Chapter 1 #2
Levi leaned close to me and muttered, “You believe these horny motherfuckers? Jesus.” He shook his head before raising his voice to Aiden. “Shit, man. You’ve got all three of them begging for early smut? I’d maybe cash in on that.”
The conversation continued around the table, with everyone pleading for Aiden’s next book, but I blocked them out as best I could.
I loved Aiden, and I was happy for his success.
But I was zero percent interested in reading about sex that came directly from my brother’s brain, no matter how hot it supposedly was.
I was also zero percent interested in hearing about all the sex my other brothers were having thanks to Aiden’s writing. It was a hard pass all around from me.
So instead of tuning in to them, I turned to Levi, ignoring everyone else as they carried on with their mini smut convention right here at our table. “Did you get Cottage Thirteen all taken care of?”
His shoulders stiffened the slightest bit, his mouth flattening into a thin line. Most people probably wouldn’t have even noticed, but I wasn’t most people. “Yeah.”
I cringed. “Was it that bad inside?”
I wouldn’t have been surprised if it was, considering our estranged father had been holed up in it for a decade without any outside contact until Aiden finally kicked him out last month.
I ignored the pit that opened up in my stomach, guilt niggling at the thought of renting out what had been his home for ten years, because that emotion didn’t have any place here.
He certainly didn’t deserve my guilt. Logically, I knew he didn’t deserve anything from me.
From us. But my heart wasn’t so easy to convince.
“It was fine.” Levi took a pull from his beer. “It’ll be ready for guests next weekend.”
I shoved down the whisper in the back of my mind that wondered if that was a good idea and ignored it entirely. “Good, because we’re going to need it. We’re still booking out months in advance. I was worried about reservations waning during our slow months, but so far, that’s not the case.”
“Not when we have a famous smut author on the premises.” Levi tipped his beer bottle toward Aiden, who was caught up in conversation with the rest of our siblings.
“That’s definitely helped,” I agreed. “But I still want to have something on the back burner for when—if—this interest and attention die down. I don’t want us to be struggling for money again because we don’t have any reservations coming in.
I’m brainstorming some articles to pitch…
see if we can get some more buzz about the resort.
And I’m going to look into getting the ice rink back up and running.
I’m not sure I can get it done this season, but—”
A roar of laughter went up around us, cutting me off, and Levi and I glanced at the rest of the table, dismissing them just as quickly before moving our attention back to each other.
“All we talk about anymore is work shit,” he said. “We’re pathetic.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Before I could respond, Mabel strolled up to our table, her smile bright, and rested her hands on the back of Aiden’s chair.
With her nose unapologetically in everyone’s business, the older woman was Starlight Cove’s surrogate grandmother…
and sex toy dealer. It was quite the combo, but it worked for her.
“So proud of you, Aiden,” she said. “And I can’t believe our little town produced two famous people!
A New York Times best-selling author and a pro hockey player. Can you even believe it?”
I was so distracted by the I like big balls and I cannot lie sweatshirt she wore that it took a moment for her words to register. As soon as they did, I stiffened, all my muscles seizing at just the roundabout reference to him.
“Speaking of,” Mabel said, pulling a copy of the Starlight Cove Gazette from her purse and dropping it on the table between Aiden and me. “Did everyone see the news?”
I glanced over at the newspaper, my entire body going cold as I scanned the headline.
Hockey Pro to Return to Starlight Cove after Team Confirms He’s out for Season
No.
No.
Abso-fucking-lutely not.
This could not be happening. Not now. Not ever.
Avery was shooting me worried glances, but I couldn’t acknowledge her. Couldn’t do anything but try to maintain my facade. The last thing I needed was my brothers—Levi, especially—sniffing out my reaction, because they’d lose their collective shit.
Without checking to see if Levi needed another drink, I pushed to stand and made my way toward the bar.
I needed some help forgetting about this whole fucking day.
Just as I stepped up to the bar, a loud cheer went up in the crowd.
I glanced over my shoulder, figuring the commotion was coming from our table because once you got Mabel talking about spicy books, all bets were off.
But everyone’s attention—and I meant everyone—was on the door.
And the man who’d just walked through it.
He stood in the doorway, his ice-blue eyes already on me, as if he didn’t have five dozen people surrounding him, all vying for his attention.
I froze when our gazes collided, my stomach bottoming out at the same time my heart leaped into a pounding gallop, the thrum of it whoosh-whoosh-whooshing in my ears.
Standing a head above most of the patrons in the bar, he wore a navy hoodie and a pair of worn, buttery-soft jeans I knew from experience molded to his thick thighs and made his ass look fantastic.
His light-brown hair was shorter than it’d been the last time I’d seen him more than a year ago, now cropped close and so different from the chaotic mess I was used to.
Stubble dusted his sharp jaw, and lips I’d long since memorized the shape of kicked up on the side in that insufferable smirk I hated how much I loved.
Before I could tamp it down, a toe-curling flush swept over me from head to toe and all the neglected places in between as my nerve endings came alive with awareness. I knew exactly what those lips and that scruff would feel like across my collarbone, between my breasts, against my inner thighs…
And I fucking hated that I did.
Hated, too, that my body was already readying itself for him, despite my brain reminding it we were absolutely not doing that again.
But reminding myself did fuck all for the swarm of butterflies that had erupted in my stomach at the mere sight of him. Counteracting them was useless. I’d been having the same reaction to him for more than half my life, and I’d gotten damn good at hiding it in those early years.
Something I desperately needed to tap into now. Because what I wasn’t going to do was show the man who didn’t give a damn about me just how fucking much his absence hurt.
No matter how much I pretended otherwise.