeling of peace she gave him.
As if his real world knew he was getting too comfortable in this dream, his phone buzzed in his pocket. Skylar moaned and mumbled something in her sleep. He thought she said something about heating blankets but he couldn’t be sure. She cuddled closer into him, burying her face in his shoulder and all but crawling on top of him. He groaned but otherwise held himself completely still until she had resettled.
He had to get up. Had to check his phone. He had no doubt it was Cash, again, checking on him. Checking on Skylar by extension. Jemma would be worried because she hadn’t heard back from him and his brother would be pissed that he hadn’t thought to call and put her worries at ease. He had to deal with them and the reality check was what he needed.
Slowly and carefully, he rolled Skylar to her back and slipped out of the bed. He pulled the blankets up all around her and tried not to grin when she pouted in her sleep. She reached out as if she was trying to keep him there but ultimately she collapsed back into unconsciousness without ever waking up.
Lord, he wanted to crawl back into that bed with her. He felt cold without her heat. He felt lonely too, which made him edgier than he’d ever been because he didn’t know what to do with feelings like that. She made him feel things he’d sworn he would never feel, didn’t even believe in, and that was why he had to get away from her.
He was dangerous to her. He knew that. He thought she knew that. What he’d always known, what nobody else seemed to understand, was how dangerous she was to him.
If she could make him feel like this, she could hurt him. She had the power to destroy him and she wasn’t even his. How much worse would it be if he let himself have her and lost her? If he hurt her, it would destroy him. It was better for both of them if he stuck to the rules.
Close but not too close.
His phone buzzed again and he swallowed a growl. Damn it, now wasn’t the time to get distracted. He had shit to do. Dark, dangerous shit that he couldn’t have touching the beautiful girl lying so peaceful and trusting in her bed. He wasn’t good enough for her and what he was leaving her to go do was all the reminder he needed of why he couldn’t let her any closer.
He bent over and brushed her hair back before planting a light kiss against her forehead, “Goodnight angel.”
After one last look at her, memorizing every detail of her, he turned and walked away. Back to his real life. Back to the darkness that he was accustomed to. He’d survived without a light in the darkness for a long time but the past three weeks without her had been almost unbearable.
He didn’t know how she’d become so important to him. He just knew that she was. And that meant he had to protect her from his darkness, even if that meant staying away.
