Beautiful Mistakes [Brollins]

Chapter 9

Every minute Rebecca's spent with him today surprises her more than the last. Every time he opens his mouth or smiles or touches her, all she can think is, "What would possess Sarah to cheat on this man with Luke?" Sarah's trash, Rebecca's treasure.

His childhood home is everything she imagined it would be. Full of laughter and stories and parents who look at him like he was sent straight from heaven. He's the youngest of 2 kids. She didn't get to meet his brother though. Colby gets his looks from his father. His father is a solid man with sad eyes and a happy soul. His mother is petite. Shorter than Rebecca, but carries herself with a confidence bigger than Colby's.

Holly, his mom, is cautious of her. She can tell she wants to like her, but Rebecca can also tell she doesn't want to see her son get his heart broken again. She must have liked Sarah at one point. She tries to pry about their "relationship" but Colby fed her with nothing but fiction.

"How long have you two been seeing each other?" Holly asks.

He puts his arm around Rebecca's shoulders and says, "A while."

A day. Rebecca thinks to her self.

"Has Colby met your parents yet, Rebecca?" Holly asks again glancing at his father.

Colby says, "A few times. They're great."

Never. My parents were divorced all my life. Rebecca thought again. His mother smiles. "That's nice. Where did you meet?

"In my dentist office," he says.

Colby is having fun with this. Every time he makes up a story about them, Rebecca squeezes his leg or nudges him as she tries to stifle her laughter. At one point, he tells Holly they met at a vending machine. He says, "Her Twizzlers were stuck in the machine, so I put a dollar in and bought Twizzlers so that hers would get unstuck. But you wouldn't believe what happened." He looks at Rebecca and urges her to finish the lie. "Tell them what happened next, Becks."

She squeezes his leg so hard he winces. "His Twizzlers got stuck in the machine, too."

Colby laughs. "Can you believe it? Neither one of us got Twizzlers. So I took her to lunch in the food court and the rest is history."

Rebecca has to bite her cheek to keep from laughing. Luckily , he was right about his mother's food, so she spends most of the meal with my mouth full. His mother is an amazing cook.

When she goes to the kitchen to finish the pie, Colby says, "You want a tour of the house?"

Rebecca grabs his hand as he leads her out of the dining room. As soon as they're in private, she shoves him in the chest. "You lied to your parents like twenty times in under an hour"

He grabs her hands, pulling her to him. "But it was fun, wasn't it?"

Rebecca can't deny the smile that's breaking through. "Yeah. It really was."

Colby lowers his mouth to hers and kisses her. "You want a typical tour of a typical house or do you want to go to the basement and see my childhood bedroom?"

"That's not even a question."

He leads her to the basement and flips on the light.
There's a faded poster of the table of elements hanging on the wall of the stairwell. He flips on another light when they reach the bottom of the stairs, revealing a teenage boy's bedroom that looks like it hasn't been touched since he moved out.

It's like a secret portal straight into the mind of Colby Lopez. "She refuses to redecorate it," he says, walking backward into the room. "I still have to sleep in here when I visit." He kicks at a basketball lying on the floor. It's flat, so it barely rolls away from him. "I hate it. It reminds me of high school."

"You didn't like high school?" Rebecca asks.

He makes a quick gesture around the room. "I liked science and math more than I liked girls. Imagine what high school was like for me."

His dresser is covered in science trophies and pictures of his awards. Rebecca's face lights up looking at the younger pictures of him. Colby comes up behind her and wraps his arms around her. "Are you okay?"

Rebecca looks back at him and smiles. "Of course. I felt odd meeting your parents but you've made it an amazing evening..."

Colby smiles and backs up to sit on the bed. "Come here, Rebecca."

Rebecca smirks and takes a step towards him. He slides his hand around the back of her knee and pulls her the last step toward him. Chills break out on her legs and arms from his touch.

He's looking up at her and she's looking down at him. His bed sits low to the floor, so his mouth is dangerously close to her panty line. She swallows when the hand he has wrapped around her leg begins to slide slowly up the back of her thigh.

She's not prepared for the sensation his touch sends through her. She closes her eyes and sways a little, steadying herself with two firm hands on his shoulders. She looks down at him again, just as he presses his lips against the dress covering her stomach.
He holds eye contact with her as he slides his other hand to the back of her other thigh. She's completely engulfed by her own heartbeat. She feels it everywhere, all at once.