“The realtor had an opening for this morning,” he explained, closing the front door behind him. “I’m not in until after lunch, so I thought I’d stop by. You don’t have my sister hiding in your bathroom again, do you?”
I was going to ignore that.
“How’d it go?”
“The viewing, or my sister in your bathroom?”
“The viewing. I have no knowledge of your sister’s bathroom habits,” I said dryly. “Coffee?”
“Please. It went well,” he said, skipping over my response. “There’s not a lot left to do to get it finished, and the asking price is the same as you paid even though the yard is a little smaller.”
“End plot,” I said. “That’s why I borrowed the last couple grand from my grandma to get this place.”
He grunted. “It’s big enough. I’m gonna call and make an offer a little under this afternoon citing the yard size.”
“Awesome.” I put a mug under the machine and pressed the button. “The developers are fair. I think they’ll understand.”
Another non-committal sound came from him.
“Is this it, then?” I asked, glancing over at him. “Is it finally the end for you and Amber?”
“It’s been over for a long time. Neither of us wanted to give up the sex.” He took the mug when it was finished. “But even that’s not great anymore.”
“Thanks for the visual.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Sadly. Are you ending it, then?”
“Gonna wait until I know for sure about the house, but yeah. It’s coming. We want the same thing but in different ways.”
“Sorry, Colt. You’ve been together a long time.”
He shrugged and poured creamer in his mug. “Win some, lose some.”
A relationship that had lasted as many years as his wasn’t something I’d quantify as ‘losing some,’ but hey.
He’d already resigned himself to the end.
“So what are you doing about my sister?”
I choked on my coffee. “What?”
“Dating.”
“What?”
“Her dating thing.” He looked at me as if I was stupid. “Matchmaking. Setting her up.”
Jesus Christ.
“Oh, that. I don’t know.”
“Thought you were giving it up.”
“Tempted to,” I said vaguely. “But I kinda owe her for last night.”
Owed her round two… when she wasn’t on her period.
“Her shit date? Isn’t she fed up of those yet?”
I shrugged and perched on one of the bar stools at the island. “Obviously not.”
“I thought she liked Elliott.”
“She does, but like she said, she’s keeping her options open.”
“Doesn’t sound like Kinsley.”
“Just repeating what she’s told me.”
“Mm. I was just saying.”
I wish he wouldn’t. “Don’t ask me, ask her.”
“I will.” Colt paused. “Is something wrong? You’re acting weird.”
Yeah, I fucked your sister last night. You could say something’s wrong.
“Didn’t sleep well,” I replied, sipping my coffee for good measure.
“I saw you mow your lawn.”
“What are you? My keeper? Fuck.”
Colton held up his hands. “You really didn’t sleep well last night.”
I shook my head and walked into the living room with him hot on my heels. My phone was still unlocked and on the text screen of my last conversation with Kinsley, and I snatched it up right as Colt sat down and looked at it.
“Who are you talking to?”
I shoved the phone in my pocket. “Just some girl I met online. Why?”
“I thought I saw something about my sister and sex.”
“Her name is Kelly. Probably misread it,” I answered, sitting in the armchair instead of my usual spot on the sofa. “You only glanced at it.”
“You’re right.” He shook it off and looked at the TV, catching the breaking news scrolling across the bottom of the screen on the sports news channel. “How about these shit fucking trades then, huh?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – KINSLEY
rule seventeen: unlike most heroines in romance novels, menstruation is a thing. and you will bleed like hell and be a crabby bitch with cramps and an unrelenting need for sugar and carbs. you’re welcome.
In all seriousness, anyone who wished to end their day with their life still able to be lived needed to fuck the hell off away from me.
One year.
One year. That’s how long it’d been since I last had sex.
Did Mother Nature give a shit about that? Nooo, she did not. I didn’t know who pissed in her Cheerios, but it was not justifiable by giving me my period the morning after I’d finally had sex.
And damn good sex, at that.
No matter what I said to Josh, that man knew his way around the genital area, and he really had found my clitoris with his tongue without any direction.
Seriously.
He could teach a class on locating the clitoris.
Not that he’d be locating mine for the next few days.
Ugh.
Being a woman really, really sucked.
Look, don’t think I was being ungrateful. I really was thankful that I wasn’t pregnant, but at this point in history, Mother Nature probably had WiFi. An email would have sufficed.
Long story short, I was pissed.
Admittedly, it did make things somewhat easier. With sex off the table, there was less reason for us to spend a night together which meant less instances for Josh and I to ultimately explain.
Since we were officially sneaking around.
Not that he knew that yet.
But if your best friends didn’t know the truth, you were definitely sneaking around.
Despite my bitching, I was happy, in a weird kind of way. Now we’d successfully crossed all the lines and dotted all the corners, removing the sexual element of the relationship meant we had to connect on another level.
An emotional one.
The same one that scared the ever-loving crap out of me.
Mostly because, given my current emotional state, I was liable to cry at a bread commercial.
Don’t judge me. We’ve all been there.
“When was the last time you had sex?”
I stared at Ivy. She was sitting at one of the tables at the front of the store, her swollen ankles up on another chair, and a torn-open bag of chips resting on her swollen stomach.
“That’s a random question,” I replied, right as the baby kicked and almost knocked her snack off her stomach.
“Stop that,” she said, tapping
