One
Juno
I’m at the bar, waiting for my strawberry lemonade with vodka, when the guests at the Bailey baby shower start yelling about cars and hospitals and kids.
I look over my shoulder and Colton’s weaving through chairs and tables with a concerned expression. I roll my eyes and turn back around. Thankfully, before Colton reaches me, the bartender hands over my drink. I’m only three sips in before Colton snatches it out of my grasp and tosses the plastic cup in the trash.
“Hey, I paid for that,” I say.
“It’s open bar. Savannah just went into labor.”
“Good to know.” His hand grips my upper arm and I attempt to wrench it back with no success. “Shouldn’t you be with your fiancée?” My tone holds more of a sneer to it than usual.
“She had to go into the office. Mr. Beecher’s dog is in labor.”
I narrow my eyes. “You’re more qualified than her.”
He huffs and leads me out of Denver and Cleo’s airplane hangar, where the triple baby shower is being held because my two sisters and sister-in-law all got pregnant at the same time. And my brother Denver is now engaged, so I have another soon-to-be sister-in-law. Harley, my other sister-in-law, is now pregnant for her fourth time.
“I have a lot of sisters-in-law,” I say. “They can handle it.”
Colton looks at me. “You’ve had more than I thought. I have no idea why you hang around that Trey Galger.” He shakes his head and scowls. Colton rarely scowls.
My heels push into the gravel, my balance wobbly for a minute before I can really anchor down. “Don’t scowl. You smile. That’s why all the ladies love you.” I pat his cheek.
His scowl turns into a smile, but his grip on my arm loosens at the same time.
I feel myself pitch over, my mind spinning. “Oh God, I’m going to be sick.”
Colton has seen me through a lot, and unfortunately, he’s held my hair back so many times that he’s like the MacGyver of keeping me from getting puke in my hair.
“Hold on.” He moves us off the path.
When I see green, all the acid from the lemonade erupts up my throat and I throw up all over a bush.
“You should thank your buddy Trey for all the vodka he fed you today,” he says, his fist holding back my hair.
“Please, just take me home,” I mumble.
My cheek slides and grinds against the glass from the window being raised and lowered. I blink a few times and glance around. Colton’s truck is parked at the curb on Spring Street.
It was touch and go there for a while—I had my head out the window like a panting dog.
“You could have just nudged me awake,” I grumble.
Colton chuckles. “What fun would that be?”
I sigh. I don’t have the energy to roll my eyes.
“Don’t breathe in my direction. Your breath is noxious.” He waves his hand in front of his face, laughs at his own damn joke, and leaves me alone in his truck. I sit in solitude for ten seconds before he springs my door open. “Let’s go, you’re home.”
I step down onto the running board and grab a hold of the stability bar to climb out. “Stop holding me back,” I tell Colton, swatting my arms in the air.
“Jesus, Juno, your seat belt is on.”
I look down and see that he’s right. “Anyone can make that mistake.”
He bends down into the cab of the truck, his neck dangerously close to my lips. I inhale the scent of his soap and a smell that is just Colton. He’s never been big on cologne except that short phase of junior high when he discovered girls. Unfortunately, the smell of men’s Polo cologne will remind me of my first kiss forever.
“Did you just sniff me?” he asks, unclicking the seat belt and releasing the pressure on my chest.
“No.” I shake my head, dodging eye contact. “Come on, Colton, unless you want me to puke in your truck.”
He moves out of my space and I step out. My heel catches something on the sidewalk and my face meets the concrete.
“Oh, you are in rare form tonight.” Colton swoops me up into his arms as though I’m his bride, but I’m not. He has a bride now. Or a bride-to-be at least.
“I always knew you’d make a good husband,” I say, touching his stubbly five o’clock shadow. He leaves the house clean-shaven and returns hours later with scruff most guys try for nowadays. That’s just one of the many things I know about my best friend.
He props me up higher in his arms. “Juno, get your keys out of your purse.”
I open my purse, a little disappointed that he rudely disregarded my compliment. “I don’t see them.” My fingers dig and dig. “Hmm.” I turn the purse upside down and the contents fall all over me.
Colton groans. “Seriously, Juno?”
“How else are we going to know if they’re in there?” I look on my stomach for anything that didn’t fall to the sidewalk and there they are. “Ah ha!” I pick them up as if I found a hundred-dollar bill on the street.
“Now let’s see if you can get it into the lock.”
I lean in close to him. “Are you challenging me, Colton Stone?”
“If it gets the key in the lock and you out of my arms quicker, then yes.”
I frown and turn my attention to the lock. Colton tries to move me when I miss by a millimeter to the right or the left. Eventually the key goes in, I unlock it, and voila, we’re in my apartment building.
He walks up the stairs and he sighs at the second door. “Let’s hope you can go two for two.”
I get the key in the lock on the first try and raise my hands with a smile.
Colton walks into my apartment and immediately disposes of me on the couch. “Sit tight. I’ll be right back.”
He jogs back down the stairs. I kick off my heels and walk into my bedroom to change.
I have my dress half off when Colton walks in. “I told you to sit tight.”
His eyes flare at the sight of my lacy bra. I’m not sure why I wore a nice bra and panty set today, but right now, I’m happy I did. Although over the years, Colton’s seen my much less stellar undergarments.
I struggle for another second with my dress, but the zipper won’t cooperate.
“Come here.” He relents and breaks the distance between us when I continue to get the fabric caught in the zipper.
He’s showing little patience for my antics tonight, and I’m about to remind him of all the times I’ve nursed him back to health. Like that time he decided we should do a bar crawl in Anchorage with his buddy from college. That was a record two-day hangover.
Then his fingers are on my skin and my mind blurs. The softness of his touch and the smell of him so near calms my jittery body. It always does.
It’s one of the reasons I swore we’d never cross that line into a romantic relationship. Why I need him to be in my life forever and not for a brief affair that, if it ends badly, I’ll lose him. But all of that seems so senseless right now. My jealousy of his fiancée feels like a living, breathing thing inside me. I watch him work the zipper, the fabric releases, and I catch his eyes. He holds our eye contact.
I want him. I want him to promise me I won’t die alone. But I don’t want his words—I want his body weighing mine down on the bed. The slow roam of his hands along my body. His smoldering eyes says he’s thinking the same thing. He wants me too.