Page 51 of Eight Steps to Alpha

Colton grinned at her, handed the hostess his jacket, then lowered himself to his seat.

“I’ve never been to a place like this before,” Fe said, taking his lead, and lowering herself to one of the cushions.

“What do you think?” he drawled, handing her one of the menus.

Fe peered around the room, struggling to keep her mouth from falling open. “Honestly, it’s beautiful. I can’t believe I’ve never heard of it.”

He crossed his legs up in his lap and squinted. “You sound surprised.”

“I am. This isn’t want I was expecting.”

“Oh yeah? And what were you expecting?”

She cleared her throat, then pushed her still tangled hair behind her ear. “I don’t know. Elliot doesn’t like sushi, so that part alone surprised the hell out of me.”

“Elliot and I are different.”

She nodded. “You could say that again.”

“Elliot and I are different,” he repeated.

A tiny grin teased at her mouth and she looked down to the table. “Smart ass.”

He laughed then, throwing his head back with the boisterous chuckle. “Now I’m curious,” he said, after the good twenty seconds. “I know Elliot and I are different, but having just met me, what do you see?”

She shook her head. “You’re different in just about every way possible, I think finding similarities would be the easier task.”

He nodded in agreement, but spoke again. “Humor me.”

She frowned, realizing she wasn’t going to get out of this easily. “You do look the same. Or pretty close. I can tell you’re brothers.”

Colton’s brows pinched. “Nah. I’m better looking.”

She grinned. “More humble too.”

He smiled back at her, taking the pint of sake from the center of the table and filling her glass with it. “Maybe, maybe not.”

She took a tiny sip. “Elliot has no clue how good looking he is, you on the other hand…” She looked up at him, taking in the deep brown eyes that stared back at her. “You have brown eyes, and his are blue,” she stated, finally realizing how odd that was..

Colton lifted his own glass, and tilted it toward his lips. “You noticed.”

Her cheeks heated a little, because he was speaking to her in that flirtatious tone again. Her eyes shifted downward as she took another sip. “It’s hard not to.”

He adjusted in his seat, filling his glass for the second time. “That’s what happens when you have different fathers,” he muttered.

It was so low, so quiet, almost as though he hadn’t meant for her to hear it. “What?” Her eyes shot up.

His eyes narrowed, and he leaned back on his elbows. “We have different father’s. Elliot’s never told you that?”

She shook her head. “No. No, he hasn’t.” He hasn’t told me anything.

The server came to take their orders, which was given strictly by Colton, because she couldn’t seem to speak. All she could do was think about the words that had just left Colton’s mouth. “But you have the same last name,” Fe stated as soon as the server left the table.

Colton’s eyes narrowed, obviously wondering why she was so curious. “It’s complicated.”

“Oh?” she asked, not caring for a minute that she was prying. Elliot had always been a mystery to her, and now she was finally getting answers. There was no way she was going to miss this opportunity.

Colton took a deep breath, then another, before finally speaking. “My ma and pa met when they were very young.” He nodded, like this in itself was enough of an answer. “Junior year of high school to be exact.” He wiped over his face, as though realizing just how young that was. Sixteen, maybe Seventeen by the end. “He was the starting pitcher for the Buckeyes, and she was the head cheerleader at their school. They were cute, happy, and inseparable.” He topped off her glass with more sake before speaking again. “They were prom queen and king senior year, voted most likely to get married, and to everyone’s in town they were the perfect couple. Until I entered the picture. I was born just two weeks after graduation.”

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