for me. This isn’t the same scenario though. My core still heats with his words, but the last thing I need to do is to fall into bed with Wyatt, especially not with all the unsaid words between us.
“I think I had the best sleep I’ve had in a while,” he says, a yawn splitting his lips apart. He looks away, holding his free hand to his mouth and shakes his head like he’s coming out of a coma.
“It must have been the alcohol,” I tease.
“I think it had to do with something way different than that.” A hint of color hits his cheeks. “I’m gonna go now, Dakota. Thank you,” he says, rushing the words out like he’s almost embarrassed to say them. He leaves, the door clicking into place behind him. I spread out on the bed. It isn’t a tiny bed at all. Way bigger than the sofa I’d been sleeping on my whole life, but when you share it with a big cowboy, it feels smaller.
I check the time on the small alarm clock in the room. My eyes bug out of my head when I see it’s well past the time we all should’ve been at class. I drag myself from bed, take a quick shower, but not too quick as to forego my new hair routine. That would be blasphemous. Once I get it styled, I put on a new outfit and slip from the room.
The smell of bacon wafts through the air. I’m confused until I move into the kitchen to see Stone and Lucas shoulder to shoulder, trying to cook. They’re whisper arguing about something, and when I step a certain way, the floor creaks. They turn quickly and then both sag in relief. “We thought you were Wyatt.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“No,” Lucas says quickly. “We were just trying to make him breakfast.”
Stone scrolls through his cell phone. “Why does the recipe say between ten and fifteen minutes? Why can’t they just say it takes this long, flip once at the halfway mark, and then boom, you got yourself some good bacon?”
I chuckle to myself, and Stone gazes at me, arching a brow. “Do you think you can do better?”
“We only had bacon on Christmas or at Dickie’s, so no, I’m not the girl you want to cook for you.”
Footsteps sound behind me, and Wyatt sighs. “Nooo, what are you doing?” He pushes forward, standing in front of the stove until the boys move. “I swear you do this just so I’ll come in and save your asses.”
Stone pockets his phone. “We were trying to be nice.”
“Go be nice at the bar where Dakota’s fine ass is.”
“Hey, I thought I was Tits.”
He grins at me over his shoulder and winks. “After last night, I have a lot of different nicknames for you.”
“Magic hands?”
Stone stiffens at my words, and Wyatt cracks up. “Calm your horses. I didn’t fuck her.”
Stone takes a sobering breath. Once he’s under control again, he says, “I don’t care.”
Even I recognize the lie when it flies from his mouth, I just don’t know why he does care.
“Good because if I did fuck her, the whole house would know.” Wyatt turns to wink at me again, and I can’t help but roll my eyes. Despite the night he had, he seems to be full of it this morning.
Lucas laughs. “Even Dakota is calling BS on your bullshit.”
I watch the scene in front of me with new eyes. It’s like wiping the rain from a windshield. I see how they interact with each other. Lucas and Stone trying to help Wyatt while Wyatt puts on airs that he doesn’t need help while secretly wanting help. They’re like a family. A disjointed one, sure. Not your typical parents and siblings, but hell, my father and I were never the typical family unit either. Everything about us was abnormal.
Wyatt finishes the breakfast, and even though we should be hurrying to make it to at least some of our classes today, we settle in like it’s the weekend. We take the plates and the food out to the patio like the morning after I first arrived. The guys talk easily, telling stories about other times when Wyatt was drunk off his ass and how they had to drag him home. Then, the stories expand to Lucas, and then even Stone. Stone’s story surprises me the most. I didn’t think he ever gave up control willingly. To get drunk, you have to give up the biggest