“Um, I don’t know. Where are we?” I ask Kolter.
He reaches up with a shake of his head before grabbing his phone out of my hands. Good, he can probably give an address or something.
Instead of talking to the operator, though, he hangs up the call then tosses the phone to the side.
“No cops,” he rasps. “They’ll kill me, kill you.”
“You need help! You’ve been shot!” I argue.
“No, listen!” he snarls with as much heat as he can muster. “You need to get out of here—now. Get out of here and don’t come back ever. I’ll b-be fine. Run!”
“Kolter,” I say, my lower lip wobbling. “Please let me help.”
A tear runs down my face, and he lifts a shaky hand to me, wiping it away with his bloody fingers.
“Help me by keeping yourself safe. Don’t tell anyone what you saw, or they’ll come for you, you hear me?”
I shake my head. “I can’t leave you.”
He lets out an aggravated breath as cop sirens sound in the distance. “Help is coming—I’ll be fine, Peaches. You won’t. Get out of here. NOW!” he snarls.
Shakily, I stand, looking down at him as a numbness spreads through me. But I force myself to run for my bike, one foot after the other—though I pause once I’m back in the saddle.
Kolter’s eyes are still on me, and even from this distance I can see him nodding to me encouragingly.
Tears are pouring down my face now, but I do as he says and pedal home as fast as I can, praying to God the entire way that he’ll live, that God will spare him, that I won’t lose him.
I wake up drenched in a cold sweat, my heart beating out of my chest, my breath ragged as I quickly look around my bedroom. It takes my mind a few moments to fully comprehend where I am, that it was all just a dream.
More like a memory.
I haven’t dreamed of the last night I saw Kolter in well over a year. It was by far the worst day of my life, and every day that followed for weeks was a new level of hell. Just like I promised him, I didn’t tell anyone what I saw. Not even Mom or the boys. I did, however, go looking for him the next morning.
When I got to that old warehouse, the place was empty, the car had been towed and only a few bloodstains remained on the asphalt. I then went to the three closest hospitals to see if he’dbeen admitted. They all had no record of him, but after looking up the county roster, I finally found him in jail. When I tried to visit, they told me he’d refused to see me. I tried again for three more days, only to be met with the same response each time; then, on the fourth day, I was told that he’d been released.
He wouldn’t answer my phone calls, though. Or Nick’s, or Anthony’s or Mom’s. He just… vanished. He didn’t check in with any of us until three months later, on Christmas, when he called Mom to tell her he was okay and would be living at the clubhouse from now on. She was upset but told him that he always had a place with us. After all, he was twenty—what could she really do now that he was an adult?
For years, I tried to get in contact with Kolter. Each rejected call felt like a stab to my heart, until finally… I gave up. The pain was so intense I thought I was going to die, and things didn’t start to get better until I went to college and forced myself to move… forward, I guess.
Now, I’m prepping the salad for dinner. The dinner that Kolter is supposedly coming to, after six years, out of the blue. Except it’s not out of the blue. It can’t be a coincidence that after all these years, he finally decides to reach out after I accidentally sucked him off in a sex club.
Was it an accident, though? I mean, it certainly was on my part. But he didn’t seem nearly as shocked as I was. In fact, I think he knew it was me the whole time. Why else would he have called out my nickname mid-climax?
That thought is far more intriguing than it should be, and it adds a whole host of nerves to this equation.
The doorbell rings, and I don’t know who jumps out of their skin more, me or Nick. Despite the fact he’s seen Kolter multiple times over the years, he seems even more excited about this dinner than me.
Nick bounds towards the door and throws it open. “What are you ringing the doorbell like a stranger for? Get in here, brothaaa!”
I hear what sounds like them patting each other’s backs as Anthony moves into the hallway, greeting him as well.
“It’s been too long, Kol.”
“I know. How have you been?” that deep voice rumbles, sending a chill down my spine.
“Really good. You?”
“Just fine. Where’s Mom?”