Tears were streaming down my face and Colton still couldn’t calm down enough to help me explain our inside joke when Tyla finally lifted her hands, and said, “Never mind. I don’t want to know. You and your happy new relationship is making me ill.”
“No, wait.” I dove at her, grabbing her arm. “I’m sorry. We’ll stop. I’ll behave, I swear.”
“Yeah, I won’t touch her for the rest of the night,” Colton promised, right before sending me a big wink and then scooting me off his lap. Then he turned all his attention to Tyla. “This is your night. We’ll do whatever you want to do.”
“Whatever I want?” she asked, her gaze lighting with appreciation as she looked at my man. I began to narrow my eyes, wondering what the heck she was going to suggest he do with her, when she said, “Theo never let me play Super Mario with him.”
Colton’s eyebrows lifted with surprise. “You want to play Super Mario? Hell, I would love to play Super Mario with you. Anyone else in?”
“Ooh, me!” Chad said, immediately rising from his seat and coming closer so he could squeeze onto the couch at the end, next to Sasha. “I’ll play.”
I smiled at them as they began to set up that game.
“I guess I’ll go make another drink for myself,” I announced.
Chad, who’d been sipping from Sasha’s glass, lifted his hand. “Make me one too. This shit rocks, Juli.”
I beamed, proud of my concoction. “You got it.”
“I’ll help you,” Sasha announced as she popped to her feet and followed me into the kitchen, only to yank on my arm as soon as we were alone. “Oh my God, I could just kiss your Colton right now. Did you see the way he totally cheered her up?” She sighed and pressed her hand to her heart. “Girl, if you don’t end up married to that one, I might.”
I snickered and bumped my shoulder against hers, knowing she was joking. “Back off, bitch. He’s mine.”
With a laugh, she helped recreate my masterpiece, but a knock on the front door interrupted us.
“Babe, can you get that?” Chad called. “We just started.”
Sasha’s hands were covered in strawberry guts where she was busy cutting off stems, so I set my hand on her shoulder. “I’ve got it.”
Cracking my neck and once again preparing for a confrontation with Theo, I hurried back into the front room and made sure to cross behind the television so I didn’t block the screen from the three playing Super Mario so intensely on the couch.
When I pulled the door open again, however, I was once again surprised.
The man on the other side of the door spread his arms open wide with a big grin. “Surprise!”
My jaw sagged. “Dad? What…what’re you doing here?”
“What? Like I need a reason to visit my Juli Bug?” He walked past me into the apartment before I could invite him inside, shedding his gloves and trench coat as he went.
I opened my mouth to say something along the lines of not having any warning, but he stopped dead, staring at the sofa where Tyla, Colton, and Chad sat in a line, each of them frantically operating the Nintendo controls in their hands with their gazes fixed on the television. A second later, Colton shouted his triumph as he sprang to his feet, while Chad and Tyla on either side of him cried out their dismay and flung down their controls, disgusted.
Colton was still grinning over his win—or whatever he’d done to best the other two—when he caught sight of me standing slightly behind my father as Dad stood stonily staring at him with his coat folded over one arm.
I could tell the moment Colton realized who he was. His grin faltered and he darted a quick glance at me before pushing another smile onto his face, this one a little bit leery.
“Hey,” he said, sounding completely polite and welcoming.
Dad’s glower intensified before he glanced at me. “Is he the one Shaun told me about, then? The boy you’ve been seeing behind my back?”
“Oh…shit,” I heard Chad’s quiet curse. A second later, he and Tyla scrambled past Colton to escape the room and hustle into the kitchen, making excuses about things they had to do.
Five seconds later, only Colton, my dad and I remained.
Colton made the first move. “Hey, um, hi.” When my father veered his hard stare back to Colton, Colton winced but cleared his throat and kept striding forward. His black and blue eye suddenly stood out horribly. “You must be Juli’s dad. I’m Colton. It’s nice to meet you.” He respectfully held out his hand, but of course, my dad only narrowed his eyes.
Colton slowed to a stop and shifted his attention to me, his gaze clearly asking me what I wanted him to do.
Unable to leave him hanging like that, I moved to his side and took his hand—the same one my father had refused to shake—and squeezed his fingers as we faced my dad together. “I don’t know what Shaun told you, or thinks he knows about me, but yes, this is my boyfriend, Colton. I wasn’t hiding him or doing anything behind your back.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Oh, weren’t you?”
I lifted my chin. “No. I wasn’t.” Okay, maybe just a little, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.