Our Song (12 page)

Chapter 17

“So, he just
bolted
?” Skylar asked with wide eyes as she scooped some vanilla fro-yo into a sundae glass.

“Pretty much. I mean, don’t get me wrong. It worked out for the best, because I had that shoot with the people from
Cosmo
today, anyway,” I replied.

“Which I’m sure was probably awesome, but still. You have every right to be disappointed about Colton just leaving like that.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I think it was mostly just that it was weird how it happened, you know? It was so out of nowhere. Once he got off the phone, it seemed like he was really upset for some reason. He told me we had to come back here so he could get his car and go. He didn’t really say much of anything on the walk back, and then he was gone without more than a goodbye.” I let out a sigh. “I think he’s probably just dating someone.”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t think that’s it.”

“Really?” I raised my eyebrows. “You don’t think he’s just a manwhore?”

“Well, I’m sure he probably is a manwhore. He
is
Colton King, after all…but I don’t think a girlfriend is the one who’s calling. If she is, things clearly aren’t going well, and in that case, he has no real reason to answer or rush to leave at her beck and call, you know? He’d probably just ignore her call.”

“I guess you’re right,” I replied, even though I wasn’t entirely convinced. “Who else could it be, though?”

“Do you know anything about his family?” she questioned as she sprayed some whipped cream onto her frozen yogurt.

Just that someone in his family was an alcoholic. But I wasn’t about to tell
her
that. Skylar was my best friend and I knew that, regardless of what had happened in Nashville, I could trust her with anything, but this felt like something that just needed to stay between Colton and I.  

“Not really,” I lied.

“Maybe he’s just a mama’s boy and goes running any time she calls him to open a jar of pickles for her,” she suggested. “Or maybe there was some type of family emergency he doesn’t want to talk about. You never know.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” I sighed. “This is why I don’t date. I
hate
dating.”

Her lips curved into an amused smile. “Hmm.”

“What are you ‘hmming’ about?” I narrowed my eyes at her.

“Oh, I don’t know. Suddenly, you’re talking about dating the guy. What happened to not mixing business and pleasure, Miss I Have Willpower?”

“My idea of not mixing business and pleasure sounds great in theory, but come on…let’s be real. This is
Colton King
. It’s impossible for any girl to work with him and sleep in the same bed with him on more than one occasion and not want
something
more.”

Skylar laughed. “You’re lucky we didn’t
actually
bet on this, because you would’ve been out of money.”

She was right. I
so
would’ve lost. And while I didn’t actually care about losing money, I did care about losing a bet. I had way too much pride for that.

“Do you want any of this?” she asked, motioning to the frozen yogurt container.

I shook my head. “No, I need to start working on burning off all of this junk food I’ve been eating lately. My trainer is going to be pissed once he finds out that I’ve gained
three
pounds this week.”

If those girls thought I was chunky before, I didn’t even want to know what they would think if they saw me
now
. I knew that three pounds was hardly anything in the long run, but it felt like I was sporting a small baby bump.

Was
I sporting a baby bump?

Crap.

That thought hadn’t even occurred to me. I didn’t know much about the whole pregnancy thing. I didn’t think it was possible to start showing
that
fast, but I realized that I should probably take a test. Even though
I
always used protection, it was another one of those cases of what would my drunken vajayjay do.

So, an STD test and pregnancy test both needed to be on my to-do list. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and texted Natalie.

Can you schedule an appointment with the gyno for me? I’ll take the earliest appointment they have available.

Her text message bleeped on my cell phone a moment later.
Yeah, no problem. I’ll do that first thing tomorrow morning.

Thanks
, I wrote back, breathing a huge sigh of relief. I didn’t think my assistant would question it, but still. The last thing I needed were her questions, especially since she knew what had gone down between Colton and I.

“So, what’s on the agenda for tonight?” Skylar asked as she dug into her frozen yogurt.

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“A
Gilmore Girls
marathon on Netflix and fro-yo night it is, then,” she decided for us. “By the way, you’ll be happy to know that I can start paying you back soon. I got a job.”

“Where?” I asked.

“That little fruit smoothies shop down the street. Fruit Fusions.”

“That’s exciting. When do you start?”

“Tomorrow. I’m not sure how it’s going to go. I have
no
idea how to work a blender, but I’m a smoothies maker.” She shrugged. “Whatever. Money is money, right?”

“It sure is.” And if this album with Colton didn’t help revive my career, it was something I was going to be short on.

As we sat down in the living room and Skylar turned on Netflix, I grabbed my cell phone. I wasn’t sure why, but I had this sudden urge to read celebrity gossip. More specifically, I had the sudden urge to read about
Colton
.

Apparently, I was already beginning to obsess over him. Ugh. But it wasn’t
my
fault. He was the one who mysteriously took off without telling me where he was going. Not that he owed me an explanation, but you know.

Once one of the most trustworthy celebrity gossip blogs loaded, I scrolled through the recent posts.

I was about halfway down the list of today’s posts when I noticed Colton’s name. I glanced down at the timestamp on the post.

5 hours ago.

Colton King Spotted with Tessa DeLong!

I swallowed hard as I stared at the picture of him hugging Tessa, this pop singer who I sort of hated.

Well, okay, it wasn’t that I
hated
her, especially not now that I knew what a douchebag Jake was. It probably wasn’t her fault. But she’d tried to “meet him for coffee” (AKA screw him) when he and I first started seeing each other. Now I knew that he’d probably just told her he was single when he really wasn’t, but...still.

If Colton had to be dating
anyone
, did it really have to be Tessa freaking DeLong?

Plus, now I knew that Skylar was wrong. The reason Colton had bolted on me was clearly was for another girl. And even though I knew there was technically nothing really going on between the two of us, it still stung.

Chapter 18

An impatient knock on my front door dug me out of my deep sleep.

I sat up quickly and took in the scene around me.

No.
This wasn’t happening.

Cartoons were playing on the TV and empty bowls littered the coffee table after my night of endless, emotion-driven snacking.

I hadn’t bothered to go to bed early because Colton had never gotten in touch with me to tell me if we were still on for this morning’s writing session. I’d apparently dozed off sometime during
George Lopez
. I hadn’t even showered since… If I wasn’t sure how long it had been, it had definitely been
too
long.

I started to panic. I was
not
good under pressure and I didn’t want to let him see me this way.

If I hid out under the coffee table, would he give up and go away? Not likely. He was
still
knocking incessantly.

I jumped to my feet to run my dishes over to the kitchen sink. I needed to do something about my hair. And my clothes, which I was pretty sure were the same pair he’d seen me in last. Yuck.

I jogged to the bathroom and hopped into the shower, peeling my clothes off and flinging them to the floor while attempting to drench my hair at the same time. Skipping the shampoo and soap, I turned the water off and climbed back out.

I wrapped a navy blue towel around me and walked calmly (or, rather,
pretended
to walk calmly) to the front door, hoping my heart rate would slow down by the time I reached it.

Taking a deep breath, I pulled it open.

Colton’s lips immediately twisted into a grin. “I woke you up, didn’t I?”

“Look at me. See the wet hair? I was clearly in the shower.”

He looked me up and down. “Uh huh.”

“I
was
,” I insisted. I was standing there in nothing more than a towel and he doubted my story? Really?

“I
believe
you. Can I come in?” he asked when he noticed I hadn’t stepped out of the way for him.

“Can’t you come back later?”

He gestured with the carton of two drinks he held in his hand. “Coffee will be cold if I do that.”

“But I’m in my towel.”

His eyes roamed down my body. “I can see that.”

“We can add ice cubes later. Who doesn’t like iced coffee? So you should really think about coming back later.”

“I’ve already seen you in your towel, so you should probably let me in so you can shut the door. Unless you
want
to stand here arguing with me in the doorway, giving whoever could happen to pass by a show.” He held up his hands the best he could to form a camera clicking motion, and even added in the shutter sound.

Okay, okay. I got the point.

The hallway was empty and the front desk would hear an earful from me if the paparazzi were to ever end up outside my apartment, but I knew they were pretty good about keeping unwanted people out. Though, I hadn’t even
met
any of my neighbors so I couldn’t say if they were the type to go try to sell Viola Pierce photos.

“I wouldn’t be giving anyone a
show
. I
do
have a towel on,” I pointed out.

“That’s what I’ve been saying. It’s completely not interesting, you being in a towel and all.”

I sighed, turning away from the door and heading to take a
real
shower. “I guess you can come in.” Asking him to come back later would’ve been completely rude of me.

“I can see that you woke up on the bright and cheery side of the bed this morning,” he said, closing the door behind him.

“You’re very familiar with that side of your own bed.”

He chuckled. “I’m in a
good
mood. One of us has to be, I guess.”

I wrinkled my nose at him, shaking my head while I mouthed, “Yeah, probably because you spent all night sucking face, or other body parts, with Tessa.”

I didn’t say it loud enough for him to hear me, of course. I probably would’ve died right then and there if he did.

“Are you mocking me? I can see you shaking your head,” he said.

“I have water in my ear,” I lied.

“And you remedy that by talking to yourself?” he asked.

I whirled around, officially caught in the act, to look at him. He pointed down the hallway. I followed his finger.

Damn you, Viola Pierce, for putting a mirror at the end of the hallway to ‘make it look bigger.’
Seriously
, like this place wasn’t big enough to begin with?

“It works
wonders.
You should try it next time something annoying gets in
your
ear.”

I walked confidently to the bathroom, hoping that a full blush hadn’t risen to my cheeks, because he’d see it, in the mirror that I’d completely forgotten about. I sucked.

Closing the bathroom door behind me, I headed straight over to the shower to wash away my embarrassment.

As I stood under the hot water, letting my conditioner sit in, I heard the door open.

“Male is entering the bathroom.”

My eyes flew open. Oh, no, he didn’t.

“I thought I locked that door,” I said, poking my head out from behind the shower curtain.

He had his hand covering his eyes. “Don’t worry, that purple shower curtain is too dark to see anything through.”

I rolled my eyes. “What did you want?”

He held up my phone with his other hand. “This keeps going off.”

I glanced at the screen to see that Nat was calling. “So? It’s a phone. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but that’s what its job is.”

“I
know
that. But I thought these particular calls were important.”

“They are. You can just leave it on the sink. Thanks,” I said, poking my head back in so I could finish my shower in peace.

When I didn’t hear the door open, I peeked out again.

He was leaning against the bathroom sink and when he saw the curtain moving, his bright blue eyes met mine.

Holy hell, did he
want
me to slip and crack my head open? Because it could’ve been a real possibility. Those eyes and a conditioner-coated shower floor were a lethal combination.

I allowed my gaze to drift down his body. Wait a minute. That was
my
phone he was holding.

“Are you going through my phone?!” I squeaked.

He held it up for me to see my pink glittery phone cover, proving it was, in fact, my phone. He glanced back down and went back to whatever he was doing with it. “Yeah, I am.”

I felt my jaw dropping. In what world did he think it was okay to go through my phone? And for him to act all cool as a cucumber over it?

“Give it to me!” I hissed at him.

“Sure.” He shrugged. “Just let me finish putting my number into it.”

So he
wasn’t
going through my messages or anything like that? I mean, it still
wasn’t okay that he didn’t even ask to see my phone, but it was less obnoxious of him.

“Your phone number?” I asked dumbly.

He nodded. “Yeah, I figured it’s about time we swapped digits with each other. Makes getting in touch easier. You know, so I can wake you up without pounding on the door
and interrupting your so-called shower.”

I ignored his comment. “That’s nice of you and all, but you
do
realize it’s an invasion of my privacy, right?”

“I
do
. But I think taking pictures of people’s asses without their knowledge is also an invasion of privacy. I’d say we’re even.”

He turned the phone around so I could see the picture on the screen. The picture I’d taken while drunk at the bar of his fully clothed butt. The one I hadn’t wanted him to see.

I glared at him, knowing full well I’d gotten myself into this. Why hadn’t I just deleted that picture? Or better yet, not taken it at all? I could feel my cheeks getting red.

He set my phone down, grinning like crazy. “It’s cute, isn’t it?” he asked, turning around and wiggling it for me.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, too bad the person it’s attached to is cocky as hell.”

He leaned back against the sink. “I think, to make things even, I get to have a picture of
your
butt on my cell phone.”

Ha, ha.

“Not going to happen,” I promised him.

He shrugged. “You’ll cave.”

“I didn’t invite you to stay in here and watch me shower,” I told him grumpily.

“I know, but
I
came here to work, so that’s what I’m doing. If you’d like to join me, that would be nice. I have the first part of our next song.”

I raised an eyebrow. He worked fast. “What is it? Wait, no. Can’t it wait until I’m dressed and in my office?”

“It’s really important,” he told me with a serious look in his eyes. “You take
looong
showers. What if I forget it by the time you get yourself squeaky clean? And I
can’t
forget it. This is your career we’re talking about here.”

“Okay, let’s hear it,” I told him.

He took a deep breath and waved a hand in front of his face, changing his expression to an ultra-serious one.

He started belting out, in a tune that should’ve been accompanied by a banjo, “There’s a girl, in a towel, and I’m a little impatient right now, and she’s a little cranky ‘cause I woke her up and she’s trying to swirl herself down the drain now.” He stopped singing and said, “That’s the only reason you could be taking
this
long.”

What could I throw at him? I eyed my expensive bottles of shampoo and conditioner.

No. What if his big, egotistical head broke the plastic cap? That would just be annoying for all of my future showers.

Instead, I reached for the blue loofah that rested on the shower caddy. I flung it at him, grinning when it hit his face with a satisfying
smack
. It bounced off of him, landing somewhere on the floor.

“Yech,” he said, tilting his head forward to shake the water droplets off. “Cold, cold, cold.”

“You’re like a Saint Bernard,” I commented.

He shot me a playful pouty look. “That was cruel.”

“Okay, you’re right. They drool a lot and I don’t
think
you do. A German Shepherd?”

He bent down to pick up my loofah.

“Drop it. Drop it right now if you want to live.”

He gasped. “You threatened my
life.
That’s some serious business.”

Smack.
He tossed the loofah into
my
face.

I scoffed. “So serious that you don’t take me seriously.”

“Death isn’t really a joking matter,” he said quietly, his light blue eyes clouding over.

“You’re right. It’s not. I’m sorry,” I said, my mom’s face flashing through my mind. As I rinsed the soap off my face, I added, “Now would you please give me some privacy?”

He shook his head and took a seat on the toilet. “Nope.”

I groaned. “
Really?
If this is just your way of trying to get that picture of my ass onto your phone, you’re going to be waiting forever. I’ll stay in here all day if I have to.”

Laughing, he rose to his feet. “I’m kidding. I’ll wait for you in your office.”

As he left the bathroom and closed the door behind him, I wished that I really
could
swirl myself down the drain.