Page 79 of Came the Closest
“I’ll—”
“I’ll take him,” Indi interrupts Cheyenne. “You two go dance to this slow song.”
The look that passes between Cheyenne and Indi should set off warning bells, but I’m excellent at ignoring those. You don’t get to this level of my career without a healthy dose of ignorance.
My real career, that is. If it’s even still considered that.
Do I still want it to be my career?
I shake away the thought and hold a hand out to Cheyenne. “May I have this dance, m ’lady?”
Cheyenne presses a hand to her heart. “I thought you’d never ask!”
Tension unknots itself in my abdomen, and I wink as Cheyenne slips her palm into mine. Watching her interact with Milo throughout the ceremony and during dinner, I’d have never guessed she hadn’t even known him for only two months. But I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been waiting to get her alone. To let my hand find that curve in her waist, to inhale lavender and vanilla on her warm skin, to talk to her.
To tell her about last night.
“Milo mentioned something interesting earlier.” Cheyenne wraps her arms around my neck, fingers toying with my curls, hips aligned with mine. “Something you didn’t tell me. Any idea what I’m talking about?”
I have a very good idea, which is why I say, “He wasn’t supposed to tell you that I give all my broccoli to the dog.”
“We don’t have a dog.”
“Exactly, Cheyenne,” I say, but I didn’t miss the we in her statement. “Figure that one out.”
She missteps, the sole of her heel pressing into my dress shoe. “Colton.”
“Who gave out my name?” I make a show of looking around, and when I accidentally lock eyes with Jordan, he frowns at me. I cross my eyes dorkily, Jordan rolls his, and I shift my attention back to Cheyenne. “Can you point them out for me? It’s imperative that no one knows this high profile celeb is here tonight.”
This time, she very intentionally steps on my foot. I yelp in exaggerated pain. Cheyenne pinches my neck and hisses my name through clenched teeth. The couple next to us frowns and shuffles away. I bite back a smile and lower my mouth until it’s near Cheyenne’s ear.
“Relax your jaw, sweetheart,” I murmur, pressing my thumb to her jawline. “It’s unhealthy to clench your teeth so hard.”
It probably shouldn’t thrill me so much, the way her body shudders closer to mine from my touch, but I’m only a man. A very human, very red-blooded man who is very thrilled by it. In fact, if we weren’t surrounded by so many onlookers, I’d see how she reacts to other touches.
My mouth on hers, for one.
Cheyenne straightens when I resettle my hand on her waist, and I know the moment is broken. “Colton. Milo told me what he told you last night.”
I look away. Dad and Hazel dance on the other side of the floor, his hands secure at her lower back and her own arms wrapped around his neck, her head resting under his stubbled chin. The way they hold each other, the way they sway mindlessly, is so familiar. So comfortable, so compatible.
I want nothing more than to be that for Cheyenne.
She turns my face to hers. “Collie. You can talk to me, remember?” She taps my left chest. “Tell me how it made you feel.”
“When he said he wished I was his daddy?”
She nods patiently.
If we weren’t at my little brother’s wedding—the first wedding in my family—I’d take this conversation somewhere else. Where sweat wouldn’t gather between my shirt collar and neck, where we could be truly alone. But we are where we are. I blow out a breath and my hand unintentionally tightens on her hip.
“It made me feel inadequate,” I admit quietly. “I mean, I know that he loves Lucky Charms and sailboats. But what about when he actually misses our mother, and I have to tell him she’s gone? I’m old enough to be his father, but I’m actually his half-brother, Cheyenne. What about when his birthday rolls around, and I don’t know his favorite cake flavor without asking him? Even if I wanted to stay, even if I wanted to…” Make him permanently mine. I can’t say that, so I shake my head, frustrated. “But when he said that, my automatic first thought was me too. I could never treat him the way Vincent Pierre treated him. But that doesn’t make sense, because how do I know I wouldn’t?”
Cheyenne senses I have more to say, because she stays quiet. She absently brushes a fly from my shoulder and rubs a finger lightly up and down the side of my neck. Any other time, the gesture would derail my thoughts completely.
Right now, I focus on the groove between her eyebrows. It’s easier than looking directly in those sensitive blue irises of hers. This woman has seen me at my worst, repeatedly, and yet here she stands in my arms.
“I felt needed,” I say hoarsely. Uncomfortable as it was, Milo’s limbs pressed into mine in that too-small bed, it had been abundantly clear. “Not for my career, not for my money, not even for my family name—whether good or bad. I felt needed for the solitary purpose of being needed. Like… I don’t know.” I pause, wishing the twinkling bulbs overhead could give me the right words. “Like I really matter to him. That scares the crap out of me, Cheyenne, because I’d expect him to feel that way about Indi. She’s been there his whole life. But me?”