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Jody notices it the first time he takes her out after the whole I-was-framed-for-murder thing. She picks him up from the hotel he’s staying in because it feels too soon to have him move into her temporary apartment in Australia.
He strides up to the car, a blue leather jacket on which strikes her as odd because he once told her that he's always felt the safest and confident in his Miami Vice stuntman jacket the one and only time she asked him about it. She takes the offered kiss but doesn’t comment on his attire because maybe it’s in the wash or something.
A week goes by, then two, and the jacket hasn’t appeared. Jody knew it had made the journey to Australia, had tried her best not to admire how good he had looked in it in the thirty seconds she’d spent in the truck with him.
On week three she broaches the question.
“Colt.” He’s on her couch, in her lap, resting after a long day of stunts, his back contraption on full speed. She’s getting him a deep-tissue massage when this is all over.
“Yeah,” he hums, eyes closed as he enjoys Jody’s gentle stroke of his hair, something he won’t ask for because he’s a big dumb man, but he also won’t turn it away when presented the opportunity.
“Where’s your Miami Vice jacket? I haven’t seen it in ages. Not since your first day here.” Jody watches the serene smile disappear off his face and now she knows something happened to it.
“I lost it, no biggie.” He tries to shrug it away but they both know how much that jacket means to him. It was the first thing that was his , the thing that had cemented him in this industry.
“What do you mean no biggie?” Jody exclaims, “How did you even lose it in the first place? That thing is your baby!” If asked to choose between her and the jacket Jody is only 50% sure he’d pick her.
“It’s fine,” Colt sits up groaning at the painful stretch of his muscles, “you don’t have to worry about it.”
“Colt Seavers, you tell me this instant.” Colt knows the one thing she hates is secrets.
“I lost my jacket because of you!” Colt pushes off the couch, shrugging out of Jody’s touch.
“Because of me?” Jody stands up, affronted. “You cannot be serious. Because of ME?”
“No wait,” Colt rushes over to her, ducks his head the way he always does whenever Jody refuses to look at him, one set of blue eyes always desperately searching for the other. “That came out wrong.” If there’s one thing Colt will never lose it’s his foot-in-mouth disease.
“Start from the beginning.” She demands.
“I was wearing my jacket when I was looking for Ryder. It’s the one I was wearing in the boat explosion. I took it off when I got into the water because I figured if they found it they would think I was dead and stopped looking for me. It was the only way I would get an opportunity to help you finish the movie.”
“You loved that jacket,” Jody can’t believe she’s getting teary-eyed over a clothing article but it was from his first job. Jody still has the headset from the first movie she got to work the camera. Colt pulls her close and Jody allows herself to be lead, her body molding easily against his, the way it always has.
“I loved you more,” Colt whispers into her hair.
“I love you.” She leans up, placing a sweet kiss on his lips.
“I love you more.” They stand there in their embrace a bit longer before Colt says, “Does this mean I get sympathy sex?”
Jody punches him right where she knows there’s a blooming bruise. Leave it to Colt to ruin a sweet moment but also…
“Meet me in the bedroom in five, I have a phone call to make.”
Jody ignores his exuberant fist pumps and pulls out her phone. Time to make Ryder’s ex-assistant, Alma, earn her producer credit.
In the end, it takes about two months and six false calls to finally locate Colt’s jacket.
Initially, they’d thought the police had it but it turns out they never recovered it. They’d based their case on the footage of the wreckage they’d received because there was no way anyone could survive an explosion of that magnitude. Of course, they hadn’t factored the Colt Seavers of it all.
So they’d turned to local Facebook groups and taken to handing out cards to any fisherman they saw at the docks in hopes that something would turn up and eventually it had. They’d found Colt's jacket, the one with his name stitched neatly in the middle.
Jody gives it to him on a sleepy Sunday, they’ve wrapped Metalstorm, well as much as they can before the reshoots with Jason Momoa begin. It’s also their six-month anniversary, the first one they’re going to celebrate instead of ignoring because neither of them was brave enough to broach the subject last time.
“Are you ready to go darling?” They’re going out to a casual dinner at the place where Colt used to work.
“Yeah! Just grabbing a jacket, I’ll be out in a sec.”
Jody stood waiting, there was no way to miss it, she’d hung his Miami Vice jacket in the middle of the closet and pushed the rest of his clothes to the edge.
There’s silence and then he’s calling out to her, his voice shaking. “Jodes…Jody can you come here for a second.”
She finds him sitting on the bed, jacket firmly grasped, staring at the stitching that confirms that it is his jacket. His thumb finds the slightly frayed stitching at the cuffs, the result of a nervous habit he’d yet to kick.
He looks up at her, face wet from tears he can’t seem to stop. She’s transported back to finding him crying in his loaned truck, All Too Well blaring in the background, he’d been unapologetic back then, but now she can sense a hint of embarrassment at reacting so strongly to a jacket.
“Darling,” Jody pulls the jacket from his grip. “Stand up.”
Colt stands, his back to Jody. “Hold out your arms.” Colt complies, and Jody slides the jacket onto his broad shoulders. She turns him around, tugging at the lapels, pretending to straighten them so Colt can get a chance to regroup.
“How are you feeling?”
Colt gives her the stunt guy thumbs up and for once Jody doesn’t mind.