Swoon: A Brother's Best Friend Standalone

Oh, God.

I remember bursting into this suite last night and immediately guzzling from a bottle of tequila like it was Gatorade, as I tried to erase the bad things I’d done downstairs. But that’s all I can remember . . . What happened after that?

“Good morning,” Violet says. She’s seated at the table now, sipping her coffee and staring at me.

“Good morning,” I say carefully. Even though she’s smiling at me, she looks like she’s plotting my murder.

“How are you feeling?” Violet asks. “You had a lot to drink last night.”

“I feel like shit. You?”

“I feel fine. I stopped drinking after the reception and switched to water.”

“Good for you. I’m glad one of us was smart.”

“You chug-a-lugged when we got to the room. You seemed a bit stressed.”

“Mm-hmm.” I squint at her. “Please tell me I don’t have a Sharpie mustache and beard right now.”

“You don’t. But only because Fish forgot to pack a Sharpie.”

“Small mercies.” I rub my forehead as pain rips through my cranium. “Ugh. I feel like I’m dying.”

“Coffee?” she says sweetly, motioning to the carafe.

“Thanks. And a huge glass of water.”

“Sure thing.” She brings me the beverages and takes an armchair next to me. “Is Amy coming to brunch?”

I take a sip of coffee. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

Ah, there it is. Somehow, I’ve pissed her off in relation to my treatment of Amy. “I haven’t talked to Amy since last night, I don’t think—since leaving the wedding reception and coming up here.”

“You don’t think?”

“Things are a bit hazy, Violet. Gimme a break.”

“You didn’t think to check on her last night, after coming up here, to see if she was feeling better and wanted to join us?” Her blue eyes narrow. “You’d invited her during dinner to come to our room to party with us, remember?”

“Violet, please. My head hurts.”

“I don’t know Amy’s phone number or room number. After you passed out like a worthless sack of shit without checking on Amy, I had to call down to the front desk to get connected to her room. But she didn’t answer.”

“Well, there you go. No harm, no foul. She must have crashed the minute she got to her room.”

“The thing is, Amy wasn’t my date last night. She was yours. You should have been the one to check on her.”

“Amy wasn’t my date.”

“Maybe she didn’t start out that way, but she was your date by the end.”

“Butt out, Vi. Amy and I were doing a thing.”

“What thing?”

“I’m not in the mood to explain it to you.”

Violet’s nostrils flare. “I don’t understand why you didn’t call her to see if she was feeling up to joining our party. I asked you to do that and you shrugged me off. How do you know poor Amy wasn’t sitting in her room, waiting for you to call and give her our room number?”

I close my eyes and sigh. “You said yourself you called and she didn’t answer. Drop it.”

“But she could have been in the bathroom. I’m just saying it’s weird you dropped her like a hot potato, after having so much fun with her. What happened?”

She stares at me with hard, blue eyes. And I know she’s not going to drop it.

“I fucked up, okay?” I bellow, to the detriment of my own cranium’s comfort. “I kissed her on the patio, while Fish and Ally were singing their duet, and it was a huge fucking mistake!”

Violet looks confused. “Why is that a fuck-up? Amy is adorable and obviously thinks you walk on water. God knows why. And everyone could see how much fun you had with her.”

“She’s Logan’s sister. Off-limits. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

When I close my eyes, Violet sighs and says, “I’ll get you some Tylenol and wake everyone for breakfast. I got us a late checkout, but we need to get moving, so Dax and I can pick up Jackson.” When I open my eyes, she’s walking toward one of the two bedrooms in the suite. But before she arrives at her destination, she tosses over her shoulder, “Call Amy now and tell her breakfast is here. We invited her to brunch last night, and I don’t care how badly you think you screwed up by kissing her, I’m not going to let you ghost that poor girl this morning.”

“I would never ghost Amy. She’s gonna be working with me on the movie set, remember?”

Violet comes to a stop outside one of the bedroom doors and turns around. She looks deflated. “You didn’t feel a spark with her when you kissed her?”

No, I felt a forest fire, I think. I felt fireflies. But what I say is, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Violet crosses her arms. “Listen to me, Colin. It’s imperative you do something extremely un-Colin-like and tell that sweet girl exactly what you’re feeling, even if it’s going to hurt her feelings. Better to hurt her now and tell her, honestly, you’re just not feeling it, rather than stringing her along and giving her hope. The worst thing in the world is having feelings for someone and getting just enough positive feedback to make you keep holding onto hope, when in fact, there’s none to be had.”