Chapter 2
Fact or Fiction?
My niece has bigger balls than I do.
Luke
Present Day
My brothers are lying assholes. Sellouts. Traitorous jerks. You know those people who say one thing and do another? That’s those three fuckers.
Ten years ago, we stood on this mountain and made a pact to be she-man woman haters until we were old and gray. But the image
I’m looking at right now is the exact opposite of that. I’m staring at disgusting rural mountain suburbia. It’s like our rustic
mountain setting is being gentrified. This scene of my brothers and their new lady friends looks like it could be out of Alternative Amish Life magazine or some bullshit.
How the mighty have fallen.
Wyatt walks over to his wife of five months, Trista, and holds his hands out to take their eight-month-old baby, Stevie. They’re
on the front porch of Calder’s cabin while Calder stands there in all his tattooed, bearded, obnoxious glory. He has his fucking
pet cat strapped to his chest in a baby carrier while his hand is stuffed down his girlfriend Dakota’s back pocket, groping
her ass as they all sip on lemonade and cool down after they’ve just moved Dakota permanently onto Fletcher Mountain.
Sellouts.
Then there’s Max standing up there with his wife, Cozy.
They’ve been married for years now and Cozy and Dakota are best friends, so they were all too happy to drive the thirty-odd minutes up from Boulder and help Dakota get settled in.
Their two kids are loving all this too. Even though Everly’s at college, she’s still smiling and slurping down refreshments with Ethan like this is the best day of her life because Dakota’s auntie status is more official now.
All three of my brothers are coupled up even though a decade ago, we stood right on this lookout point and made a pact. A
pact that we held strong but they somehow forgot about the moment these three women came into their lives.
Heavy sigh.
Max gets a free pass since he wasn’t a part of this pact. He’s Mr. Corporate and lives a very different life in Boulder, but
I thought after his divorce, he’d be anti-woman as well.
Though I can’t deny that Cozy was perfect for both Max and Everly. She fit right into that family, even getting along with
Max’s ex and her wife. One big happy modern family. And we’ve had eight years enjoying their wild son, Ethan, too because
of that love. Ethan is a menace you can’t help but love.
And I guess Wyatt gets a free pass also because his situation with Trista last year was complicated. Hired surrogate turned
lover? That was never going to end well. That miserable fucker needed Trista or he was going to brood himself into an early
grave.
But Calder falling for Dakota? That seems intentional. Like he was pointing at me and saying the last one in love is a rotten
egg. That’s Calder’s style too. Probably didn’t even want to fall in love but since Wyatt did, he just followed suit so he
wouldn’t be left behind.
Now there’s just me. The baby of the family left to fend for myself on this mountain all on my own. Our brotherly late-night drinking sessions have turned into late-night diaper runs or Calder making sex eyes at Dakota so blatantly that I have to leave his cabin mid-beer.
It’s depressing.
And the worst part is . . . I’ve sacrificed a lot for the pact. More than my entire family even realizes.
Everly bounds over to me, her blond ponytail swinging with the backdrop of the giant U-Haul parked behind her. “What are you
doing over here all by yourself, Uncle Luke? Don’t you want some lemonade? We moved a shitload of boxes today.”
I roll my eyes and turn away from the mountain breeders to drop down onto the bench Calder made after our dad died a few years
ago. It has his infamous saying etched on it, “We’re not here for a long time, we’re here for a good time,” and I can’t help
but think the shit happening behind me doesn’t look like a good time.
“I hate being a third wheel,” I mumble under my breath. “Or seventh wheel I should say.”
Everly huffs out a laugh as she joins me on the bench. She tucks her long legs under her chin and eyes me thoughtfully. “I
was thinking it’s high time we change that. I’m a pretty decent matchmaker you know.”
“Yeah right.” I tug my baseball cap low on my face to conceal my brooding.
“I’m serious.” She pokes my shoulder and scoots closer to me. “You know it was me who finagled the single room in Mexico for
Uncle Calder and Dakota, right?”
My eyes bug out of my head as I turn to look at my niece, who looks far less innocent than she did moments ago. “He was pissed
about that.”
“Oh please.” Everly waves me off. “He wasn’t pissed. He was in love. He just needed enough one-on-one time with Dakota to
realize it.”
I twist my hat around so it’s backward, tucking back my shaggy hair behind my ears with it. I want to be sure I can see my niece clearly right now because I’m having trouble believing the words tumbling out of her mouth.
She hits me with a lascivious smirk. “And you know I was the one who found Trista, right?”
I frown and shake my head. “Yeah, but just to be a surrogate for Wyatt,” I argue, turning to face my evil-looking niece head-on.
“You can’t take credit for them falling in love.”
“I knew she’d be perfect for him. Why else do you think he rejected all the other surrogate applicants he spoke to at that
agency? He was looking for love, not a surrogate. He just couldn’t admit that to himself. The lies we tell ourselves are so
obvious sometimes.”
“Bullshit,” I laugh and look out at the mountain view, my eyes narrowing as I replay the last year of our lives when I watched
both of my brothers fall in love in rapid succession. “You’re not that powerful.”
“Need I remind you of Dad and Cozy?” she asks coyly. “That was my matchmaker origin story.”
“Holy fuck,” I deadpan as I recall Everly’s wild plot to get me, Calder, and Wyatt to help her with Max and Cozy after they
got in an epic fight all those years ago. Everly was like eleven at the time and she parent-trapped them like a boss. My nephew,
Ethan, is living proof of how well that worked.
As if on cue, I hear the squawk of my rooster, Rufus, and turn around to see Ethan sprinting up the hill toward my cabin.
Usually roosters are the ones to terrorize humans, but not in this case. Evil Ethan always strikes first. Rufus spots the
little terror and flies off my porch rail, running toward the forest for cover.
My poor cock.
And I realize that the rooster technically isn’t “mine” because Trista was the one to adopt him. He’s one of the many random animals that kept appearing in the barn this past year thanks to her ever-growing rescue center.
But Rufus chose me.
A few months back, he decided that my front porch was his home turf instead of the nice chicken coop Wyatt built for them
down by the barn. So yeah, me and Ruf-meister are tight. The early morning wake-up calls are brutal, but I’ve found that I
like that damn bird. I even bring him inside for treats in the evenings. Rufus loves tortilla wraps and walnuts and sitting
on my lap during TV time. It might be weird to have a pet cock but at least I’m not strapping him to my chest and taking him
for walks through the woods like Calder and his cat, Milkshake. Weird fuck.
“I think it’s your turn to find love, Uncle Luke.” Everly’s eyes narrow on me and my skin begins to crawl as she gets that
scary look about her that she used to get as a kid right before she got exactly what she wanted. This girl has a freaky way
of persuading people to do whatever she tells them. Maybe it’s because she has a rich-ass father who has a private plane and
multiple houses and wipes his ass with hundred-dollar bills. Or maybe it’s because she has three uncles who spoil her rotten
any chance we get. Or maybe it’s because despite all the privileges she’s received in life, she’s still the purest, kindest,
most positive person I’ve ever met and you just can’t help but want to move mountains for someone like that.
One way or another, the end result is that my niece . . . is a force of nature.
I level my eyes at her. “You really are an evil genius, aren’t you?”
“I prefer to call myself a ‘mastermind.’” She waggles her brows and gets a wild look in her gaze. “Now, come on. What’s your
type? Give me something to work with. I think I know but I want to hear what you have to say.”
I shake my head firmly, trying to muster up the strength to say no to my niece. “Don’t add me to your matchmaking schemes.”
“Why not?”
My lips thin as my heart thumps with an ache I’ve been trying to ignore for the past several years. “Because it’s pointless.”
“Why?”
Because I’m the greatest hypocrite of them all.
I inhale a heavy breath as I allow myself to say the next words out loud for the first time. “Because the woman I want doesn’t
want me back.”
The quiet sounds of nature are deafening during the silence that spreads between me and Everly. My niece’s voice is soft when
she asks, “How long have you been in love with Addison Monroe?”
“How do you know it’s her?” I balk defensively.
“Because you brought her to Mexico for Wyatt and Trista’s wedding and stared at her like a lost puppy the entire time.”
I pull my hat forward to cover my face, feeling like a complete schmuck. It’s extremely humbling having your college-aged
niece read you with so little effort. And yet, here I sit on a mountain surrounded by pines . . . pining for a girl I can
never have. I am pathetic.
“I wasn’t sure of your feelings until the end of the trip, or I would have tried to force you two into the same room as well.”
Everly purses her lips like she’s disappointed in herself, which is fucking ridiculous.
I swallow the knot in my throat, attempting to regain control of this conversation. “Let’s talk about when you’re flying back
to Ireland for college. I’m going to miss you something fierce again. This summer went way too fast.”
“Stop trying to change the subject.” Everly scowls back at me.