Noah peeked around from behind. “Are your teeth tingling?”
“Everything is tingling.” Colton peeled off the end of the tape and stuck it to the center of Vlad’s undershirt. Then he stretched out a long section and handed the roll to Noah. “Let’s wrap it around a couple of times.”
He realized the guys were all staring at him expectantly, but he shook his head. “I told you guys. I’m not going to kiss and tell.”
“So there is kissing to tell about?” Yan said, his hands now clutched to his heart.
“I’m not answering that.”
An awww rose up from the group, and the razzing was officially on. Yan ran over and ruffled his hair. Gavin hugged him from behind as Del slugged him on the shoulder.
“Look at you, blushing and shit,” Mack said, standing aside with arms crossed.
“So does this mean you got things settled with her?” Gavin said, dropping his hug.
“We’ve made some progress.” Colton continued wrapping duct tape around Vlad.
“Which is a non-answer,” Malcolm said. “You haven’t actually asked her yet, have you?”
Colton feigned ignorance. “Asked her what?”
“To be your girlfriend, slapnuts.” That was from Del.
“How do you ask someone to be your girlfriend at my age?”
“You’ve had girlfriends before, right?” Del snorted.
“Yeah, but things moved naturally. There was never a conversation necessary about whether we were an actual couple or just having some temporary fun.”
“Well, this one is different.” Gavin shrugged.
Yeah, no shit. Yes, they’d shared an incredible night of unmatched passion, but he’d also learned some things that made him more—not less—certain of what she wanted.
“Talk to us, man,” Mack said.
“I met her parents last night.”
Another simultaneous exclamation went up in the room, but Colton paused in his duct-taping to hold up his hands. “It wasn’t like that.” He quickly filled them in about what happened, leaving out the part about her parents nearly walking in on them half-naked in her bedroom. He’d save that memory for himself.
He looked directly at Mack. “Did you know her family treats her like shit?”
“No.” Mack blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I thought they were just superficial assholes with the whole Christmas shit. But it’s worse than that. They treat her like an outcast. Like she’s some kind of traitor for not going into the family business. They actually call her career her little cause. Can you believe that? They don’t see how amazing it is, what she does. They don’t see how amazing she is.”
As he ranted, the guys’ eyebrows rose farther and farther up their foreheads.
“Her brother couldn’t wait to fill me in on all the mistakes she apparently made as a kid. Her father is an overbearing asshole. I swear, I wanted to punch him right in the face. I’ve never felt so, so—” He searched for the right word, and Noah found it for him.
“Protective.”
Colton released his pent-up breath. “Yeah. I wanted to literally pick her up and carry her out of there. I’ve never felt like that before.”
“Like you’d tear the world apart for her?” Gavin asked.
He nodded.
“Like you’d light things on fire for her,” Del said.
“Yes.”
Mack winced and patted him on the shoulder. “Sorry, dude.”
“For what?”
“You’ve got it bad. It only gets more intense from here.”
Colton paused, not sure if he should share the next part, but he also wanted the guys’ perspective. “She, uh, she used to run away a lot.”
Malcolm’s eyebrows drew together. “Run away?”
“She once stole her brother’s car and made it all the way to Michigan.”
“Fuck,” Mack whispered, sitting down on the bed.
“I don’t blame her,” Colton said, ripping off the end of the duct tape. “I’d want to run as far away from them as possible.”
“Yet she’s still in Nashville,” Malcolm mused. “She could’ve moved anywhere she wanted, but she stayed here.”
A female voice called up the stairs. “Are you guys coming down or what?”
Vlad’s eyes got wide. “We gotta move. Elena likes to keep things on schedule.”
Colton nodded. “Let’s get you finished here.”