A Very Merry Bromance (Bromance Book Club #5) (100)

“I need you to check if there is a woman named Gretchen Winthrop staying here, and if so, please call her to come down.”

“Um, I can’t do that.”

“Don’t you know who this is?” Vlad asked, elbowing up to the counter. His Santa hat slipped down to his eyebrows. He shoved it back up.

The clerk shook her head.

“This is Colton Wheeler,” Vlad said. “Biggest country music star in the whole world.”

Colton winced. “That’s kind of an exaggeration.”

“Just because you haven’t put out a new album in two years doesn’t mean you’re not still the biggest.”

“Listen. I could really use your help.” Colton leaned on the counter and tried his wink on the girl. It had no effect. He stood. “I’m desperate here. The woman I love thinks she has to leave me to protect my career because I beat up her piece-of-shit brother and—”

The girl’s eyes registered recognition. “Wait. I do know you. Weren’t you just arrested for getting in a drunken brawl or something?”

“I wasn’t drunk.”

“And I think, technically, you can’t call it a brawl because it was just two people,” Vlad said. “Doesn’t it require more people to be a brawl?”

For fuck’s sake. Colton shoved Vlad behind him. “Yes, that’s me. I’m him.”

“Why is he dressed like Santa Claus?”

“It’s a long story. Please, can you check if she’s here?”

The clerk looked around, probably for her boss or security. “I don’t know. I could get in a lot of trouble for this.”

“Please,” Colton begged. “I have no way of knowing what room she’s in, and I know you can’t tell me that.”

“Why can’t you call her?”

“Because she . . . she won’t answer my call.”

The clerk shook her head. “Uh, yeah, no, I’m not getting involved in this. You could be a stalker or something.”

“A stalker with an entourage?”

She reached for the phone. “I’m going to call security.”

“Wait. Wait. Don’t do that. Give me a minute to explain. Her brother was blackmailing her to stay away from me, and I need to win her back because she hates Christmas, and I—”

“Sir, are you still drunk?”

“I wasn’t drunk.” He bent and banged his forehead on the counter.

“Colton.” Jack tugged on his elbow.

Colton shrugged him off and raised his head again. “Listen, I know this is weird—”

“Colton!”

“What?!” he growled.

Jack was pointing. Colton followed the direction of his point and froze.

Gretchen.

Standing with her back to him with a massive bag slung over her shoulder. She hovered in the doorway to the hotel bar as if she couldn’t decide whether to go in. His mind flashed back to the night when she’d wandered into Old Joe’s and marched toward him, determined and proud. And just like then, his breath left his body in a whoosh. She was here.

She was here.

And he couldn’t move a damn muscle.

Vlad jumped up and down. “Gretch—”

Colton clamped his hand over Vlad’s mouth. “Wait.”

“For what?” Mack squawked. “We just flew two hours—”

“It was more like ninety minutes,” Noah said. Alexis clamped a hand over his mouth.

“—and drove like maniacs to find her. And there she is. What the hell are you waiting for?”

“A grand gesture,” Colton said.

“This is the grand gesture,” Noah said. “Isn’t it?”

“Not like this,” Colton said, as much to himself as everyone else. It wasn’t a grand gesture if the recipient would die of embarrassment over it. And Gretchen would. If he did what the Bros normally did—run and make a spectacle of themselves—it would backfire. She didn’t want spectacle.

She wanted something soft. Something slow.

Colton spied the hotel gift shop on the other side of the lobby. “New plan,” he said. “I need a hat and some glasses.”





CHAPTER THIRTY


Gretchen sat alone at the bar and twirled the straw in her water. If she gritted her teeth any harder, she was going to bust a molar.

No flights.

How was it possible that there were no flights available until tomorrow morning? Yeah, okay, it was Christmastime, and that meant everything was booked, but for God’s sake. Didn’t they know? This was an emergency. She had to get home now. It was hard to carry out a grand gesture for the man you loved when you couldn’t even get out of the damn city.

The bartender, a young guy with a goatee, stepped in front of her and set down a glass of whiskey. “From an admirer.”

Gretchen inwardly groaned. Of all the times to get hit on. “Can you tell him thanks but no thanks?”

“Listen, I don’t normally do this because it’s fucking creepy, and for all I know, this guy could be a stalker—”

“Um, yeah, now I’m really not going to drink that.”

“But he told me to tell you that it’s the good stuff.”