Real (Real, #1)(28)
“Last one, I promise.” He puts his hands up in surrender.
“Mr. and Mrs. Thomas.” Take that. I can be a smart ass just like you.
“Just answer.” He sighs in exasperation.
“If I answer, are you going to get to your point?” He nods his head, his grin spreading even wider as I tell him their names.
“Huh.”
“Huh?” After all the build up, that’s all he’s going to give me? I lean forward and rest my elbows on my knees waiting for an answer.
He angles his head and looks me in the eyes for a beat. And despite the spinning in my head, curiosity is killing the cat. And of course cat leads me to thinking of * and * to Rylee. Fuck. I’m definitely drunk.
“Boyfriend,” he says, breaking through my thoughts, know-it-all grin spreading from ear to ear.
“Fuck off.” It’s the only comeback I have because he just baited the hook and I thought he was going to tell me something unexpected. What an ass. I throw the pillow beside me at him and flop back on the cushions.
He catches it and laughs loudly. “Those are things boyfriends know. Not f*ck buddies, not random *s—although, you qualify for the * part too—but boyfriends.”
“Isn’t it time you head back to your room? Isn’t your hand and some lotion waiting for you there?”
“Best offer I’ve had all night,” he says, pushing himself up off the couch, and I laugh when it takes him a moment to steady his feet. “I think I’ll try to enjoy it before I pass the f*ck out …”
“You go do that,” I tell him, slipping my shoes off and turning my feet so I can lift them onto the couch and lie down. “Tell Rosy and Palmela to do you right,” I tease, making the jerking-off motion with my free hand.
“No worries, they never disappoint,” he says and so many comebacks flicker in my mind but are just beyond my drunken haze so I nod my head instead. “You just lie there and enjoy thinking about the sex you have regularly now with the woman you claim isn’t your girlfriend but who really is.” He opens the door. “Catch ya in the morning, boyfriend.”
Asshole is the word that comes to mind but all I say is, “Hmm …” as the door clicks shut and my eyelids begin to feel heavy. I start to doze, my mind on Rylee, wondering if the boys were good during her shift today. If she made it home okay afterwards. Shit! I’m thinking about stuff I normally don’t give a flying f*ck about … stuff a boyfriend would think about.
There’s that f*cking word again.
Thoughts come and go but they’re all focused on the one person I never expected to be thinking about. The damn voodoo she’s grabbed me by the balls with and is now somehow twisting around my hardened heart.
… If you were one of my boys and you wanted to tell me you loved me, or vice versa, you’d say ‘I race you, Rylee’…
The words flicker through my buzzed mind. I try to shake them, try to forget that look in her eyes when she made the statement. Try to focus on the incredible sex we had afterward.
But as I fall asleep on the couch in some overpriced hotel suite in Nashville, my mind should be focused on tomorrow’s negotiations and the upcoming season. I should be dreaming of great sex with a hot blonde.
But I’m not.
I’m thinking of roses and violets, of my girlfriend, and learning that maybe Spiderman and racing off the track just might have a thing or two in common.
The well-loved hotel fight scene in FUELED. What did Colton think when he saw Rylee with Parker in the bar? Was he trying to fix things or looking to make it worse? Why in the hell did he tell her he slept with Tawny? Why did he shut Becks the hell up so the misunderstanding couldn’t be resolved?
Yes, Colton was an ass for kissing that girl so blatantly in front of Rylee earlier in the night, but at the same time I feel for him in this scene. When he stands in front of Rylee and Parker and silently asks her the same thing she asked him about Raquel at the Merit Rum party: choose.
As usual Colton is all over the place mentally and emotionally, but we also see something else here: We see defeat and desperation. Two things that as a reader calls to my sympathy, my compassion, my desire to see them figure it all out … and possibly makes his earlier actions more tolerable.
“I told you, Becks, I’m sick of her shit. I’m not buying the I’m innocent act she pulled in the team meeting.” I glance over to him as we walk down the hallway, enough alcohol humming through my veins for me to speak my mind.
Then again, I don’t need alcohol to do that.
“What the f*ck did Tawny do now?”
“I don’t know, man, but she’s being squirrely and f*ck if I can figure out what she’s up to.”
Sammy snorts behind me and I turn to look at him, figure what the hell he means by it, but he just looks right past me like it’s not his place to say anything. Ha. Like he’s held back before.
Becks catches my eye with his raised brows as we turn a corner because I’m heading in the opposite direction of our wing of rooms for the team. “You can deal with it when we get back home. I need your head focused on the race.”
“No shit, Sherlock.” I shake my head, eyes scanning over all of the places I’ve seen Rylee since she’s arrived. I need to see her, need to set the shit right that I did earlier. My dumb-ass move to kiss bar-girl just to make Rylee jealous, show her that I can have anybody I want.