Page 54 of Phantom
Chapter Twenty
Tess
My fingers skated back and forth across Lockjaw’s fur in a rhythmic pattern. He was lying on the bathroom floor next to the bathroom, which was barely illuminated by the lights of the candles I’d lit and scattered around before running a piping-hot bubble bath and climbing in. My head was pounding, a feeling that was only paralleled by the continuous cracking in my heart. Every time it panged in my chest, I rubbed the spot as though it were merely an itch I could scratch away.
Colin had only been with me for about a month’s time, but my place already reminded me of him. I never wanted to be one of those people who had to replace everything they owned and move to an entirely different place after a breakup, but that might be in order. My bathroom smelled of the body wash that he’d purchased not long after he arrived, the body wash that he’s used every day, twice a day. A couple of men’s razors were balanced on the edge of the tub and sink, and there was a black towel hanging next to my purple one on the rack against the wall.
All of his clothes were still in the guest bedroom, and the spare pair of boots he’d worn was still askew by the front door. When he left, I tried sitting on the couch, but having sat there almost exclusively with Colin at my side for the past month sent a flurry of painful twists through my stomach.
Even my bed smelled like him, so when I face planted on it to cry my eyes out after I tried and failed to do so on the couch, the pain just got worse. Even Lockjaw seemed to have the wind knocked from his sails, and eventually, the only thing I could think to do was pour myself the largest glass of wine, climb into a bath so hot that it was all I could think about, and pet my poor dog until he went to sleep and could stop worrying about never seeing his first master again.
Again.
It turns out, Lockjaw and I had even more in common than I realized. We both had bad tempers, we were both meat-eaters, and we’d both had to say goodbye to Colin more times than we wanted to. Just like Colin’s mom had taken him from me when he was a kid, I took Lockjaw from Colin in the same way. At least we could bond over this heartache, or so I hoped, anyway.
With the bathwater getting tepid, there was no reason to stay in it, so I used my foot to kick out the stopper, and the hiss of the draining water stirred Lockjaw. I climbed out of the tub and reached out for my purple towel, and at the last second, I grabbed Colin’s. I wrapped it around myself and took a deep breath, letting his comforting smell wrap around me. Was it stupid? Yes, but I did it anyway.
Tucking the towel around me and putting my hair up in a bun on top of my head, I motioned Lockjaw out of the bathroom, and he padded out with me right behind him. Food was probably a good idea, though all I felt like doing in the wake of Colin’s revelation was to just go to bed and try to forget that any of it ever happened. My plan was to call it a summer fling and pretend that I didn’t let a huge blind spot land me madly, head over heels in love with a man whose real story I didn’t even know. I would probably never find someone who made me feel the way he did. I could only survive knowing that I had to go back to my fear-ridden life where Taylor controlled my every action if I lied to myself and said that Colin was nothing more than a way to pass the time.
A great way to pass the time.
I turned to the left out of the bathroom and made my way down the hall toward my bedroom. Lockjaw’s claws clacked against the wood floors as we moved, and I was just about to climb into bed when I heard a knock at the door.
“Well, now, who do we think that could be, boy?” I said aloud to Lockjaw.
My go-to gun was with the rest of my stuff on the kitchen counter, so I grabbed my back up from the top drawer of my nightstand and crept my way down the hallway toward the door. The second I lifted my gun to hold it out as I reached for the door handle, Lockjaw started letting out a low, warning growl for whatever poor soul was on the other side.
“Who is it?” I called out.
“Tess.”
My heart dropped into my stomach as Colin’s voice broke across the threshold. Lockjaw stopped growling in an instant and started to whine as he scratched against the frame of the door. With my gun still pointed, I grabbed the door handle and twisted it, slowly pulling it aside and filling my vision with Colin once again.
His eyes immediately danced down and up again, and I tried to ignore the way my body immediately ran hot. “You’re wearing my towel,” he said.
“What do you want?” I growled.
“You deserve the truth. All of it,” Colin responded. “Caid told me to just come here and lay out all my feelings and let you decide. So that’s what I’m doing.”
I scoffed. “Oh, you spoke with Caid? So, he was also part of the lie?”
“No,” Colin responded. “Caid called. I just got off the phone with him. It was the first time I’ve talked to him in two months. I can show you the Munich phone number.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Show me.”
Colin dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. With a few quick clicks, he was to his phone log, and he turned the phone to face me so I could see it properly. The last number was in a format that was a little bizarre and had an international calling code in front of it.
I stood to the side so he could come in. “I’m keeping my gun pulled.”
“I understand.” Colin passed me as he entered the house, and Lockjaw bounded happily next to him. Colin walked over and sat on his spot on the couch and motioned to mine. He still had a pull on me that was hard to deny, and I found myself drifting over to sit, even if it was ill-advised. “Thanks for hearing me out.”
“You’ve got about ten minutes,” I spat back.
“Understood. I swear, after this, you’ll never see me again.”
Even with my gun outstretched in Colin’s direction, hearing those words broke my heart all over again. I was so angry with him, but still, so much of me couldn’t make peace with never seeing him again. “Fine.”
“First of all, and I swear this is not meant to be an excuse, not everything I told you was a lie,” Colin began.
