Chapter 4
four
AUTUMN
As soon as I shut the front door in Zeke Holloway’s face, I flip the deadbolt into place and lean my head back against the heavy wooden doorframe.
As much as I’m trying not to notice it, my heart’s racing.
That look Zeke gave me? Just now, when he leaned that tanned, sinewy forearm on the frame of my door and let those glacier-blue eyes of his roam my figure, clearly liking what he saw?
It’s got my head spinning, my thighs feeling like they’re going to give out.
He’s always been too good looking for his own good—that whole damn family is—but tonight…
Honestly, he looked delicious.
Trey’s face is pressed up against the living room window, watching as Zeke makes his way back to the cabin I’ve so graciously—and stupidly—offered to let him live in.
“That kid was the Zeke Holloway? Of TikTok fame?” Trey’s still peering out the window. His face is incredulous, but he looks like he doesn’t know whether he wants to growl or bust out laughing.
“The very same,” I say, sighing. “I mean. I guess. I don’t follow him—I didn’t want any more reasons to have to debate kicking him out.”
I’m still trying to shake Zeke’s spell. Which is stupid—he’s, like, a teenager. I mean, not really. But he may as well be—he’s Will’s little brother.
I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.
Trey lets the floor to ceiling curtain fall as he moves back across the living room and flicks off the lights in the foyer. He snorts. “That’s for sure. I’ve followed him since the minute you told me he was moving in, and he’s on another level. I don’t like how he looked at you.”
“How he looked at me?” I deadpan. I’m suddenly glad Trey and I are standing in the dark again because now I’m certain my face has gone as red as my hair.
“Oh, come on, Autumn,” Trey scoffs. He nudges me back toward the staircase, gives my ass a little shove.
It’s dark, but I’d bet this house he’s rolling his eyes.
“He wasn’t exactly subtle. I haven’t seen anyone blatantly eye-fuck someone like that since my own husband during his Jonathan Bailey in Bridgerton phase. ”
“I mean, duh. Dustin’s got good taste,” I rib. I’m still trying to deflect from the subject of Zeke. “He married you, after all.”
Trey takes the stairs two at a time. “I see you trying to dodge this conversation. But I’m serious, Autumn. Zeke Holloway’s a player—and he’s, like, fifteen.”
“I think he’s actually twenty-three,” I say. “I remember Lydia saying something about—”
“Oh, whatever,” Trey says, cutting me off.
There’s a night light on in the upstairs bathroom down the hallway and it casts just enough light that I can see the whites of Trey’s eyes as he rolls them at me.
“Fifteen or twenty-three—what’s it matter?
You’ve been through the damn wringer, Autumn, and the last thing you need is some scrawny man-child bending you over the bathroom sink while he admires himself in the mirror and then leaves to go post it on TikTok. ”
His description nearly makes me suck in my breath. Because now that’s exactly what I’m picturing—me and Zeke, naked in my en-suite bathroom, nothing between us but the sweat of our heaving bodies. Honestly, I’d probably be the one admiring him in the mirror.
Gross, Autumn.
I try to scrub my mind of the thought. That’s Will’s little brother I’m lusting over.
Instead, I laugh and say, “You think Zeke’s scrawny?”
Trey gives the most exaggerated sigh I’ve ever heard—which is saying something as we’ve been friends for fifteen years now.
“Okay, no. He’s not scrawny. He’s got some long, lean, beautiful, tanned fucking muscles—there, I admit it, you happy?—but that doesn’t change a single other thing about what I just said, and you know it.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I say, still laughing. I push Trey down the hall toward the second guest room, the one without the bumps in the night. “Seriously, Trey, you don’t need to worry—I’m a big girl. I’m perfectly capable of finding a guy sexually attractive without hopping into bed with him.”
“I know…” Trey stops at the door of the guest room, his voice trailing off. It could just be the shadows from the bathroom night light, but he looks suddenly thoughtful. “Wait. Autumn. I just had an idea.”
“Okay…?”
“Well, Zeke’s pretty close to the same build as Nico Brooks. And he’s also pretty hot, right? And people know who he is—like, he’s got a pretty big following online. What if you got Zeke to model your menswear line in the show? I bet he’d do it.”
I scoff. “Didn’t you just call him a man-child?”
“Yeah, but you need a model for your show, and I think we just established that that man-child is objectively hot enough to be a model. And really, you’re letting him live in your cabin. He already owes you—”
“Alright, I’ll think about it,” I say, cutting Trey off. The more I think about Zeke, the more I realize that it is absolutely imperative I not be reminded of his physical proximity to me in this moment. There’s no telling what I might do.
“Get some sleep,” Trey says. He nods at me, then disappears into the guest room and shuts the door behind him.
I walk back down the hallway toward my own bedroom, a weird sort of electricity that I haven’t felt in quite a while buzzing through my body. I’m still irritated at Zeke for waking us up, but I’m even more irritated at him for looking so damn sexy while doing it.
As I enter my bedroom, pulling the door shut behind me, I let my mind go. I don’t know yet about Trey’s suggestion regarding my fashion show, but I do know one thing: I’m glad to finally be alone in the dark, with nothing but my hand and the mental image of Zeke lounging lazily in the doorway.
No way in hell am I going back to sleep any time soon. And for once it’s not going to be because of the ghost that I’m pretty sure haunts the guest room.