A Very Merry Bromance (Bromance Book Club #5) (94)

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? ? ?

He was going to be sick. He sat with his head in his hands, elbows on the granite island in the kitchen. Everyone was gathered around him in various stages of stunned what the fuck.

“Why didn’t you stop her?” Colton asked.

“I tried!” Jack said.

Colton lifted his face. “You could have shredded that contract. You could have burned it. For fuck’s sake, you could have tied her to a goddamn chair to keep her from leaving!”

Jack scoffed. “Do you even know Gretchen?”

His mother rested a soothing hand on Colton’s shoulder. “I don’t understand. Isn’t this basically blackmail? How is that even legal?”

Desiree folded her arms over her chest. “It’s not.”

“Legal or not,” Buck said, “it’s done. He’s dropping the charges, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why you’re upset about it, Colton.”

“Because she gave up everything for me!” He shot to his feet and started to pace.

“I seriously doubt anything she signed would stand up in court,” his father said. “How can Evan have any control over their father’s will? If Frasier wants to leave the money to her, some stupid sham contract isn’t going to change that.”

“And it’s not like Evan would be able to fight it if he did,” her mother added. “Not without revealing that he blackmailed her.”

“It doesn’t matter if this is legal or if Evan can hold her to it,” Colton snapped. “The point is that she signed that document to protect me. And I . . . I should have seen it. She knew just what to say so I would believe that she was just simply breaking up with me, and I was too wrapped up in my own feelings to realize what she was going through too.”

“It’s not your fault that you underestimated how manipulative Evan is,” Jack said.

“He’s more than manipulative,” Noah said, his face an unfamiliar mask of stone. “He’s evil. He’s, like, Ebenezer-Scrooge evil.”

Colton blinked at Noah in a daze as a memory intruded. Holding Gretchen in his arms. Dancing. Arguing about A Christmas Carol.

“Every person you know is represented by a character in that book.”

“Which one are you?”

“Nephew Fred, of course. I’m happy and live to make other people happy.”

“I suppose you think I’m Scrooge?”

Oh God. Colton sank back into his chair and dropped his forehead into his hands. He’d read the book a hundred times and seen the various movie adaptations just as many, but he’d never truly understood it. Not even when she called him out for it during their date . . . It has less to do with Christmas and more to do with an unwillingness to interfere for the greater good. To sacrifice for the sake of others.

She was right. Scrooge was selfish and scared, only willing to change for his own benefit and only when threatened with a cold, lonely death.

But Gretchen? She was fearless. Ready to sacrifice herself for the greater good. Steadfast and loyal, unwilling to be swayed from her values, even when she’d spent her life being ignored, mocked, and rejected for them.

No, Gretchen was nothing like Scrooge.

She was Fred.

So what did that make him? How many times had Colton told himself that he’d built this house, this wealth, this career for his family? To make their lives easier after years of struggle and hardships? It was all a lie. Everything he’d ever done had been out of fear. The fear of ever again having to be that kid who pretended he hadn’t overheard his mother crying and his father promising that he’d find another job, that they’d buy another house one day. The kid who’d secretly eaten less so his siblings wouldn’t have to go to bed hungry.

Shame thickened his voice as he finally looked up at his friends again. “I called her a coward. I said she was selfish.”

The guys emitted a collective moan. “Please tell me that’s not true,” Mack said, pinching his nose. Noah got a hard look on his face and started to leave. Vlad grabbed him and hauled him back.

“I told her she was just using the situation as an excuse to do what she was always going to do . . . run away.”

“I swear, it never ceases to amaze me how badly we can screw up even after all this time reading the manuals.” Malcolm sighed.

Colton looked at Jack. “When is her plane leaving?”

“I don’t know. She only said that she was afraid she was going to be late.”

“I have to stop her. I have to talk to her.” He stood again, intending to dash out the door if necessary.

His father held him back with a hand to the chest. “Son, slow down. You can’t just go running off when you don’t even know where she is. She has to come home at some point. When she gets home, apologize to her.”

“It’s going to take more than an apology. She deserves more than that.”

Vlad grinned. “She deserves a grand gesture.”

Colton looked his friends in the eye, one by one, and nodded. Yes. A grand gesture. A big one.

He faced the room again. “I could plead guilty.”

Okay, so, the response wasn’t quite what he’d expected.

“Are you insane?” his father hollered.