The vibration of my phone made my eyes open and look at the screen.
Eden.
I squeezed the hard, plastic case, my arm threatening to toss the fucker toward the door. I was tired of the noises—the ones this cell made only added to the others. I was tired of entering my password and reading things I didn’t want to see, like the opinions of reviewers, the accusations. The constant fucking judgment.
The difference between Eden and Colson was that Eden would hang up and call right back—a pattern she’d repeat until she got through. Hell, there was a chance she could be standing outside my door.
My sister had a fire in her.
A fire that even I didn’t want to fuck with.
As I clenched my jaw, my exhales came out through my teeth, and I held the phone to my ear. “What?”
“Slow down there, cowboy. Let’s notwhatme, okay?” I could visualize her smirk. “You know why I’m calling. Seeing my name on your phone screen shouldn’t be a surprise at all. So, how about you just tell me how you’re doing? And then we can cut the bullshit and get right to the point.”
I pounded the back of my head against the cushion, wishing it were a wall. “I’m fine.”
“But are you? Really? Because the thumbs-up you gave to Colson told me everything I’d wanted to know.”
The air that came through my lips sounded like a wind tunnel. “What do you want me to say, Eden? That I’m miraculously better? That things have cleared in my head? That I’mdying to get back into the kitchen? That this break has renewed me?” I huffed. “Fuck that.”
“I know those would be lies.”
My head shook. “Then why are you asking?”
“Because I’m your sister and I love you and I have to ask.” She paused. “Did you take my advice? Or have you only been drowning yourself in whiskey? I know you’re deep into the latter. I can hear it in your voice.”
I exhaled through my nose this time. “I took your advice.”
“And?” She sounded far too optimistic.
“You want the details?”
“I absolutely do not want the details, dickhead. I want to know if it helped.”
Did it help?
Fuck no. Because now I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I couldn’t get that gorgeous face out of my head. I couldn’t stop fantasizing about her perfect pussy.
“It helped while she was here for the two nights. But now she’s gone, and not even the whiskey can numb me.”
“Hold on a second. You had her stay? In your suite? For two nights?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” she gasped.
“Why the hell not?”
“That’s not how the Hooked app works. It’s a do-it-and-be-done kinda thing.”
I chuckled. “We both know I’m not a rule follower.”
“But you should be. Especially when it comes to that. Unless …oh shit. Is a relationship what you want, Walker? Why didn’t you just say that?—”
“This family has made it impossible to have anything that even closely resembles that.” I sat up taller, my tongue not burning nearly enough from the sip I’d just taken. “If you wantto know the truth, it was a one-night thing. Once it was over, she left. Or I should say, she moved into the hotel room I got her. But when the noise returned to my head, I had her come back. She stayed until she had to go to work.”
“And now?”
