Chapter 15
SHAY
“Crap.” I duck behind my grocery cart as the Blinker stalks down my row. Thankfully, he finds what he’s after and walks back out the way he came before noticing me. Never again will I trust Lily and her set ups. This guy is awesome. I promise. You’ll really like him.
Running errands for Cruella is more pleasurable than listening to the Blinker last month drone on about his carwash run-in (blink) and the “negligent asshole” (blink) who scratched his precious BMW.
(Blink. Blink. Blink.) I barely refrained from shoving eye drops in his hand as I lied about needing to get home early…
So I could reread Kolton’s texts.
The Blinker must have thought I was nuts, smiling like a loon after I returned from the bathroom.
Why, two months after the fact, Kolton decided to reach out, I have no idea.
And the timing of it? While I was on my first date since Aspen?
It was like he knew I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Still, stubborn as always, I wasn’t ready to give up on my dating quest.
I should have.
The dude who chewed cinnamon gum (who chews cinnamon gum?) and the Suit who looked way too Richard for my liking had me ready to join a convent.
Last night’s guy was the worst.
He was funny and cute with no serial-killer tendencies, but his eyes were too blue, his opinions too agreeable. He wasn’t Kolton.
I kicked myself (literally) the second I realized how messed up that was. My date, David, asked if I was okay as I winced and rubbed my ankle. My honest reply slipped out before I could stop it. “No. I am not okay.”
For the next twenty minutes, he checked his watch a dozen times, and then we left early.
Not that I blame him. I blame Kolton.
Kolton and his perfect hair and full lips and obnoxious attitude, and the cute texts he’s continued to send me.
Kolton, the Asshole, who’s coming to Toronto. He hasn’t mentioned seeing me, and I’ve avoided the subject, too. We joke. We tease. But, for some reason, over the past three weeks, neither of us has taken a step forward.
At least something’s buzzing at Concept, enough whispers and excitement circulating in our small design firm of four to keep my mind off Kolton, my crappy dates, and my housing dilemma.
I’ve earned some killer commission during my extra shifts at Sass and Style, but I’m still short on cash.
With my court date approaching, that leaves me three weeks before I’m lounging on the street, cup in hand, a cardboard sign reading Too Ugly to Prostitute.
Maybe whatever’s brewing at Concept is big enough that I’ll get to show off my skill, something to catapult me from unpaid intern to associate designer.
Secret meetings have abounded the past few days, talk of some amazing account about to be signed.
Maeve has been barkier than usual, earning her Cruella nickname, her clipped tone sending me off this morning for raw cane sugar and gluten-free cookies.
God forbid white sugar or flour should touch the tongue of an important client.
I’m at the cash register, sifting through my purse to extricate my wallet, when I hear, “Shay?”
The hairs on my neck stand at attention, that voice flowing through me like molten lava.
Kolton.
I whip my head up and, oh my God, it’s him. Here. In this store. Right now. Staring at me. He opens his mouth, closes it, then he steps closer, but there’s an elderly lady behind me putting her groceries on the conveyer belt.
One. Item. At a time.
“Shay,” he says again, a statement now. The syllable rolls off his tongue seductively, like we’re back in Aspen—on that chair, in the snow, kissing in the bar.
No two-hundred-year-old lady between us.
He looks the same, maybe better. His worn jeans hug his hips, his just-tight-enough blue T-shirt showing off the chest I never got to see. His dark eyes are warmer, his shoulders thicker. I want to reach around Granny and pull the elastic from his hair to check if it has grown.
“Kolton,” I whisper as the cashier asks something about cash or credit.
How perfect to meet him here, fate intervening on my behalf. After my string of bad dates, Kolton constantly lurking in the back of my mind and on my phone, this suddenly feels right. Destined. The beginning of something more mature between us.
Three months ago, I wasn’t ready for our chemistry. My life isn’t exactly where I planned now, but my emotions feel more even keeled. Steady and less volatile.
Smiling, I push my loose curls over my shoulder, pleased I wore my best red blouse and gray skirt for today’s big meeting.
I’m about to admit how great it is to see him when a kid with the same brown eyes as Kolton, and the same sandy hair, tugs on his hand. “Daddy, you won’t believe it. You won’t. They have an urban dictionary.”
I stand, frozen, my smile slipping, as the boy waves the book in Kolton’s face.
“And,” the kid goes on, “it says right here an F-bomb isn’t a bomb at all.
It means fuck. But that F isn’t in the big Bri-ta-nni-ca book.
Can we get it? Please? I need it so bad.
” Then he pushes his glasses up his nose, turns to Granny between us, and hollers, “Did you know an F-bomb wasn’t a bomb? ”
I want to laugh at this crazy kid and the old lady whose eyes are the size of saucers, but the young boy said “Daddy” while tugging Kolton’s hand. Daddy.
The butterflies that swarmed when I first saw him rush out at once, leaving me nauseous.
Kolton has a child? Like, an actual kid with his DNA?
Not knowing this massive detail about him is more than shocking.
My vision swims and my lungs pump too fast. Does this mean he has a family?
A wife he goes home to? Every phone call he ran to grab while in Aspen had “I’m married” written all over it.
Except, a kid doesn’t mean marriage. I may barely know Kolton, but I can’t imagine him being a cheater.
Still, I feel so blindsided my hands shake.
“Credit card.” I turn to the cashier. “Credit card, okay? So type as fast as you can in that machine of yours. I’m in a rush.”
I bounce my knee as I dirty-look Cashier Boy for no good reason, until he finally instructs me to insert my card into the machine. Then I wait and wait and freaking wait for the minicomputer to ask me for my PIN.
“Shay.” Kolton’s voice slices through me as I tap the side of the stupid piece of metal.
I don’t turn. I feel like I want to cry. I still don’t understand why, but I will not lose my composure in front of Kolton again. God, what is wrong with me?
“Did you stick it in?” Cashier Boy asks.
I glare at him. “Yes. I stuck it in.”
“Stick it in harder.”
Kolton laughs, his deep rumble curling around me. “Go ahead,” the Asshole says. “Stick it in harder.”
I swivel, ready to tell him exactly where I’m going to stick something harder, when I remember his son—Kolton’s mini-me—who’s watching our interaction with wide eyes. I clamp my mouth shut and slam the heel of my hand against the card. The terminal wakes up.
PIN in, receipt given, and I’m about to bolt when Kolton says, “Come on, Shay. We didn’t talk about life stuff in Aspen. Just wait, okay? Let me explain.”
The truth in his words stops me. Every time talk between us veered toward my romantic past or my stalled career, I changed the topic.
I didn’t ask about his “important” calls.
He didn’t offer personal information, either.
He’s probably divorced or had a surprise pregnancy with a former girlfriend.
We were clearly both relishing the break from real life and our own drama, but this curveball is unexpected.
I feel duped when he’s done no such thing.
“Shay,” he says again, softer this time.
My name on his lips keeps me rooted. Unable to resist another glance at him, I turn.
And blink.
A hot pinup woman puts her hand on Kolton’s shoulder and says something I can’t hear. He smiles in return. I glance from her to him and back again. No family resemblance. She has flawless skin, pink hair, vibrant tattoos snaking down her arms, and blue eyes.
She’s breathtaking, which maybe accounts for the loss of air in my lungs, but not the sudden burn behind my eyes.
I’m sure there’s another explanation here. She’s a friend or his ex or a sex-buddy who believes in open relationships. Something will justify his recent texts, which leaned toward flirtatious, and what I’m seeing now. But my intense reaction isn’t good.
I shouldn’t feel this much irrational jealousy over a man I hardly know.
A man with a son. Just like I shouldn’t have cried on his shoulder after the first time we had sex.
Nothing with Kolton is ever easy, my emotions often haywire around him, and that should tell me all I need to know about any future for us.
Frazzled, I spin and strut away, as Kolton calls, “Wait! Shay, can we please talk?”
Hard nope to that.
Since he’s blocked by the three-thousand-year-old lady, I’m able to get in my car and speed off to work without facing him. Thank God we have that big meeting this morning. Anything to help me forget how much of a mess I am around this guy.