He laughs, fiddling with something in his hand. Is that a knitted octopus Wooble? “Yeah. Name’s Ferris by the way.”
“Cool. Nice to meet you. I’m Myles.”
He doesn’t seem to recognize me, which is fine. I’d rather not talk sports right now. I just want to find my coin and escape without Colton seeing me. I don’t want him to think I’m back to ask for a second round.
Ferris and I shake hands, and then he glances around and sighs.
“Any idea of where you may have lost it?”
“Uh, well, I was over here with Colton.”
Ferris’s eyebrows rise. “Colton Cavanaugh? Shit, you sure he didn’t steal it?”
My heart skips a beat, and I grow slightly warm. “Why would he do that?”
“He has a rep for doing that. A bit of a pickpocket.”
My cheeks flush, and I narrow my gaze.
“God fucking dammit.”
“Might want to ask him if he has it first. I bet that’s where it ended up. He can’t help himself.”
I glance at the house in the distance, and my shoulders bunch around my ears.
“Can I just go on in?”
“Yeah. No one cares.”
“You sure?”
“Totally.”
His hand reaches out, and he hands me the octopus. “I—uh, well, I crocheted this, and I feel like you need it. It’s an octopus.”
“I figured, with all the tentacles sticking out,” I say as I wrap one of the tentacles around my knuckle. “It’s cool.”
“It’s a nervous hobby.”
“It’s a good hobby to have. You could be, like, cooking meth or something instead.”
He stares at the octopus in my hand and arches an eyebrow. “I guess that’s an option. I just would rather work with yarn and not chemicals, you know?”
“Yeah. I do.”
He shifts on his feet and then sighs. “Why don’t you go ask Colton if he’s taken your coin, and I’ll stay out here and look around a bit more? I’ll holler if I find something.”
I thank him for being so helpful and stalk out of the woods. My feet crunch on the gravel as I move toward the front porch, my mind whirling. If the coin isn’t in the woods, Colton must have grabbed it while he was getting me off.
My hands ball into fists as I consider it. I don’t even knock on the front door, just let myself in. Ferris said it wouldn’t matter, and I know they must keep their door unlocked, judging by the steady stream of people—mostly girls—moving in and out of the house.
And I’m right.
No one even bats an eyelid when I pass through the kitchen, just like Ferris said. I even ask one of the guys sitting on the couch which room is Colton’s. He just points upstairs and grunts that it’s the one with the jockstrap on the door handle.
That makes my blood boil. He really is the biggest fucking shithead.
I stomp up the steps, taking them two at a time, not even breaking a sweat until I stop right in front of his door and realize my breathing is labored.
