Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
AVERY
I’d been right, though I wasn’t surprised.
When Thanksgiving rolled around, my mom was still halfway around the world with Stewart, no plans to be back anytime soon. Where once it would’ve bothered me, I found it just…didn’t now. Not when I was here.
Plus, I was beginning to come to expect it from her.
Not only expect it, but accept it. Begrudging her for what she wasn’t took so much more energy than just loving her for what she was.
Vivacious and fun-loving and the best kind of person to be around because her energy was infectious.
But pinning her down was like trying to trap a firefly—she was too bright to be contained.
We liked to save our visits for Christmas since it was both our favorite, so I generally spent Thanksgiving with whatever friend was kind enough to invite me over to share in their family’s festivities.
I’d always been grateful for that inclusion, but I couldn’t help but feel like a third wheel whenever I joined.
Like I wasn’t really part of the fray. Like I didn’t quite belong.
Not here, though. Not in Starlight Cove. Not with Aiden and Addison…the entire McKenzie brood and all their significant others, actually. Through the banter and jokes, the barbs and quips, the ganging up on one another and the endless, relentless teasing, I felt like I fit.
I felt like I was home.
Which was a hell of a mindfuck because I’d always thought my home was nowhere and everywhere at once.
Not a place, but a feeling. One I’d been searching for my whole life.
One I wasn’t supposed to find in a little town in Maine with a man who made me feel seen and heard and valued and…
cherished. In a way I’d never felt before.
Beck cooked us a jaw-dropping spread, the ten of us piling into the dining room in the main inn, passing delicious food around as stories were shared. I’d hung on every one—it seemed an unspoken challenge to one-up one another and dish all Aiden’s past antics in an attempt to embarrass him.
But through it all—through tales of him turning a hallway in high school into a makeshift slip and slide and losing his trunks as he slid down it, or walking around with orange hair because Ford put bleach in the shampoo bottle—he just sat, his hand on my knee a comforting weight, that damn dimple winking at me when his siblings recalled something particularly funny.
And a tiny part of me whispered that she wanted to stay here forever.
After everyone had gotten their fill and we’d cleaned up, we gathered in the parlor.
Addison suggested playing charades since it was about the only thing we could do with all ten of us at the same time.
Everyone in agreement, they started naturally splitting off into pairs while I stood just outside the circle.
I hated this part. It was something I’d always dreaded in school. I could jump from group to group and prided myself on being the life of the party, but this was different. I might not have always been picked last, but I’d never been picked first.
Just as I was starting to shift on my feet, an uncomfortable knot forming in my stomach, Addison jumped up, shooting her hand in the air. “I call Avery!”
At the exact same moment, Aiden said, “Avery’s with me.”
They snapped their gazes to each other, Addison’s narrowing on her brother, while Aiden just met her glare with an unflinching one of his own.
My bestie crossed her arms over her chest. “She’s with me.”
Aiden mirrored her position and shook his head. “Not tonight, little D.”
She huffed in disbelief, throwing her hand out. “Now you’re calling me that stupid-ass nickname too? First of all, I’m not a dictator! Second, it’s dumb, I hate it, and it’s not even true! Don’t try to pretend like I don’t have the biggest D out of everyone in this room.”
Levi snorted at that while Ford let out a loud guffaw, the rest of her brothers basking as Luna, Everly, and Quinn all piped up with their dissent.
“And if she’s with Aiden, that means I’m stuck with the guy who can’t even guess a fucking teapot!” Addison pointed an angry finger at Levi.
“Jesus, Addison.” Keeping his eyes on the book he was reading, Levi breathed out a heavy sigh as if dealing with his sister was the most exhausting thing he’d done all day. “This again? That was months ago.”
“Yes, this again! Everyone else might come to family game nights to have a good time and blah blah blah, whatever, but I come to win. And I know for a fact Avery and I would wipe the floors with every single one of you.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Aiden said with a shrug. “She’s with me. You’re the one who kept trying to throw us together—”
“And it worked, didn’t it?” Addison cut in, tossing her arms out to the sides, having not a single clue Aiden and I had been together long before the Vermont trip. “I’m a fucking matchmaking genius.”
Aiden continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “So you’re going to have to deal with the consequences. And the consequences today are that you’re paired with Levi because Avery,” he said firmly, taking a seat on the couch and tugging me to sit in his lap, “is with me.”
Addison’s mouth dropped open. Her gaze bounced between me and Aiden when I didn’t make a move to leave his lap or remove his arm from where he had it banded around my waist. “Seriously? What happened to chicks before dicks?”
I cringed and shot her an apologetic smile. “I love you. You know I do. But…well, he’s got a really great dick.”
“Avery!” Addison yelled, slapping her hands over her eyes as if that would help.
“I can’t believe you just said that! I get that you’re with Aiden now and I love it, but we need to set some boundaries, because that shit is not okay.
” She spun around, eyes still covered, and swung a pointed finger at the rest of the room.
“And that goes for anyone else banging one of my brothers, because I’ve heard too much! ”
Luna grinned unrepentantly from her perch on Brady’s lap, Everly blushed and leaned into Beck’s side, and Quinn pursed her lips from where she sat between Ford’s legs, clearly hiding a smile.
The McKenzie boys’ reactions were varied but all basically boiled down to them puffing out their chests at the thought of their dicks being gossip material.
Well, everyone but Levi, who ignored us completely and continued reading his book.
“Fine. I’m with Levi,” Addison said, then stabbed a finger in his direction.
“But I swear to God, you better get your head out of your ass, man. That means you stop reading this.” She grabbed the book from his hands before glancing down at it.
“What is this, anyway? Is it the book Mabel kept going on about?”
Before I could even glance to check out the cover, I felt Aiden stiffen beneath me, and I knew exactly what book it was.
His.
“Oh my God,” Everly said, leaning forward, eyes wide. “It’s so good. I don’t normally love fantasy, but I’d live in this world if I could.”
“And the sex scenes, am I right?” Luna raised a brow and fanned her face.
To my shock—and, I was sure, Aiden’s absolute horror—murmurs of agreement went up from everyone in the room, Ford offering his approval for the number of times Heat and Desire had gotten him laid, with Beck and Brady both agreeing.
And then everyone fell into a discussion on the masterful character- and world-building and how the sexual journey between the hero and the heroine was about so much more than just fucking—it was about exploring their deepest desires, the parts of themselves they kept hidden from everyone else but shared with only each other.
And they were right. Aiden had a gift. He wrote the kinds of books I could get lost in. Could spend hours…days…inside the world and still not have it be enough.
So badly, I wanted to tell everyone that it was their brother’s books they loved. Their brother who they were raving about. Their brother who’d created the world they wanted to live in, the characters they wanted to befriend, the book they’d escaped into.
I hadn’t ever thought about this part of his secret. About him not being able to receive any of the accolades he so rightly deserved. Not being able to accept any praise.
Because I was the only one in this room who knew who he really was. Knew the secret part of himself he never shared for fear it would hurt the very people raving about it.
I slipped my hand over his, linking our fingers together, and gave it a tight squeeze. Letting him know he wasn’t alone. That he wasn’t by himself on what I knew had to have been an incredibly lonely journey.
I was with him.
At least for another twenty-nine days.