“Tell me what?” Like, seriously, I’m too exhausted to follow this conversation.
“I’m hanging with you for a while.”
“Okay, I may be a smart woman, but right now I’m tired and have no idea what that means. Please elaborate.”
“With all the stuff that’s been going down, Zane wants to ensure your safety. He asked me to do that.”
I stare at him, processing what he said. My brain really is fried. It’s taking its sweet time connecting all those words together. “As in you’re staying with me? Here?”
He smiles and my eyes are drawn to his bruises. His face is an angry wreck of swelling and bruises after taking on those two guys who broke into Zane’s building. “Yeah, I’m staying with you. Here. And everywhere you go until we figure this all out.”
This is just like Liam and Zane. They’ve spent decades trying to take charge of me. And while I get it with this situation, it pisses me off that they didn’t discuss this with me. That they just made a plan and put it into action and left it to Colt to tell me what’s going down.
My annoyance must have made its way across my face, because Colt says, “I take it you’re not feeling this.”
I dig in my bag for my keys and scan my security tag to be let in. “I’m not feeling Zane or my brother and the way they try to organise me. But that’s not on you. I appreciate you doing this.”
He follows me to the lift. “We never did finish our conversation earlier about how you got roped into working with Zane.”
I step into the lift and hit the button for my floor. “I’ve known him since I was six. He and Liam were in grade eight and best friends. Zane was the annoying boy who was always over at our place after school. He’s pretty much a brother to me. He’s certainly as annoying as my own brother. But I can never say no to him when he asks for help.”
Colt chuckles and I decide to try to make him do that as often as possible. There’s something about the way the lines around his eyes all pull together that I like. As in really like. In a way I’ve never noticed liking with men before.
“I had a friend like that in school with a sister who used to say the same about me,” he says.
“Are you still friends with them?”
“No. My friendship with him didn’t make it through high school. Not after I fooled around with his sister when I was sixteen.”
“Oh, you went there. Yeah, Liam wouldn’t have liked it if Zane and I had ever gotten it on.” I shudder at the thought of how Liam would have lost his shit.
“You guys never did?”
The lift arrives at my floor and we exit into the hallway. “No. Maybe it was because we were so young when we met, but I’ve never thought of Zane in that way and I’m pretty sure he’s the same. Thank God we’ve never had to worry about that. As much as he annoys me, I love him and would hate to risk our friendship.”
I unlock my front door and breathe in the familiar comforts of my home. Lights already on and waiting for me, along with the sounds of the movie playing through my speakers.
Colt whistles low as he enters my loft, his head tilting back to look up at the high ceiling and mezzanine level above us. “Nice place.”
I follow him in and down the short hall to the open-plan living area that makes up most of the bottom level. “Yeah, I managed to keep two things after my marriage blew up. This loft and my car.”
My husband didn’t fight me over either thing. He’d known not to. Not after the shit he put me through. Still, I lost so much more than I kept, and I’m still at the I-could-fucking-kill-him level.
“You were in charge of decorating?” Colt asks, his attention firmly on the massive painting above my television.
I smile. “I was.” Nodding at the painting, I say, “My mother painted that. Pretty much all the artwork and sculptures in here are hers.”
Heath and I bought this loft three years ago after I begged him to. Not my finest hour, that begging. Hell, most of my marriage wasn’t my finest hour. I married too young at twenty-one, didn’t know myself well enough, and put up with way more from him than I should have. Boundaries are something I learned existed far too late in the game. By the time I discovered his lying, cheating ways, we were past the need for boundaries and all the way onto the need for lawyers.
“You’ve got good taste,” Colt says, bringing his gaze to mine. “This is what you call industrial, right?”
I eye the exposed brickwork that I roughly painted over; the fusion of metal, glass, and wood throughout; and the eclectic blend of furniture, art, and plants. “Yeah, but I wasn’t really aiming for a particular look. I just filled the space with shit I love. It’s a bit of a mash-up.”
“A mash-up that works.”
I smile again. Colt has something about him that I’m drawn to. Something I’m finding it hard to label, which tells me it’s not just one thing about him, but a whole lot of things. Like, when you can label something, it’s clear what you like, but when you can’t label it, it’s a package of things. Right now, I like his easy way of giving compliments. Of being willing to put shit out there. I never had that with Heath. He was always so damn secretive and sparing with his appreciation for me. He never once told me he liked how I’d decorated this loft even though I overheard him talking it up to his friends.
“Okay,” I say, “I have bad news for you, Mr Caveman.”
He arches his brows at my use of that word but doesn’t question it. “Is this bad news gonna hurt?”
“Maybe, but you seem to do well with pain.” I eye his bruises. “I mean, are you even feeling any of those bruises?”
His hand goes to his side. “A little. They’ll make themselves known soon enough, but I’m good. What’s this bad news you have for me?”
I have no idea how he’s even still standing after all the punches he took. I make a mental note to grab him some Advil and an ice pack after we sort out his sleeping arrangements. “I don’t have a spare bed because I threw mine out when I threw my husband out and I haven’t replaced it yet. So you’re going to have to sleep on the couch.”
“You’re still sleeping in your spare room?”
“Well, I haven’t been sleeping here for six months. I threw shit out and left town. This is my first night back. And yes, I’ll have to sleep in my spare room.”
“I’m good with the couch.” He raises his hand and circles his finger in the air. “This noise, though, we need to shut it off.” He scrunches his eyes like he’s thinking. “Is it Pretty Woman?”
I laugh at the pained expression on his face as he asks that. “What, you don’t like a little Julia Roberts in your life?”
It is Pretty Woman that I’m running through my sound system. I have speakers in every room and a movie playing at all times. This quirk is thanks to my mother who always had a movie running in the background of my childhood. I flicked Pretty Woman and the lights on when I dropped my bags off before heading into Zane’s HQ because coming home to silence and darkness isn’t something I ever like to do.
“I’m not against Julia Roberts in the flesh,” Colt says with a grin. “But listening to this all night isn’t high on my list of shit to do.”