Consolation Prize (Forbidden Men #9)(96)

When a text came in from Colton midmorning, I attacked my phone, eager to read it.





I stared at his words and exhaled a breath, relieved beyond anything I could explain. He hadn’t used the L-word, but what he’d said was just so…us, it settled everything inside me.

I told him:





To which the smart-ass immediately replied:





Yep, everything was as it should be.

When I strolled into work that night, I was actually humming contentedly to myself.

Behind the counter, Brandt was stacking glasses.

“Hey,” I called, smiling in greeting. “Pick still hasn’t found a replacement for you yet, huh?”

“No, the f*cker,” he muttered with a scowl toward the back hallway. “I think he’s stalling on purpose.”

I laughed as I stowed my purse away and went to assist him. “That’s what you get for being an awesome employee.”

He sniffed moodily and rolled his eyes, then paused working when his phone rang. As he answered, I finished his task for him and moved on to fill some bowls with pub mix.

“No, I haven’t seen it yet,” Brandt told whoever he was talking to on the phone. “Noel called this morning, all freaked out about it, though, demanding to know what happened, but I had no clue Colton had even been in a fight.”

I paused filling bowls and glanced over at him.

“Hold on a sec. I’m at work; I’m gonna put you on speaker phone.” He pushed a button and set his phone one the counter. “Still there?” he asked, as he checked the cash register.

I stopped what I was doing to stare at his phone.

“You should see this f*cking shiner, man,” the voice through the phone cried. “It’s f*cking impressive. I’m telling you what, my protégé has done me proud, whipping up a black and blue eye like that. Hell, it’s bigger than the one Blondie gave me.”

Brandt snorted. “Are you still claiming she gave you your biggest black eye yet? Shit, the one I gave you was easily twice as big as hers.”

“Was not,” the caller argued. “Your weenie little bitch slap barely left a mark. But whoever got our boy last night got him good. I’m telling you, someone knocked the shit out of him.”

Shaking his head, Brandt frowned thoughtfully. “And he’s still not saying how he got it?”

I swallowed uneasily and took a step backward from Brandt and his conversation with who I decided sounded like his brother-in-law, Ten.

“Nope,” Ten answered. “Just that he got into it with some stupid drunk.”

Turning away, I dug my own phone from my purse and sent off a text.





He answered seconds later.





My heart did a little happy dance. From listening in on Brandt and Ten’s conversation, I’d been so sure Colton still wanted to keep us a secret from his family. After last night, exchanging love-words, keeping secrets from his family didn’t sit so well with me. So learning he and I were actually on the same page was pretty awesome.

I wrote back:





Then I bit my lip and added:





Trying not to jump up and down with excitement, I answered:





This was really happening between us. He was ready to tell his family. I should totally tell my dad. We were going to start a real relationship. It was as thrilling as it was scary.

A new message pinged:





At the other end of the counter, Brandt was finishing his call with Ten so I put my phone away, and we got busy with work.

The doors opened minutes later, and our Saturday evening shift began.

Karaoke night was always a busy one. Pick usually had three bartenders on staff, but we were down on numbers so badly that it was just Brandt and me.

Our customers kept us busy ordering all sorts of drinks.

About halfway through the night, I received a visitor I wasn’t expecting. I’d just handed over a pair of strawberry daiquiris to two girls and was shifting my greeting to the next guy in line, when I looked straight into Shaun’s eyes.

He’d never visited me at work before.

I jerked back, not expecting him.

On stage, someone was wailing out a really awful rendition of “Me Too” by Meghan Trainor. Stepping toward him so he could hear me over the music, I called, “What’re you doing here?”

He leaned over the counter, shifting us even closer. “We need to talk.”

I shook my head. “I’m working. There’s nothing to talk about anyway.”

His eyes narrowed. “I saw who you’re trying to replace me with. A white boy, Julia? Really?”

He’d been the only person to ever call me Julia. It was a pretty name, sure, but not my name, so it’d always annoyed me. A lot of things he did had annoyed me, and I hadn’t realized until later that he’d been trying to reinvent me as someone else the whole time we’d been together—changing my name, telling me how to wear my hair, what clothes he liked me in, all sorts of stupid controlling crap.

Sending him a look full of get the f*ck away from me, I repeated, “Like I said, there’s nothing to talk about. Who I date now is none of your f*cking business.” I turned away from him, but he growled and lunged forward over the counter to grab my arm, yanking me hard back to him.