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I nodded and didn’t even check the peephole before jerking the door open and setting my facial features to fuck-off. I totally wasn’t expecting it to be Colton.
He started with a cringe. “Sorry, I took off on you, but if you’re still ready to go to the…” His words trailed off as he took in my expression. “What’s wrong?”
I stepped into the hall with him and pulled the door mostly closed behind me as I said, “Right now isn’t a good time. Tyla just broke up with her boyfriend. He cheated on her. She’s a freaking mess.”
“She broke up with him? Just now?” he asked, pointing his finger down between us as his eyebrows arched with concern. When I nodded, he asked, “Is she here?”
After my second nod, he murmured, “Poor thing,” and brushed past me to enter the apartment.
It took him a split second to take in the sight of Sasha and Tyla on the couch before he tsked sympathetically. “That fucking dick,” he announced. “Why would anyone cheat on you?”
He strode to Tyla and stole my spot on the couch next to her so he could pull her into a hug.
At first, she seemed to tense against him, staring at him as if he were insane. But then he said, “Men can be such assholes,” and she nodded in agreement.
“They really can,” she sniffed before cuddling closer to him and closing her eyes.
Colton met my gaze over her shoulder as he began to rub her back. “Where’s the rest of that chocolate I got you?”
My cheeks heated as I pinched my lips together. “Um…Sasha, Tyla, and I ate it all the other night.”
“You…” His eyes widened. “All of it?”
I cleared my throat and shifted uncomfortably. There’d been three women gossiping. Of course we’d devoured it all. Geesh.
“Doesn’t matter.” He waved an unconcerned hand. “Alcohol’s probably better right now anyway.” With another significant glance my way, he added, “And isn’t it just lucky we have a bartender in our company.”
When Sasha and Tyla glanced my way as well, I realized they all really did want me to whip them up some drinks. “Oh!” I said, still stunned Colton had metaphorically just rolled up his sleeves and dived into the mess of a freshly single woman. “Right. I’ll get on that.”
I hurried into the kitchen, shaking my head, and wondering if I’d ever get used to all the sides of Colton Gamble. He really was an enigma. Just when you thought the guy was an open book and you had him figured out, he turned the page.
Without thinking what I was doing, I started in on my drink-making experiment. It was almost habit these days; I wanted to come up with my own alcoholic drink so bad I’d been determined to concoct the perfect brew.
When Colton came up behind me, I’d just finished my first try.
I glanced over my shoulder. “How’s she doing?”
He shrugged. “Shitty.” Then he wrapped his arms around my waist before setting his chin on my shoulder to watch as I took a sip of the first batch.
Only to gag and spit half of it back into my glass. “Oh God, that’s disgusting.”
“What’re you making?” he asked curiously.
“Nothing. I don’t know. I’ve been trying to come up with some new, awesome drink mix that’s all my own, and they always—and I mean always—suck.”
“I thought that was something you only did with Brandt when you guys were working together.”
I glanced back at him, my eyebrows raised in surprise. “No. I mean, sure, he’s helped me try to come up with something. But I honestly do it all the time, with or without him.”
“So it wasn’t something special between you two? Good to know.” Colton slipped the cup from my hand, gingerly took a sip, and winced. “God…damn,” he uttered, scraping his tongue against the top of his teeth as if desperate to get the taste off. Then he snagged a napkin and literally tried wiping the flavor away. “What the hell was in that shit?”
I pouted, a little hurt he couldn’t even pretend to like my creation. But then my shoulders sagged. “Honestly, I don’t even remember. But I’ve tried every mix imaginable, and they either end up already existing, or they suck…bad.”
“Oh, baby doll,” he murmured sympathetically. “No, no, no. You’re going about this all wrong. Here.” He turned me around, gripped my hips and propped me up on the kitchen counter facing him.
I liked where this was going.
“First of all, we’re dumping this.” He overturned my glass, letting the rest of the contents spill out into the sink. I sent up a quick prayer that it didn’t cause any kind of toxic, glowy green gas in the sewers and morph baby turtles into human-sized ninjas or anything.
