Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
ADDISON
February was usually a slow month at the resort.
In past years, we’d scraped by on a couple reservations if we were lucky.
My brothers had always kept the resort afloat during that time, sinking their own money into this place so our mom’s legacy wouldn’t die, the bones of our family right along with it.
Fortunately, things on that front couldn’t have been more different this year.
We were booked solid. Even Cottage Thirteen, which I’d reluctantly agreed to start taking reservations for because my brothers had been right—it didn’t make sense to hold it for fantasy scenarios that were never going to come true.
But despite our calendar being booked up for months, I couldn’t silence the whisper in the back of my mind that kept telling me it wasn’t enough.
I wasn’t doing enough.
I needed to set things in place now—events, articles, promotions, different marketing strategies—so we’d never face that uncertainty again.
While I’d never had the funds to be able to contribute like my brothers had, I’d done whatever else I could.
Had given the resort my everything for years, in part as repayment for all my brothers gave me.
But also because this place had always felt like it was a part of my very soul.
I loved this resort…the history and the memories and the dreams for it my mom had once shared with me.
When I’d been maybe sixteen, Mom and I had been walking along the beach at sunset, just the two of us.
She’d told me that while she had no intention of pushing this life on me or my brothers, she would love nothing more than to see it passed down, just like her parents had done for her, and continue on with the next generation.
That one of us would take the reins and run the resort, all while raising a family in the home we’d grown up in.
For years, that had sat in the back of my mind, and I’d wondered which of us—if any—would fall into those shoes.
And then last night, I’d dreamed of being so pregnant I looked like I had a basketball stuffed under my shirt.
I was walking along the beach with a man in front of me holding the hand of a toddling kid, another perched on his arm.
I hadn’t even been surprised when the man had turned around and it was Chase’s mischievous smile beaming back at me.
I’d woken up this morning with a dull ache in my chest, my heart instinctively knowing what I’d lost before my brain had even caught up. Because that dream wasn’t a possibility, considering the man who’d starred in it hadn’t called Starlight Cove home in more than a decade.
That fucking dream had derailed me all day, and I needed to focus.
I was currently spread out in the parlor, my laptop, iPad, and phone all within reach as I shot off an email to Harper—we’d been going back and forth on ideas for possible articles on the resort and hadn’t yet settled on anything.
My only saving grace in getting stuff done had been the fact that my brothers hadn’t interrupted me all day—a fucking miracle.
Requests from guests had been slow, so Avery sat in here with me, curled in a chair in front of the fireplace with a book in her lap.
As I shuffled some papers, she looked over at me, one brow raised before pointedly glancing to the clock on the wall that read well past five.
“You about done over there? Finally ready to—”
“Oh!” Mabel came to a sudden stop as she strolled into the parlor, decked out in head-to-toe winter gear. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here.”
“I live and work here, Mabel,” I said. “I think it’s probably safe to expect me here at all times.”
“Well, yes, but I figured you’d be where everyone else is,” she said. “I was just going to grab some snacks before heading over…”
Avery laughed and shook her head. “You better grab them quick so Aiden doesn’t see you. You know he said he was going to start sending you a bill.”
Mabel blew a raspberry and swatted her hand through the air. “He loves me too much to do that.”
“Where are you heading?” I asked.
Mabel glanced at us over her shoulder as she rummaged through the snack bowl, her brows raised. “You haven’t heard? I figured you’d have given the okay.”
“The okay for what?”
“Chase grabbed the hockey team and got them to clear out the brush covering the old rink. Since we’re in a cold snap, they whipped up a backyard rink. There’s a pickup game between the old studs and the young bucks starting in ten. And I, for one, am not going to miss it.”
Uhh…what? Mabel was right—I should’ve been the one giving the okay for something like that, yet I hadn’t heard a damn word about it. I shot a glance at Avery, who only shrugged in response, clearly as in the dark as I was. Since fucking when didn’t I know about shit going on at the resort?
Had I voiced aloud my want to get the rink back in working order, or was this just a coincidence?
Chase might have dickmatized me these past several weeks as we’d been sneaking around, hooking up whenever the possibility presented itself, but I was almost positive I hadn’t shared my plans.
After running into obstacle after obstacle, I’d given up on having a usable rink this year.
But apparently, Chase wasn’t so easily deterred.
Though there was something altogether different about their clearing out the space and flooding it for a quick pickup game than making the rink fit for continued, consistent public use.
“Well, are you two just going to sit here by yourselves or join in the fun?” Mabel asked, already on her way out. “I don’t know about you, but I’m in the mood to watch those men beat the boys and serve up some eye candy while they’re at it.”
Avery closed her book and stood with a laugh. “What does George think about your roaming eyes?”
“He loves them.” Mabel shot us a wink. “As long as I bring the sugar home to him, if you know what I mean.”
After bundling up to face the bitter cold, the three of us piled into Mabel’s already-running car and drove to the side of the property that had been my escape for years but hadn’t seen the light of day in more than a decade.
It was so bizarre to find the path lined with cars, snowmobiles, and ATVs when it’d been barren for so long.
Warmth bloomed in my chest at the sight, an inkling of what this area could be once again settling deep.
I’d spent more hours than I could count out here with my brothers and Chase, running circles around the outside of the rink and begging them to teach me how to skate.
It was Chase who’d finally succeeded after my brothers had gotten frustrated with me and given up.
But I’d been only eight…maybe ten, and I’d been scared of falling.
If only I’d known then that falling for the boy who’d skated backward and held my hands, showering me with words of encouragement and praise, would hurt that much worse.
What had been nothing but a barren wasteland the last time I’d been out here had been transformed into something straight out of a movie.
String lights hung from posts someone had haphazardly erected around the space, a hot chocolate station was set up on the other side of the rink, and a scattering of overturned buckets and logs served as makeshift seating for the onlookers.
It was a poor facsimile of what it had once looked like—what it could look like—but the blueprint of it was there, and it was beautiful.
“You girls have fun,” Mabel said. She pulled out a sparkly pink flask from her pocket and held it up between us with a grin. “I’m going to add a splash of hot chocolate to my Bailey’s.”
With a laugh, Avery and I waved her off before making our way through the crowd toward the rink until we had a clear view of the group on the ice. About twenty guys were out there, half high schoolers and half adults—including each one of my damn brothers.
My first instinct was anger that they’d known about this and hadn’t said a word to me, but that evaporated just as quickly while I watched them having fun and joking around.
Beck and Ford were on the ice in front of where Quinn and Everly sat on a couple logs outside the perimeter. Ford said something that caused the four of them to crack up, and my lips twitched in response.
Brady broke away from the group he was talking to and skated over to Luna.
Instead of leaning down for a kiss, he tugged her straight off her upturned bucket and into his arms, holding her suspended above the ice.
She tossed her head back on a laugh and wrapped her arms around his neck.
And then she kissed him as if the two of them were alone in their own little world.
Even grumpy asses Aiden and Levi were grinning as the two of them joked around with Chase and a couple of his teammates from high school.
“Oh my fucking God, would you look at him,” Avery hissed, her eyes glued to Aiden. “Christ on a cracker, if there weren’t witnesses, I’d climb that man right here, I swear to God.”
“Avery,” I said, my tone heavy with exasperation. “What did we say about that?”
“What? It’s the truth. Fuck me running, I can’t wait for him to do extremely naughty things to me tonight.”
I groaned. “You are the literal worst.”
As if he’d heard her plans, Aiden lifted his head, his gaze finding Avery immediately.
He said something to the group before skating over to us.
My best friend and my brother were probably making out next to me for all I knew, but I couldn’t drag my eyes away from Chase, whose focus was directed at me.
He wore his old high school jersey—it was smaller on him now than it’d been back then, but I couldn’t deny the flicker of heat that bloomed low in my belly at the sight.
I’d had an embarrassing number of teenage fantasies featuring him in that jersey…
me in that jersey…the two of us together with the jersey crumpled on the floor.
And absolutely none of those were scenarios I should be thinking about out here, surrounded by what felt like half of Starlight Cove.
Levi elbowed Chase to get his attention, and he finally tore his gaze away from me, but not before shooting me that smirk I loved so damn much.
I blew out a long sigh, part of me wanting him to skate over to me like Aiden had for Avery. To pick me up, hold and kiss me like Brady had done with Luna. But we weren’t there yet.
I didn’t know if we’d ever be.
I dragged my gaze away from Chase and glanced over at Avery and Aiden in time to hear my bestie proposition my brother for some role-play.
“Can you bring this home?” Avery bit her lip as she ran her hands all over my brother’s chest. “Maybe wear it tonight?”
“Okay, first of all,” I cut in, “knock that shit off. We’ve talked about this! I don’t need to know anything at all about my brothers’ sex lives.”
“I thought you weren’t paying attention.” Avery shrugged, completely unrepentant.
“And second…” I narrowed my eyes and jabbed a finger in Aiden’s direction. “You’re on my shit list. You didn’t even think to mention this to me? We’re going to be having words tomorrow.”
“Can’t wait.” Then he tugged Avery as close as she could get and held his mouth just above hers. “And I’ll wear whatever you want tonight, bunny. But first, I have a game to win.”
Before I could tell him to get the hell out of here, he gave Avery a kiss, smacked her ass, and skated off to join the fray as they readied for the face-off.
“You two are so disgustingly in love,” I grumbled.
Avery shot me a wide grin. “I know. Isn’t it great?”
I blew out a long sigh. Yeah, it was. Not only did I love that my bestie had found her forever with one of my brothers—which meant we’d be sisters-in-law at some point—I also couldn’t deny that something inside me was soothed at seeing my family so happy.
So content. Especially when they’d been anything but for so long.
I also couldn’t deny just how much I wanted that to be me.
As the game started, I shoved all that aside, my attention focusing on the action on the ice.
I’d watched enough of Chase’s games to know exactly what he usually looked like out there.
And while he skated with what anyone else would probably see as ease, making his skates look like an extension of his body, I could see the cracks in his facade.
He wasn’t as fast as he usually was. Wasn’t as nimble or agile, either.
It was obvious to me his knee was bothering him, but you’d never know it from the giant smile on his face as he teamed up with my brothers and a handful of his old teammates.
He was having the time of his life playing against those kids.
And as much as I loved seeing him like this, my heart ached because I knew it wouldn’t last. It was a blip in time, just a small snapshot of an exceedingly long stretch of days… years…when he wouldn’t be here anymore.
Pretty soon, he’d go back to Vancouver. Fierce determination would replace that smile, and emptiness would once again replace the spot he’d taken up in my bed.
While we’d been careful since the nor’easter, he’d stayed at the inn a couple of times, sneaking in late and leaving early just like he’d done for years when we’d gotten by on nothing more than stolen moments.
Except now, unlike our previous encounters, I had a glimpse of what it could be like if he stayed. And I wanted it.
More than I was willing to admit to myself.