At Whit's End (Wells Ranch, #4)(63)

“Oh, God. I told you not to make it weird.”

I cackle. It’s horrendous. Similar to a family of seagulls battling over a stray French fry. I chalk it up to being tired. “Weird is what I do.”

She puts her hands against my chest, walking me backward toward the door. “Yeah, I think we’re done here. No need to talk.”

“No way.” I flip the door lock and grin.

In one simple motion, I’m scooping Whit into my arms and carrying her to bed. The sound of her laughter fills the house, and possibly the entire neighborhood. But when we crash onto the mattress, neither of us fight it. I curl around her, slipping a hand under her shirt to feel her warm, soft belly against my palm. And she intertwines my other hand with hers, tucking them both under her head. It’s where we fall asleep for what I hope is the first night of forever.





Whit


Sunlight forces its way into my bedroom around haphazardly closed curtains. I groan, driving my fingers into my temples. There’s a hammering in my skull. Somebody give me a lobotomy.

My hand skims across the warm sheets to the other side of the bed, hoping to find the sleeping form of a man. I know I told Colt I didn’t know if this would work, and to be honest, I still don’t think we can ever be a couple. I’ll give up my selfish desire to have a man who looks at me the way Colt does with those sharp blue eyes—for Jonas’s sake, and for Colt’s, too. But that hard line can be drawn after the fog from last night finally lifts.

Except he’s not here. I blink at the empty space.

Lugging my heavy, aching, too-old-for-this-shit body out of bed, I aggressively rub the drool from the corner of my lips and shuffle to the bathroom for a quick splash of cold water on my face. It takes two rounds of teeth brushing to rid my mouth of the disgusting mixture of old alcohol and morning breath. Then I grab my toothpaste and a spare toothbrush from the cabinet and head downstairs.

At the sound of my footfall, Colt looks up from his phone. “Morning, birthday girl.”

Naturally, he’s effortlessly sexy first thing in the morning. Leaning against the kitchen counter like he’s posed for a photo shoot. His hair’s a tangled mess, sticking up in a few spots, and his shirt’s completely wrinkled, but it works for him.

Meanwhile, I look as if my birthday celebrations included getting run over by a truck.

“Not my birthday anymore. I’m now firmly in my thirties,” I mumble, homing in on the steaming to-go cup on the counter. Every step hurts my head, so I move slowly, and Colt beats me to it. By the time I’ve shuffled into the small space, slapping his teeth-cleaning essentials down on the counter, he’s thrusting the cardboard cup at me.

I shakily accept the drink and unapologetically moan at the dark roast splashing across my tongue. “How do you know how I like my coffee?”

I’m white-knuckling that baby for the short walk over to the table, where I only let go so I can go back to cradling my head in my hands. Something about a hangover really makes you aware of how heavy your own skull is. And somehow we carry it around all day without issue normally.

Colt brushes his teeth at the kitchen sink, and a few minutes later slides a plate-sized cinnamon bun in front of me before sitting across from me. “You told me once.”

“And you remembered?”

“Of course I did.” He swirls a plastic straw around in the blended frappe that’s more dessert than coffee.

I stare down at the table. “And you got us breakfast?”

“I’m used to waking up early, so I walked over to Anette’s. How are you not six hundred pounds living so close to that place?”

“I have impeccable self-control.”

He smirks. “Right.”

“So…”

“So.” Colt pulls his straw to his lips, studying me.

“Last night…”

“Last night.” His tone is saturated in suggestive undertones.

“Are you going to repeat back everything I say?”

“Depends.” He chews a piece of cinnamon roll. “Are you going to finish your thought so I can reply to it?”

This requires more caffeine first. So I do that. I savor my coffee and devour my cinnamon roll while the thought I’ve left unfinished mulls over.

“Last night was really fun,” I say. “And we decided we were going to talk after we got some sleep, right?”

“Are you sure you want to talk about it right now? You look a little…”

“Like I was run over by a truck? Feels that way, too. Or like I was picked up and thrown around by a tornado a few times.”

“Looking at your hair, the tornado makes more sense.”

Cool. Let me shrivel up and die now.

“Sorry we can’t all wake up looking like we’re heading to a sexy bedhead competition.”

He smooths a hand over his hair. “Do those exist?”

“Well, this chat has made me realize we actually don’t need to talk about anything, because there’s no way you’d want to be anything more than friends after seeing me like this.”

He pushes away from the table and saunters over to sit beside me. I flinch when he grabs my chair and spins it, letting the feet scrape across the floor. We’re knee to knee, and he leans forward so his forearms come to rest on his thighs. Expansive blue eyes tug at my soul and heat my veins.