Page 76 of Colt

“What?” I ask.

“Didn’t take you for a Shiner kinda girl. Or a beer girl in general, if I’m being honest.”

I tip back my bottle and take a long, hard pull. It’s ice cold and absolutely delicious. “Is that a challenge? I know you like those.”

“You and Dean.” His Adam’s apple bobs. “Brains like sponges. Y’all remember everything.”

Swallowing, I sigh. “If you had this in cans and there weren’t children present, I’d ask you to shotgun one with me.”

He lets out a soft chuckle. “Can’t remember the last time I shotgunned a beer.”

“Why would you shoot a beer with a gun?” Dean screws up his face. “That sounds stupid.”

Colton and I laugh.

“It is stupid,” Colton replies, holding the mouth of his beer to his lips. “And kinda fun.”

“In a sloppy way, yes.” I grin. “I was a pro in college.”

Colton lifts a brow as he drinks. “You? Sloppy? I don’t buy it.”

“Every saint has a past,” I say.

His eyes darken. “Every sinner has a future.”

My heart skips a beat. “Since when are you an Oscar Wilde fan?”

“Since we read The Picture of Dorian Gray senior year in high school.”

I sip my beer, trying to make sense of this breaking news. Is Colton a cowboy with an attitude problem and good taste in literature?

Does such a being exist?

Dean sets the box on the kitchen table and pulls out a chair. “You’re gonna stay to help us put this together, right, Lainey?”

Colton chuckles. “Did you thank Miss Lainey for the super awesome LEGO set?”

“Thank you.”

Colton picks up his beer. “Seriously, Lainey, thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”

I sip my beer. “Are you kidding? This is such a treat for me. I loved LEGO sets as a kid. My brothers and I would spend whole days putting things together. I think my favorite was the Millennium Falcon.”

“From Star Wars.” Colton moves to the kitchen table to help Dean open the box with a pair of scissors. “We’ve done that one too.”

“Come sit, Lainey.” Dean waves me over. “Can we do the haunted house first? Then we can do the trees and the ghosts.”

I take a seat next to Dean and pull the directions out of the box. “Sounds like a plan.”

“Dad, you sit too.”

I expect Colton to decline the invitation. Hesitate at the very least. Not because he doesn’t want to play with his son, but because he doesn’t want to play with me.

Instead, Colton pulls out the chair on the other side of Dean and takes a seat so that his son is between us. The woodsy smell of Colton’s freshly showered body fills my head and makes me woozy.

Dean glances at Colton, then at me, a big smile breaking out on his face.

“It’s a Dean sandwich,” he says.