Charlie looks up, eyeing Colton like the enemy. “Does he treat you well?”
“Like a fucking queen.”
He lets out a heavy sigh. “Then I guess that’s all I can ask for. I have no choice but to deal with it.” He glances back at me and shrugs his shoulders, trying to play it off as though it doesn’t tear right through to his soul. “I’ll be fine, Ocean. It’s nothing the bottom of a bottle can’t fix.”
“You know I love you, right?” I say, leaning into his side as he puts his arm around me. “You were one of the first alright guys I met here but you and I… I’ll destroy you and not in the way you want me to.”
“I think deep down I know that,” he tells me, watching Milo and Spencer make themselves comfortable in the den. “But I was still hoping. You know your ass is fucking tight, right? I would have hit that over and over again.”
Colton grunts on my other side and grabs my arm. He tears me free of Charlie’s hold until I’m curled back into his warm side with his arm wrapped around my waist and his fingers flirting with the waistband of my jeans. “Hands off the merchandise, Charlie,” Colton warns him. “It’s one thing to think about all the things you want to do with my girl but try tempting her with it and you and I are going to have problems.”
“Your girl, huh?” Spencer questions. “I don't think I’ve ever heard you refer to a chick as your girl. Does this mean it’s serious?”
Colton nods. “I’ve spent the last month and a half fucking around and trying to push her away and she’s made it damn clear that she’s not about to go anywhere, so yeah, it’s about time I got on board with the idea. Besides, I have a feeling she would have forced my hand eventually.”
I scoff. “Bullshit. It’s the other way around, Carrington. You’re the one who forced my hand, remember? Or do I need to recap the whole masquerade party and the library?”
“Library?” Charlie asks, peering around me to see his friend. “What the hell happened in the library?”
“The library was nothing,” Colton says with a smile in his tone and a heat in his eyes that tells me he’s ready to do it all over again. “The shower is where things really took an interesting turn.”
“Shower?” Milo shrieks. “What the fuck happened in the shower?”
I glance over at him. “When was the last time you and I spoke? Haven’t I told you about the shower yet?”
Milo shakes his head and before he can start cursing me out for depriving him of all the hot and steamy details, Colton’s low tone breaks through the room. “Told him?” he questions, looking at me horrified. “Why the fuck would you need to tell him about that? He’s your ex.”
“Well,” Milo grumbles. “I wouldn’t classify it as that.”
For fuck’s sake. This conversation isn’t getting us anywhere. It reminds me of all the many nights I’d spent with the boys back home and had them fighting over bullshit things, mostly to stir Nic about his fucked-up relationship with me. It was always fun and left someone with stitches, but we always came back for more. That's gone now and a part of me is happy that I can still have that fun with these boys, but it’s not the same. It’ll never be the same.
Needing to steer this in a direction where someone isn’t going to end up with a black eye, I look around at each of them. “What are you guys doing here? Shouldn’t you be sleeping in and enjoying your Sunday morning?”
Spencer raises a brow and scoffs in amusement. “Considering that it’s nearly three in the afternoon—no. I’m going to go ahead and say that ship has already sailed.”
“Shit,'' I grumble, leaning forward and searching around for my phone on the soft carpet. “Is it really that late in the day?” My fingers curl around the cool metal and I scoop it up to find my phone battery nearly dead with eighteen missed calls, twenty-three text messages, a bunch of messenger notifications, and even my snapchat going insane. “What the fuck?”
I sink back into Colton’s arms and start scrolling through it all. The texts are mostly from the Widows checking in on me. Some from last night after I left and some demanding