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“Ouch.”
“Don’t. He’s paying us a shit ton of money.” Colton shrugged. “I killed my savings when I bought my place, so I’m glad to replenish that.”
“And you can buy your new girlfriend something pretty,” she teased.
I, however, choked.
Saylor’s gaze flicked to me. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Wrong way down,” I gasped, reaching for the water. I glugged it from my glass as quickly as I could in the hopes it would get rid of the scratching in my throat.
“This dinner is weird,” Saylor muttered.
“As opposed to the normality we experience the rest of the time,” Dylan countered. “This is quite normal.”
“Two of you have almost died,” she replied. “Colton’s quiet, Tori hasn’t threatened to stab him with a fork, and—” She trailed off, eyeing me suspiciously for what felt like the three thousandth time today.
“And?” Dylan prompted her.
“Nothing.”
“And nothing? Saylor, I have yet to discover a sentence in the English language that you could not finish.”
“Well. There you are. You found one.” She smiled and picked up her drink. “What a day it is for you.”
Uh-oh.
Mayday, mayday.
Houston, we have a problem.
I had the sneaking suspicion that Saylor had just figured out who my mystery guy was.
This was going downhill fast.
Now I couldn’t go anywhere. If I used the bathroom, she’d follow me. If I left, she’d follow me. All I had to do was sit here and hope she left before Colton’s date showed up.
I doubted that was going to happen.
Oh, goodie.
This was going to be fun.
Not.
***
I was, in fact, correct.
In a battle of wills, neither me nor Saylor had won. Cora had shown up while Colt was still sitting with us, and I’d had to pretend like I didn’t want to stab myself with a fork while she’d beamed at us all.
She was everything I’d been afraid she would be.
Tall. Pretty. Kind. Friendly.
The kind of person you warmed to the second you met her.
So why did I want to kill her?
Aside from the fact I was a petty bitch. That was well-established already, and that was likely the root cause of it.
The rest of it was pure jealousy.
I wasn’t too proud to admit that.
I was jealous.
I was jealous that she was sitting on a two-person table with Colton right now, on a date, and I was here.
Watching them.
Watching them laugh.
Watching them talk.
Watching her reach out to touch his arm when she giggled.
I was so jealous I thought I was going to be sick.
“I’m going to get a drink. Anyone want one?” Saylor asked, getting up. “Tori?”
I nodded. “Whatever. I don’t care.”
She eyed me knowingly, nodded, and disappeared.
“I’ve seen that look before.” Dylan leaned forward on the table.
I blinked at him. “What look?”
“When I took Saylor to that sports bar. The waitress was flirting with me and she got this look, just like the one that’s on your face now, whenever she saw her.” A glint of understanding flickered in his eyes. “You get it every single time you look in their direction.”
I turned my entire body so my back was to them. “Better?”
A sympathetic smile crossed his face.
“Saylor put you up to this, didn’t she?”
He shook his head. “She hasn’t said a word to me. I don’t have a bloody clue what’s going on, Tori, but I can see you don’t hate Colton half as much as you claim to.”
Swallowing, I glanced away. “That’s why I hate him.”
“Sure it is.” He reached over and put his hand on mine. “You need to be honest with him.”
“I am so tired of being told to do that!” I rubbed my hand over my mouth and drew in a deep breath. “No. I’m not going to tell him. Nothing good will come from me pouring my heart out to him.”
“Why? Because he’s with her and not you?”
“No. Because it doesn’t matter.” I pushed off the table and stormed to the bathroom. If I’d had any kind of brain power right now, I’d have walked out the door, but me storming to the bathroom wasn’t exactly an irregular occurrence.
I just needed to breathe.
Get away.
Spend some time the hell away from everyone else so nobody else could guess that I was absolutely, irritatingly in love with Colton Lane.
Apparently, I could no longer trust my face not to betray me.
Traitor. My face was a traitor.
I leaned over the sink and dropped my head down. It was so much cooler in here than the main bar, and I turned on the tap. Thankfully I had a hair tie around my wrist, so I pulled my hair back into a low pony and splashed water on my face.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Tori, right?”
I looked over to see Cora standing in the doorway. “Yeah. Small headache,” I explained.
Lamely.
That was so lame.
“Oh. Are you okay?”
“Just need a minute.” I smiled as genuinely as I could, and she nodded and dipped into one of the toilet cubicles.
