Page 41 of The Break Out (Denver Dragons #3)

41

B efore I even open my eyes, I feel how sore my body is. A delicious, perfect soreness that brings back the memories from last night that play like a movie across my eyelids. Safe to say this new year is off to a pretty amazing start.

I turn over and frown when I’m met with an empty bed. My guard goes up instantly. I should’ve known better that all that “mine” talk was just in the moment. I don’t know why I thought he may have meant it at all.

Getting out of bed, I slip on one of his t-shirts because it’s right there and I’m in desperate need of some water. Then, I’ll go home and pretend like last night was the same as every other time with him.

As I walk toward the kitchen my eyes catch on the weird painting again and I remember how he mentioned it last night. My eyes catch on the pink splotches and my face flushes. He compared me to that.

Suddenly, I feel his warmth behind me and have to stop myself from melting against him.

“What are you doing, Princess? You were supposed to stay in bed while I brought you breakfast,” he says.

I can’t help myself; I turn around and joke, “You don’t have to try so hard.”

He chuckles. “Don’t care, I want to.” He nods his head at the painting. “Do you get it yet?”

I turn back toward it, and he wraps his arms around my middle as I shake my head. “No, I think you just like pink.”

Colton nips the place where my neck meets my shoulder.

“See how the pink color looks like it’s taking over the white and black?” He points out.

I guess I kind of see that, so I nod.

“Remember, how I told you I thought the pink was healing?” he asks.

I remember what he said about what the painting represented. At the time I thought he was just talking out of his ass, but the longer I look at it I can see what he was trying to say.

“You’re the pink for me, Brynn,” he says softly.

I turn around toward him again, my eyes wide. “What?”

He cups my face with both hands. “I’ve never felt like this with anyone. You make me happy and that’s not something I’ve felt in a long fucking time. You get me in ways no one else gets me. You bite back when I deserve it, you surrender to me when we both need it. I’ve been a shit for a long time, I know it, but you make me want to be better. You’ve healed the broken parts inside of me.”

My jaw is dropped because I can’t believe Colton fucking Wheeler is saying these things to me. I have no idea what to say. I can’t admit that he’s also healed something inside of me that’s been broken for as long as I can remember. That he gives me exactly what I need, even when he’s pissing me off, I need that push. But I can’t make the words come out, so I just stare at him with my mouth gaping in shock.

“Come on, I have breakfast, but you’re eating it in my bed,” he says, breaking me out of my trance. Turning me back toward his bedroom with a grip on my waist, he leans down to my ear and whispers, “Then I’m going to eat my breakfast.”

He swats my ass with a light smack that has me lurching forward to take the first step back to the bedroom.

Despite him saying I’m the one who healed him, I think I broke him. In the best way, but I don’t know why my mind won’t let me just accept this. It’s like there’s a roadblock in the way warning that it’s too good to be true. I may have given him every piece of myself physically, but there’s a tiny shred of my heart I’m not able to part with because I know once he has it, I’ll never recover.

But when he comes into his room, joining me on the bed with a tray full of eggs, bacon, toast, and fruit I push the worry away for now .

When he pushes our empty dishes away and drops his face between my legs I forget everything else completely.

The only reason I was able to leave Colton’s bed the day after New Year’s is because he had practice in the morning and a game that night. A game I had to promise to be at or he threatened to not go to practice to make sure I stay in his bed.

“That is stupid, you’ll get in trouble and I’m not worth that,” I told him with a giggle.

“You’re worth everything, Princess,” he replied before kissing me senseless.

Now I’m home, and Ellie shoots me a look that says she’s not happy.

“I’m sorry, but you have an automatic feeder and water fountain,” I tell her.

She meows, hopping down from her cat tree and walking away. I sigh because I’m getting the silent treatment from my cat, after spending way too much time getting railed by a man I thought I hated. What a turn of events.

After a long hot shower, I settle into checking on work. Now that the holidays are over it’s back to being serious and I need to check anything I may have missed. I also know I’m about to be met with an overload of requests on Spencer’s status since we told the label to check in next year and they take that a bit too seriously sometimes .

Like, hello, it’s two days into the new year, do you have an album for us yet?

No, no she doesn’t, and no one is going to rush her.

When I log onto my email, a subject line in all capitals catches my eye and it’s not just from the label. My stomach drops as I read what it says.

STATEMENT REQUESTED AFTER KENNETH RICHARDSON ABUSE SCANDAL.

Abuse scandal? This is going to be bad.

I click on the email, quickly skimming it to make sure no one is saying he abused Spencer. If that fucker ever put hands on her, I would be at his door with several large pissed off men as my backup to kill him.

What I gather is that several women have spoken out about Kenneth’s treatment toward them. Forcing himself on them, fear for their life when they tried to leave, and he hurt them for it.

This is bad. Bad bad.

My eyes catch on the last part that has my heart bottoming out. “Sources have also said Kenneth is not the only player on the Spartans that has treated them this way. There are reports that him and another teammate were involved. The sources would not name the other teammate at this time.”

My mind immediately goes to Colton. Sure, he hasn’t been on that team in a little while, but he was and there’s no timeframe given in this email. Even if he wasn’t involved, maybe he knew about it. It’s no secret he wasn’t a great guy before. In fact, that’s fairly new.

I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it just might have.

I immediately call Spencer, but as her phone rings I know this isn’t going to be a conversation to have over the phone.

“Hello?” she answers.

“Hey, can I come over, we have a situation.” I try to keep the panic out of my voice to not scare her, but this is terrible.

As my best friend, she can read me like a book. “Um yeah, everything okay?”

“It will be,” I sigh before hanging up.

I scratch behind Ellie’s ears. “I’m sorry to leave you again, but this is an emergency.”

She purrs, rubbing her head against my hand and I know she understands. I don’t care if that makes me seem crazy, clearly I’ve lost my mind on all fronts and me thinking my cat understands me is the least of my problems.

I make it to Spencer’s house in record time, knocking as calmly as I can. Spencer opens it with a concerned look on her face.

“Is Jared still at practice?” I ask, walking past her inside.

“Yeah, but probably not for much longer, why what’s going on? ”

I sit down on the couch, pulling out my laptop. “Would you rather I tell you or would you rather read it?” I ask because I know she can change how she wants to learn things.

“I’ll read it,” she states easily.

I hand her my open laptop with the email ready and sit back, watching as her eyes roam over the screen. Her jaw drops and I bite at my thumb nail as I wait for what she’s going to say. It looks like she reads the entire email, unlike me who just skimmed it.

When she’s done, she sets the computer carefully on the coffee table. “Spence,” I start gently. “Please tell me, did Kenneth ever hurt you?”

She sighs, then shakes her head. “No. He never physically hurt me. But I can’t say this is entirely surprising either.”

I don’t know how she’s being so calm right now. “What do you mean?”

“He’s always been an asshole, emotionally abusive for sure. He never liked being told no or not having his way, but I think part of him was scared of me. I intimidated him, which is why he never hurt me this way. But I’m not surprised,” she explains.

Seeing her so calm about this makes me get into full on publicist mode. “We need to get ahead of this. Obviously, they want you to make a statement defending him, but clearly that’s not what we’re going to do. I’m sorry, though Spence, we can’t stay quiet about it either because then they can spin the story with you in it however they want. ”

She nods. “I understand. I’m behind whatever you want to do.”

“Okay, we’re going to post a statement on your social media, I’m not giving any tabloid the exclusive or chance to spin it a certain way.” I immediately pulled up a Word document to start drafting her statement.

“Who do you think the other teammate is they’re talking about?” she questions.

I shake my head. “Not sure.”

She’s quiet for a moment, the only sound is my fingers tapping at the keys before she speaks up again. “Do you think it’s Colton?”

My heart stops when she wonders that too. I stop typing to look up at her. “Do you?”

She seems to think, but then purses her lips, “No. I don’t actually.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I know he’s been an asshole, but frankly, I saw how he was with you on New Year’s Eve. His eyes never left you. Men like Kenneth aren’t capable of that kind of…emotion.”

“What kind is that?”

“Love.”

I scoff. “He doesn’t love me, Spence. He loves sleeping with me. ”

She chuckles, “That may be true, but that man loves you. And he seems softer than he has been. Kenneth was never like that, never could be. Even with me I’m sure he was faking everything and looking back it was so obvious. So no, Brynn, I don’t think it was Colton.”

I sigh in relief, but there’s still a lingering worry in the back of my mind. “But what if he knew about it? Two of the guys may have been involved, but there’s nothing to say that more of the team didn’t know about it.”

“I guess you’ll just have to ask him,” she tells me.

I wave her off, pushing away my own problems like I always do to focus on something else. “Let’s finish your statement, send it to your lawyer before posting it and keep you out of this drama as best we can.”

Spencer agrees easily and we get to work. Though, I can’t stop the worries racing through my mind that everything has been too good to be true. The more I think about it the more the walls around my heart harden once again.