Page 71 of Grin and Bear It

“So that seemed to go well.” Her grin was wide and toothy. “Cole…” she moaned.

“Shut up,” I grumbled, going over to the fridge and hanging on the door. “Damn this house with its paper thin walls, though…” I looked back over my shoulder at her. “It does make a change from ‘Oh my god, Dale, it's not gonna fit…’.”

“What can I say, my man is hung,” she said with a completely unrepentant look. “How about yours?”

“Cole is not my man.”

“Yet.”

“He is really fucking annoying.”

“Oh was that what was going on in there?” she asked, putting her hand on her hip. “You were annoyed with him.”

“Fuck… Shut up,” I said, closing the fridge now that it was obvious that more amazing food hadn’t managed to magically appear. “You told me to ask about his dick and I did and he showed me and does Dale have that bone thing? Actually don’t tell me. Scrambled eggs work for you for dinner?”

“Cool,” she said, ticking off one finger. “No. OK. If we have to.”

I blinked, trying to match the answers to my questions and as I did so, there was a knock on the door. We both looked over because, damn, there’d been more visitors in the last week than we usually had in a year. Then I shook my head, pretty sure I knew who it was so I stomped over there and…”

“Oh!”

It was Tyson was standing there, a Coles bag in one hand, the other going to the top of the doorframe. He leaned in towards me and that’s when I understood all the TikTok videos. He seemed to fill the doorway, looming over me, making me feel like a tiny little thing, and because of stupid gender role bullshit, I liked it.

“Hey.”

His voice was a hot bath full of bubbles and I just wanted to sink into it. Those full lips twitched as he watched me just stand there like a fucking idiot.Say something, that little internal voice screeched.Say something!

“Oh, hey, how’s it going?”Smooth, real fucking smooth, the voice said. “Ah, is everything OK?” I felt a cold finger slide down my spine. “The boys—?”

“Are fine,” he said with a shake of his head. “Knox is particularly happy, because apparently there’s no more homework for him in the near future. That have anything to do with you?”

“Um, well, he has his assignments,” I replied.

“He told me. He actually did some of the work without prompting, which is a damn miracle, so I brought some food around as a thank you. Hungry?”

I would’ve said yes to anything he said. His honey-coloured eyes seemed hypnotic, like he was the Big Bad Wolf at my door, asking to come in. Big Bad Bear, I corrected, and that’s when I snapped out of the haze I was in.

“Ah—”

“Yes.” Coll appeared beside me. “She’s going to say yes. After a long hard afternoon of being eaten out, a girl needs to keep her strength up.”

“Shut. Up,” I hissed.

“It’s gotta be a helluva lot better than scrambled bloody eggs,” she shot back. “You make them so they’re all hard and watery at the same time.”

“You can join us,” Tyson said, hefting the bag. “I made plenty.”

“As amazing as that sounds, Dale just texted me to see if I want to come around for dinner, so I’m gonna bail. Enjoy.”

That cheeky wink she shot me made clear that she was totally throwing me in the deep end right now.

“Look, is this—?” I started to say warily.

“It's just dinner. Special recipe my mom taught me and it's damn good, just saying,” he said.

He sounded so warm and inviting and I wanted to wrap his massive body around mine like a blanket and snuggle down and where the hell did that thought come from? I eyed him suspiciously.

“So is this the way it's gonna be? I run out of your place and one of you turns up to paint my house and…”

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