Page 81 of Finding Denver

“She had Amy—” He stops speaking and I look up at him, waiting for him to continue, but he isn’t even looking at me.

“Who—”

“Colt,” one of Colt’s men, I think he’s called Keto, calls out from the sidelines. We skate over, my questions lost when I see Keto’s expression. “It’s a little crowded.”

That isn’t what he wants to say. It’s a sign of danger, that someone is here that would ruin our night, or worse. Colt gives Keto a curt nod and leads me back to the gate.

“Who?” I ask as we sit.

“The usual suspects, no doubt,” he says, his voice low. “Low-level guys spot someone like me out in public and assume I’m alone. They see it as their one shot to take me down, especially now they know my face.”

This is one of the reasons my social life deteriorated back home. My dad always kept my profile low, but Ranger shoved me into the limelight, and the moment I became Mrs. Ranger Luxe, outings like this were forbidden or always cut short.

Colt has unlaced his skates before I’m even half done with one of mine.

I’ve never seen him this way—impatient and dark—and I wonder if it’s about the threat or whoever Amy is. Heaviness settles over us as he puts his shoes back on and then kneels before me to help me finish unlacing my skates. He works quickly, fingers snatching the string, until I catch his hand.

It’s warm and strong, veins pushing against his skin and running up his cuff. I close my fingers around his, the contact strange, but it shouldn’t be. We’ve been holding hands all night. He held me the first night we really met. But heat tangles between us, created by both our bodies, and I should let go. I shouldn’t touch him, no matter how innocent I convince myself it is.

If there wasn’t such hurt in his eyes, I would. Somethingis broken in him, snapped in two, and I’m scared if I let him go, he’ll shatter in front of me.

“Colt,” I say softly. He meets my eyes. “It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it.”

He drops his gaze to our joined hands, or maybe he looks past them. He doesn’t even look like he’s here anymore.

Then he lifts my hand to his lips, kissing my knuckles briefly. “Let’s go.”

It shouldn’t affect me like it does. My heart shouldn’t race, and I shouldn’t keep hold of his hand as we leave. It feels safe—to pretend it’s just for comfort, when really, I like being this way with him. I like that the barriers between us are fading, even if I don’t know what it means.

When we’re out on the street, I reluctantly release his hand but lace my arm through his.

“Hungry?” he finally asks, and I nod enthusiastically.

Ten minutes later, we’re sitting on a bench eating banana pudding in silence. It’s still freezing, but I’m warmer than before, and I’m happy to sit quietly while Colt processes whatever he has to. I’ve almost finished my dessert when he finally speaks.

“Amy was my daughter,” he says, and he looks into the distance or at the dessert, but never at me. “She died. I don’t bring her up to anyone. That was just …” He pauses, as if gathering strength. “I didn’t mean to bring her up.”

I understand this pain. Of never knowing if talking about your grief is too much or not enough. Of people looking at you like your loss could be contagious or too much of a brutal reminder of the fragility of life. It’s not just losing your child; it’s losing anyone who can’t handle your pain, and that can be more people than you realize.

“You can talk about her whenever you like,” I say. “There’s no cap on that. If she were here, you’d have told me a hundred stories about her day, wouldn’t you?” He finally looks at me. “Just because she’s gone, doesn’t mean you don’t have stories to tell.”

It’s what I read online. Advice I tried to take when I felt like I wasn’t allowed to talk about Theo, when I had very little to say about him other than the few hours I held him, and the small noises he made, and how beautiful he was. But even after trying to take that advice, I still felt like every time his name left my lips, people would recoil, or avoid me, or change the subject. Especially when I tried to talk to Wyatt. My grief felt like a burden, so I locked it away.

“There’s no pressure either way.” I scoop some more dessert into my mouth, and Colt doesn’t say anything. We finish our pudding, and we walk.

As always, it’s an easy kind of silence, one I only know how to navigate with a few people. It isn’t a void, or a pain, or a darkness threatening to suck me in. It’s just there, and it’s okay.

We’re nearly back at the hotel when he says, “She liked koalas.”

I smile. “Koalas are a solid animal to love.”

“She called them Kool-Aid bears for a while. It’s quite scary when you think about a giant koala breaking down walls.”

“Oh God, it is,” I say, wincing.

He smiles but doesn’t say anything else about Amy. Maybe that was enough for him.

“I like New York,” I say. “But I am fucking freezing.”