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8.

Colton

It's been a long ass four years, but I have a bachelors in business and engineering. And I'm home for like the sixth time since Danny and I left for our road trip after graduation. But here I am, at Riot where The Rydels were throwing the four of us another graduation party. Somehow, we'd all managed to have our graduations on different days, Danny asked if I wanted to fly back with them, but I said no. I had nothing left for me in the middle of nowhere town I had been living. I drove back by myself. I needed to give myself time to get ready for seeing Tayla. I hadn't seen her since the night after our high school grad party. Zero pictures, zero in person, I haven't even talked to her. I decided that I needed to respect her request for space and time.

"There you are!" Danny yelled coming into view with Jasmine tucked under his arm. "How was the drive?"

"Good, quick." I nodded scanning the crowd. Wow. By Post Malone was blasting and I found my head nodding to the beat.

"She's not here yet." Jasmine smiled.

"I figured." I laughed. "If she was you wouldn't be clinging to him like a life line." I pulled my hands out of my pockets and offered her a hug. "you look amazing, Jas."

"It's gonna be okay, you know." I nodded. But I didn't know.

A little over an hour later I was three deep in whiskey, chatting with Danny and his dad when a girl caught my eye. She was dressed in black from head to toe. Black Vans, black pants that looked like they were painted on a good inch of warm tan skin exposed under the band from the black letterman style jacket, that there should have been a dead giveaway about who I was looking at. I continued my perusal, vaguely aware that Danny and his dad both had stopped talking and were watching me. She spun, her abdomen was exposed, her muscles contracting with every roll and bounce of her body as she moved to Down on Me by Jeremih and 50 Cent. A black bikini style criss-cross strappy like thing accentuating her chest, slinky dark waves spilling over her shoulders. When I finally made it to her face, she ran her finger through her hair and froze.

"Fuck my life."

"You're drooling, son." Jake tapped my chin.

My mouth snapped shut and she smiled at me before turning to face the guys she was with.

"You know," Jake laughed. "I thought the two of you would have kissed and made up by now."

"Me too." Danny folded his arms across his chest.

"Who's the guy?"

"You remember Ryan?"

"I almost broke his arm, yeah." I nodded not taking my eyes off of them as he slid that very arm around her waist and pulled her to him before burying his face into her neck. "I might succeed tonight." I downed my fourth whiskey and headed over towards Tayla and Ryan. He stepped away from her with a wink, she froze. I didn't give a fuck that her parents and brother were here, I didn't give a single fuck about who might have been watching us. I placed my hands on her hips and she stepped back into me. "Dance with me?" I asked and my lips grazed her ear. She nodded and relaxed into me. The song changed from a fast pace hip hop to a country slow song. Tayla spun in my arms to face me and I didn't think she could be better than my memory of her, but she was.

"Hi, Colton." She smiled up at me and the way my name rolled off of her tongue, I was so far gone.

"Hey there, Tay-Bear." She dropped her head forward so her forehead was resting on my collar bone. We stopped moving and I held her tightly to my body, I buried my face into her hair and neck. "Fuck, I missed you."