COLTON

WEEKS WENT BY WITHOUT a single word from Alex. Not a call. Not a text. Radio silence. I’d even been dodging calls from my parents because no part of me wanted to know what was going on with her and Dean. Our lives were so intertwined that there would be no way around it. Avoid. Avoid. Avoid, was the name of my game.

School and ball were my go to excuses and a welcome distraction from my thoughts, which never drifted very far from Allie. Her dark hair splayed across my pillow. The scent of her shampoo embedded in my sheets. Her smile. Her laughter. Hell, I even missed her bitching and whining. My life was empty without her in it. It was a sad existence, and I needed to snap out of it. That’s why after nearly a month of sitting around waiting for her to realize she’d made a huge mistake I was throwing in the towel. There was a life for me out there that didn’t involve Alexis Mack, and it was high time I went out and found it.

“Colton?” Finley shrieked when I descended the stairs dressed in clothes that didn’t consist of cotton and mesh. He rubbed his fists into his eyes dramatically. “Are those...dare I say it, jeans?”

“And buttons,” Blex added, slapping his hand on the front of my shirt. “I do believe he’s risen, Finley, my man.”

“Praise God, Allah, Buddha, and all the other saints.” Finley steepled his hands in front of his chest, taking a dramatic bow.

“Gods,” I corrected, rolling my eyes.

“I said God first, numb nut.”

“They’re all gods, idiot,” Blex corrected, hooting with laughter.

Finn scrunched his face in disgust as he slid his foot into his shoe. “You two can go right ahead and laugh your way straight to hell.” He rolled his eyes upward to make eye contact with us towering over his hunched form. “There is only one God. It’s like the deadliest of sins to believe in others.”

Blex and I looked at each other briefly before bursting into hysterics. “Fuck, Finn. Your dumb ass makes getting out of bed worth it.”

“I try,” he muttered, rising from the couch and stomping his feet a few times to make his pants fall over the tops of his shoes.

“No, you don’t. That’s the best fucking part,” Blex added on our way out the door.

Thursday night was ladies’ night, and the club was jam-packed with, you guessed it, ladies. Normally, I felt right at home in a sea full of women, but since sex with Alex, I felt guilty even glancing their way. Which was stupid. We were not together.

“See anyone you like?” Finn asked, saddling up next to me at the bar. “I think I want that one.” His finger pointed toward the dance floor to a redhead with huge tits and a big ass, both spilling out of her barely-there outfit.

“Nah, you go ahead. I’m gonna sit here and have a drink.”

“Good idea,” he said, passing his card to the bartender. “Beer goggles first, then they’ll all start to look like Alex.” He did the little finger snap point as he rose from his seat. “I like it, Fowls.”

Finley had no clue how the mere mention of her name sent my heart racing. How much of a chore it was to simply draw air when she was occupying my thoughts. That’s why when he slapped me on the back, tapping the neck of his Bud Light to mine, before hauling off to secure his woman of the night, I didn’t punch him in his fucking face for bringing her up.

I spent the next hour stewing in memories of the girl I’d come here to forget, losing count of how many drinks I put down. Always hoping that the next would be the one to wipe my brain clean.

“Hey there, sad and lonely...Is this seat taken?”

My eyes drifted from the label I’d been picking at to the direction of the voice to find tits. Tits as far as the eye could see. I’m sure there was a nice face attached somewhere, but right in my line of vision was an enormous pair of chesticles. “That is an amazing rack,” I muttered, appreciating God’s work of art, or maybe it was a surgeon’s doing. These days it was hard to tell. Whatever the case, I admired them all equally.

“Why, thank you...I’ll take that as an invitation.”

I thought I’d said that low enough so only I could hear, but apparently, I’d just given this fine woman a compliment without even trying. Maybe I hadn’t lost my touch after all. “Go right ahead, gorgeous.” And she was...gorgeous, that is. Sky blue eyes and long black hair. I wasn’t even sure she was human. It was quite possible I dreamed her up. Apparently, I was good at that...imagining things that weren’t real. Like I’d imagined the earth-shattering connection between Alex and myself.

“So, what’s a fine man like yourself doing drowning in a bottle all alone tonight, huh?”

I shrugged. “Drinking to forget.” With a wink, I tipped the top of my bottle to her procured glass. “Shooting for beer goggles. You?”

She pulled her lower lip between her teeth, biting down. “Gosh, you’re a cutie—” She paused, waiting for my name.

“Colton,” I offered, filling in the blank.

“It’s nice to meet you, Colton. I’m Coco.”

“My pleasure.” After another long pull from my beer, I realized she hadn’t answered the question. “What’s a beautiful woman with bazoombas like that doing all alone at the bar tonight?” Her face flushed with a shy smile. And I was worried about my game? I was killing it tonight.

“I’m on the prowl, honey.” Well, all right then.

“For?”

Coco took a sip from her cocktail. “Funnily enough...beer goggles.”

I was convinced that it was a stroke of fate that her tits showed up in my face when they did, delivering the antidote to my problem. Beer to numb the pain and breasts big enough to make you forget your name. Allie who? Okay, so obviously I hadn’t forgotten her, but I was having a good time, and that was something.

After a few more drinks and lots of chatter, Coco and I were becoming fast friends. I felt comfortable enough to ask the question that had been weighing heavily on my mind since her arrival. “Can I ask you a personal question, Coco?”

“Go for it.”

“Who gets credit for the tatas?” I asked, sizing them up with my hands in the air.

A loud laugh boomed from her chest. The deep, rich sound threw me for a moment. “One hundred percent credit goes to my surgeon.”

“Well, the next time you see him, you can tell him your new friend, Colton, approves of his work. And that’s a high compliment. I’m sort of a connoisseur of tits.”

The apples of her cheeks turned a deep crimson. “You wanna feel?”

Did I wanna—? Was this chick for real? “You sure?” I asked, stupefied.

“Sure, why not. Knock yourself out, cutie.”

It started out lightly with a little poke, and before I knew it, there was groping and boob shots, and we’d gained a small audience. It was the best night ever. Or, at least that I could remember because my memory was blessedly a blur. Beer goggles accomplished.

“For fuck’s sake,” I heard Blex growl as I was yanked from my stool by the back of my shirt and dragged out of the club.

“What the hell?” I shouted, fixing my shirt. “Why’d you do that?”

It took a minute for me to focus enough to realize that Blex and Finn were about to piss themselves laughing. “What’s so funny?”

“She’s a dude,” Blex said, enunciating each word as soon as his obscene laughter permitted it.

“Huh? Who’s a dude?”

“Your new buddy in there,” Finn supplied, guffawing on the side of me.

Nooo. “No way,” I challenged, deep in denial. So, her laugh was a little deep...that didn’t mean—

“She had an Adam’s apple and feet the size of a small country,” Finn mused.

Bile churned in my stomach, burning its way up the back of my throat. “Why’d you assholes let me play with man titties?” I shouted, on the verge of losing the buzz I’d worked so hard to achieve all over the parking lot.

Blex shrugged. “You were having a good time. I didn’t see any harm in it.” A shit-eating grin crept across his face. “Well, until you started getting frisky with the man’s jugs.” He spit out another laugh.

“Does licking another man’s nipple make you gay?” Finn asked, his face suddenly super serious. “Asking for a friend,” he added, holding his palms out before his composure cracked and the hysterics resumed.

I was never speaking to either of them again.