Consolation Prize (Forbidden Men #9)(101)

Ignoring his tease, I held up my keys to show him the matching dream catcher and bottle of breath spray along with my very own rabbit’s foot. “See.”

“Holy shit,” he murmured, slowly reaching out so he could examine everything better. Then he lifted his gaze and announced, “We’re a matching set.”





COLTON’S CHAPTER | 28





The ringing of a cell phone on the nightstand about a foot from my head woke me from a pleasant dream. Needing to shut it up as soon as possible, I blindly swiped out my hand and captured the bleating device. Somehow I was able to slide my thumb across the front and answer it without cracking open a single eye.

“’‘Lo,” I croaked.

A beat of silence followed before a hesitant voice asked, “Colton?”

Brandt.

“Yeah. What d’you want?” I mumbled, yawning as I tried to get my brain to function.

“I, uh.” He emitted an uneasy laugh that had me finally opening my eyes. Then he said, “Nothing. I mean, I wasn’t trying to call you. Sorry, I must’ve misdialed.”

With a grateful groan, I slurred, “Good.” Now I didn’t have to think and come up with a rational response to whatever he wanted. “I’m going back to bed.”

Clicking off the call, I started to put the phone back on the nightstand when I realized it had a completely different cover than my phone. I blinked at it a moment before determining it was a different size than my phone too.

Finally, I said, “This isn’t my phone.”

“What?”

I jumped. Next to me, the sheets rustled and I lifted my face to spot a dark arm creeping out from under white blankets. Those were not my blankets, and this was not my bed.

A second later, Julianna’s face appeared above the sheets, her head covered with that scarf thing and its adorable top knot. She blinked bleary eyes and yawned. “What’s wrong? Who was on the phone?”

I stared at her a moment before saying, “It was Brandt.”

She didn’t seem surprised or particularly guilty about that fact. After another hearty yawn, she wiped a hand over her face and said, “Okay. What’d he want?”

“I don’t know,” I told her. “He didn’t call me.”

“Huh?” She dropped her hand, blinking at me as if I made no sense.

I waved the phone I was still holding. “He didn’t call me,” I repeated. “He called this phone. This isn’t my phone.” Her gaze dropped to the phone in my hand, and her mouth promptly fell open as shock filled her face.

So I slowly asked, “Why was my brother calling your phone?”

“I…” She shook her head immediately as her gaze darted beseechingly to me. “I have no idea. It has to be something work related.” When I just stared at her without responding, she insisted, “It has to be.”

The phone in my hand started to ring again. We both gazed at it as if it had grown ears and a tail. I didn’t have to look at the screen to see Brandt’s name. Setting my jaw, I extended Julianna’s phone to her. She reared back, gaping at me as if I were handing her a poisonous snake.

“Your phone,” I offered in a dry voice.

She sighed and took it from my hand, wincing when she saw the name on the screen. “He probably just wants me to take on a shift or something for him,” she explained as she crawled off the bed and turned her back to me so she could answer the call.

“Hello?”

I crossed my arms over my chest and watched her as she paced a few steps away and listened a moment before answering, “Yeah, it’s fine. No problems at all. Really, you don’t have to worry. It’s all good.” She glanced over her shoulder at me before turning away again and more quietly saying yes and no answers before blurting, “Look, I gotta go. I swear, everything is fine. We’ll talk later.” And then she hung up on him.

It took her a few seconds, but when she turned back to me, she was already wincing.

Seeing my expression, she let out a breath and said, “Don’t look at me like that, please don’t look at me like that. It’s not like that. I swear to you, whatever you’re thinking, it’s not like that.”

I shrugged. “What am I thinking?”

I wasn’t so sure myself. My chest felt oddly hollow and my heartbeat felt hard and slow, but other than that, I just…I wasn’t sure. I just knew my girlfriend had gotten a call from my brother, my brother she used to have a major crush on, my brother whose call had just prompted her to leave the bed with me and turn her back for privacy.

Striding toward me, she crawled onto the mattress and right into my lap until she was cupping my face in her hands. “Stop thinking something is there that isn’t,” she demanded softly. “You know better. I’m with you, and I want to be with you. And you should know him better too. He’s crazy about Sarah. I’m crazy about you. There is nothing to worry about.”

I heard her words and they made sense, but a part of me still f*cking worried. “So he was just calling about work?” I had to ask…because I was being a stupid, insecure f*cker and I couldn’t help myself.

Julianna paused dramatically as if she’d already been caught in a lie before she’d even answered me. Then slowly, she said, “No. Not really. I mean, something happened at work last night, and he wanted to talk about that, so technically—”