Page 75 of Things Left Unsaid

“Hey.” He glances around the place, absorbing the details in a nanosecond before beaming a smile at Tee and Parker.

That smile…

The rare one that’s never captured on camera.

It’s bad that it makes my heart hurt, isn’t it?

Heading for the computer, he looms over the screen. “I’m Colt. I hear you want to vet me.”

“I’m Parker. I know a lawyer and a lot of bad people who’ll gladly murder someone if I ask them to?—”

“Parker!”

Tee hoots.

Colt’s smile deepens. “I’m glad that Zee has someone looking out for her.”

“She does,” Parker warns. “But Tee was right. You’re a nine. She also tells me you’re going to have a baby with our girl?”

“You told them everything?”

“They’re my best friends,” I mutter awkwardly, spying a pair of panties that, of course, are in his line of sight. Snagging them, flustered, I shove them in my pocket. “I’d go nuts if I didn’t loop them in.”

“Plus, babies are kind of hard to hide.” Leaning against the kitchen counter, Tee eyes him. “So, Mr. Korhonen, you’ve come to whisk my sister away.”

“I have,” he intones, not glumly like he’s getting a raw deal but as if he knows how important the words are to her. “And it’s Colton. Or Colt.”

Tee sniffs. “When will the movers show up?”

He checks his phone. “On their last update, they said they were a half-hour’s drive away. So, they’re due any time. Are you mostly done packing?”

“These are the last ones.” I point to two boxes. “I need to seal them.”

“Is this everything?” he asks.

The collection of items I’ve gathered during my years in New York City is meager.

“It’s not like I’m rich or have an abundant amount of space on my hands,” I bite off, aware I sound defensive.

“Take a chill pill, Zee,” Parker advises.

Tee slings her arm around my shoulder. “What you don’t know, Parker, is this is a rags to riches kinda story. The Korhonen house is fancy as fuck. ThinkDownton Abbeybut on the prairie.”

Colt laughs. “That’s one way of describing it. Badly.” But he winks at Parker and, of course, totally charms her.

She even blushes.

My girl who splits her time being a VP’s Old Lady in Coshocton and living with an MC Prez and his First Lady in West Orange… She. Blushes.

When the buzzer sounds, Colt warns, “That’s probably the movers.”

“Crap,” I mumble as I scurry around, collecting stray trinkets and dumping them into the two open boxes.

Colt deals with the moving company and leaves me with the task of making sure I haven’t forgotten anything too big for the suitcases I’ll be traveling with.

Ninety minutes later, my room is empty and the apartment is bare of my belongings.

Sinking onto the sofa, tears prick my eyes at the bareness of the space.

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