Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
AIDEN
For the past couple years, my younger brother Ford and I had been coaching the Little League team the resort sponsored—well, I coached, and for the past couple months, he’d been sneaking off with his new wife, Quinn, and leaving me to handle shit on my own.
At least today, Brady sat in the dugout with me, lending his unofficial coaching help to the cause.
Sponsoring the team was something our mom had believed in, so it was something we’d worked hard to continue.
Even during our lean years—and there had been a fuck-ton of lean years—we’d never cut that from the budget.
We’d cut our pay, sure. But taking away these kids’ ability to play baseball? Never.
Today was the last hurrah of the fall season—the tournament where we either played all fucking day, or we were out after the first game.
I didn’t know which I’d prefer. I had so much work to do—both for the resort and my publisher—but being here and focused on the game would keep my mind occupied and off other things.
Namely, the woman I couldn’t get out of my head.
“Sorry about that,” Ford said as he strolled up to us, his hair mussed, no doubt from his wife’s roaming hands. “I just had to—” He cut off then, and I glanced over, finding his mouth agape as he gave me a quick once-over. “Holy shit.”
“What?” I asked, turning my attention back to the field.
“You got laid.”
It took half a second for his words to register, but when they did, I snapped my head toward him, shock lighting my features before I could school them.
Fuck. I was usually better than this at keeping shit from my family.
First, Brady got me to spill more than I ever normally would have about the woman I’d spent last night with, and now I was apparently wearing a just got lucky expression on my face for my brothers to pick apart mercilessly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said with as much confidence as I could muster. Which, admittedly, wasn’t much because I could still taste her on my tongue.
Ford just laughed. “Sure you don’t. There’s no use trying to deny it. I can sniff that shit out like a bloodhound. Can’t I?” He lifted his chin in Brady’s direction.
“You do kind of have something going on there,” my traitor brother said, gesturing toward my face as he agreed with Ford. “Is this because of the woman you told me about?”
My gaze shot to his. “Dude. What the fuck.”
Brady already fucking knew it was about that woman—we’d just had a ten-minute conversation about her—and him tossing that out like a bone for Ford to sink his teeth into was a seriously shitty move.
At only eleven months apart, we’d always been closer to each other than our other siblings, and it had been an unwritten rule between us that what we said to each other stayed between us.
But apparently, he was more pissed about this morning’s meeting than he’d let on, and this was payback for making him deal with our tyrant of a baby sister without me.
“This is too good.” Ford rubbed his hands together, a giant grin splitting his face. “What woman? Tell me everything.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at them both, then I gazed out at the ball field where our focus should’ve been and attempted to ignore the assholes.
“Was it the I can call you Daddy, too single mom?” Ford asked, referring to one of the Little Leaguer’s moms who hadn’t been shy about letting me know her interest in me. “Is that why you don’t want to talk about it right now?”
I didn’t even bother to spare him a glance. “No, it wasn’t that woman. I know better than to get involved with someone who’d make my life difficult. And I don’t want to talk about it right now because A) we’re surrounded by a bunch of little kids and their parents—”
“One of whom is desperate to call you Daddy…” Ford cut in.
“And B) it’s none of your fucking business.”
Ford laughed. Laughed. The irritating little shit.
“Oh no. You’re the one who showed up at this game with your I just got laid face on, thus making it my business.
” He shrugged and made a show of pulling out his phone to look at the time.
“I could also make it Addison’s business if you wanted… She’ll be here any minute. I can wait.”
“You’re such a dick.”
His smile only grew as he stared at me, one brow raised in challenge. I missed the days when he was shorter than me and I could glare down at him, scare him into doing whatever I wanted with simply a look, but the fucker had been my height since he was seventeen.
Finally, when it was clear he wasn’t going to budge, I blew out a long sigh and scrubbed a hand down my face.
“It was no big deal, all right? It’s been a shitty week, and I needed to blow off some steam.
I went to One Night Stan’s, had a one-night stand, and that’s it.
She didn’t leave her number, and I don’t even know her name—”
Brady cut in, “Just that she’s a redheaded smokeshow with a penchant for—”
“Would you shut the fuck up?” I snapped at him. “I didn’t even say that. You’re just making shit up.”
Brady lifted a single shoulder. “You said enough.”
“Anyway.” I turned around, giving him my back and doing my best to ignore him. “She’s not from around here, so it’s done.”
“What if she was?” Ford asked.
“What if she was, what?”
He stared at me with raised brows. “From around here?”
Snippets of what that might look like flashed through my mind—her in my room, in my bed, her hair spread out on my pillow while I—
I cleared my throat. “Doesn’t matter, because she’s not. And we’re done talking about it.”
Ford lifted his chin toward the bleachers. “If you actually want to be done talking about it, you better do something about your face, because Addison’s on her way over here.”
I glanced in the direction he’d indicated and found our sister, her powerhouse gait and the way the crowd separated to let her through immediately giving away her position.
My gaze strayed to the right of her and out to the field before immediately snapping back when a flash of red caught my eye, and my stomach clenched.
A woman walked next to Addison, laughing at something my sister said. A woman with a waterfall of red hair, a soft smile on those full, pouty lips that had been wrapped tight around my cock, and a tiny bunny tattoo behind her ear that I’d enjoyed the fuck out of exploiting last night.
Jesus Christ. Jesus. Fucking. Christ. I’d woken up this morning, thinking I’d never see her again because she was only passing through, and now she was here…with my sister?
They came to a stop in front of us, and Ford greeted them, but I couldn’t find the words. My mouth was dry, all the air sucked from my lungs, and all I could do was stare as Addison gestured to the woman next to her with both hands. The woman whose body I knew intimately but not her name.
“Surprise!” Addison said, gesturing toward my one-night stand with a flourish.
“This is Avery, my college bestie! I’ve managed to sweet-talk her into working at the resort for three months, so you can stop being such a grump all the time, Aiden.
” Under her breath, she said, “And so I can stop babysitting you and dealing with your fuckups.” Then, louder, she added, “You’re welcome! ”
Addison turned to the woman I’d been inside a mere twelve hours before. “Avery, meet Aiden. One of my brothers and your new boss. Isn’t this gonna be great?”
Her new boss. Her. New. Boss.
Fuck me.
Not only had I, apparently, slept with my new employee, but I’d spilled my guts to her.
My sister’s best friend. Shared things with her I hadn’t shared with anyone before.
Things I absolutely did not want my siblings to know.
Things I couldn’t have anyone else finding out about, for the good of the resort.
And now she stared up at me, confusion and curiosity and…hurt swimming in those dark eyes, and I knew I was totally and completely fucked.
Avery
I wasn’t sure how long Addison and I had been at the game when Aiden cornered me outside the restrooms in the field house.
He looked so different today than he had last night—those tattoos I’d drooled over were now tucked away, hidden beneath a white button-down shirt rolled up at the cuffs, and he had a weight to him that he hadn’t had last night.
Last night, when he’d made me come more times than I ever had before.
Last night, when he’d slept next to me, his arm banded around my waist.
Last night, when he’d talked books with me and told me he was an author. Not that he owned and ran a beachfront resort.
“Avery,” he said, and I didn’t want to think about how much I loved the sound of my name on his lips. “Can we talk?”
“I’m not interested in talking to liars,” I said, stepping around him and not sparing him a glance.
“Wait, I can explain.” His words made me pause, but it was his softly uttered, “Please,” that had me stopping in my tracks.
Slowly, I turned around to face him and crossed my arms over my chest. “Explain what? The fact that you apparently felt the need to lie to get into my pants?”
“I didn’t lie.”
I breathed out a laugh. “No? So you don’t own and run your family’s resort?”
“I do…”
“That’s not what you told me last night.”
He ran a hand through his hair and glanced around. Then he wrapped his fingers around my wrist and tugged me behind the field house, out of sight from any onlookers. Quietly, he said, “I do that, but I’m also an author. Which is the part I need you to keep to yourself.”
“You what?” I asked, unable to keep the sharpness from my tone.
“Look, no one else knows about that. Not Addison. Not any of my brothers. No one in town. Just my agent, my publisher…” He sucked in a deep breath and blew it out slowly, those intense eyes locked on mine. “And now you.”
I ignored the thrill that shot through me over that and shook my head. “You can’t be serious.”
The tick of his jaw was his only response.
I huffed out an incredulous laugh. “So, let me get this straight—it wasn’t bad enough that you lied to me, but now you want me to lie to my best friend for you and keep this secret from her? You don’t even know me. Do you know how shitty it is to ask me to do that?”
“Yes.” He stared down at me, those bright-blue eyes remorseful but determined. “But it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t want anyone else to know. And you’re the only other one with the knowledge to tell them.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
I crossed my arms over my chest and raised a brow. “Why don’t you want them to know?”
He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
I stared up at him, blinking slowly. “Okay, wow. Because of last night when you absolutely destroyed my vagina—thanks for that, by the way—I already know what you’re packing, but Jesus. You’ve got quite a pair to demand this of me without providing any answers after you lied to my face.”
“I didn’t lie,” he said firmly. He cleared his throat and leaned closer, lowering his voice.
“But you did. You told me you weren’t sticking around, which was the only reason I told you in the first place.
And now I find out you’re not only staying in Starlight Cove, but you’re going to be working at the resort for the rest of the year? ”
“Not that I owe you an explanation, but I hadn’t agreed to stay until a couple hours ago when your sister begged me to.
And if I hadn’t signed the contract already, I’d just leave so I wouldn’t have to deal with any of this.
” I pressed my thumb and forefinger against my eyes and breathed out a sigh before dropping my hand to my side.
“You didn’t have to lie. You could have just told me the truth. ”
“I did tell you the truth,” he said, his voice low and thick with something I couldn’t quite name. “You’re the only one I’ve told the truth to.” He stared at me, his gaze scanning my face, though I wasn’t quite sure what he was looking for. “Please don’t make me regret it.”
Without another word, he stepped around me, his shoulder brushing against mine and sending a ripple of awareness through my body, reminding me exactly what he’d been able to coax from me last night. And then he was gone, and I was left there, reeling.
I hated lies and I hated secrets. Hated the weight of them, hated when they came out, hated the aftermath. And he’d just asked me to keep one from my best friend. Something I’d never done once during our entire friendship.
I had no idea what I was going to do. Just that I’d have to do everything in my power to avoid him until I could figure it out.