Chapter 2
OWEN
“What would you do if this was real, Owen?”
I stare down at a vision of perfection in a flowing red dress. My hand on her hip flexes involuntarily, bunching the fabric and pulling her another centimeter closer.
“If this was real?” I ask.
Her eyes flick down to my lips. “Yeah. If we weren’t putting on a show.”
I tense and glance around the dance floor to make sure no one’s close enough to hear. I shift closer still, suppressing a groan when her chest brushes mine. She lets out a little gasp at the contact, sending signals my body is desperate to answer.
I hold her eyes, the dark brown like a cavern, tempting me to jump just to see how far I can fall. “I’d drag you off this dance floor and around the back of the building so I didn’t have to share you in that incredible dress.”
She bites her plush bottom lip, her eyes never straying from mine. “Then do it.”
I turn, my grip slipping from her waist to her hand, and tug her along behind me, her laughter echoing off the wall of windows overlooking the vineyard. A few of my family members watch us with knowing smiles, but I’m not letting anyone distract me.
I pull her behind the stand-alone ballroom. She stops, walking back a few steps with her eyes pinned to mine. Her back hits the siding, and she smiles, wide and tempting.
“Then what?” she asks, a breathiness to her low, sensual voice.
“Then I’d pin you to that wall and kiss you until you knew you were mine.”
Her eyes flare. “Then do it.”
I’m on her in a second, her body braced between mine and the wall behind her.
I moan at her taste as our tongues tangle together.
My hands grip her from behind, lifting until her legs wrap around me, the slits on each side of her dress dropping away from her thighs.
She grinds against me, making me harder with each movement until I’m sure I’ll die if I’m not inside her.
“Owen, take me to our room. Now,” she says with such vehemence, such passion, that I almost come there.
“No,” I choke out. “Here. Right now.”
“Yes,” she sighs, her hands diving for the button of my—
A loud banging on my door makes me shoot up straight. A quick glance at my lap tells me I’m not the only thing that’s up.
This happens way too often. The memory of that weekend, of Thea in that insane dress, forces its way into my subconscious. Every few months, there she is, like she can feel me forgetting her and needs to reinforce her place in my mind.
It’s frustrating. She made it clear she doesn’t want to date me, and I don’t want to date her either.
A woman like that would destroy me, run me into the ground trying to keep up with her.
She’s excitement personified, while I’m …
good ol’ Owen. Reliable, but boring. There’s no way a woman like her would go for me if money weren’t involved.
So why won’t she go away?
The taste of Dream Thea is still on my tongue, mint and a bite of the whiskey she favors.
A fabricated flavor, since I never actually got a taste.
In the real world, I didn’t drag her off the dance floor.
I brushed off her question and focused my attention on my Uncle Dennis trying to twerk on the edge of the dance floor to fend off the same problem I’m fighting now.
But my mind is creative. It fills in all the gaps I left in our relationship. Fake relationship, I remind myself.
The door rattles again. “Wake up, Owen.”
I groan into my pillow, willing away my condition while simultaneously wishing I could sink back into the dream.
I grab my phone and groan again: 6:57 AM.
My alarm would have gone off at seven anyway, but I feel cheated out of those three minutes.
Maybe my brain would have finally sealed the deal with Thea.
No matter how many fantasies it creates—and there have been a lot of fantasies—sex seems off the table, like it knows no matter how hard it tries, it won’t do Thea justice.
Another knock. “Wakey, wakey, big brother.”
I never should have given my brother a spare key.
“Give me a minute, Harrison. Jeez.”
The knocking continues, picking up a rhythm that tells me he’s singing something under his breath while I pull on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt.
His fist punches my shoulder instead of the door when I swing it open, his blue-green eyes that match mine cast to the ceiling like he’s watching an invisible music performance.
He smiles at my scowl. “About time, butthead.”
“You are a literal child, Harrison,” I say.
“See, if I was a literal child I wouldn’t be able to tell you that’s literally the wrong use of ‘literal.’”
I manage to hold on to my scowl for three seconds before breaking out in a smile. “Touché.”
I follow my brother through the open living space, and he plops himself down at the kitchen bar. I ruffle his hair as I pass, and the solid punch to my bicep is another reminder that Harrison isn’t my baby brother anymore.
I grab a pan from the hanging rack as I round the counter, pulling out ingredients from the refrigerator in a set of moves so practiced over the years of cooking for Harrison that I can do it mindlessly. I set about whisking the eggs and cheese together while the pan heats.
“No muffins?” Harrison asks, eyeing the counter of my long, narrow kitchen.
“Been too busy at work to bake,” I remind my brother, even though the work at our company has always run me more ragged than him.
I brew our coffee while the eggs cook, Harrison sitting in comfortable silence while I work.
I fix his mug—three horrendously large scoops of sugar with a bit of the powdered creamer I keep for him—then pour my black coffee, gulping down the liquid and definitively not thinking about the fact that it’s the same color of Thea’s dilated eyes in my dream, most of the chocolate brown taken over by her blown pupils.
I don’t regret not kissing her when I had the chance.
Okay, 90 percent of the time I don’t regret it, and that 10 percent likes to run wild with what-ifs in my dreams.
With Harrison’s breakfast ready, I snag myself a banana from the counter and settle across from him. “I know you love me, but you’re not here for a pre-work get-together. What’s up?”
“Can’t a man visit his brother?”
I lift an eyebrow. “He can. But not before seven in the morning, and especially not when he’s going to see said brother in less than an hour at the office.”
Two years ago, when Harrison graduated from the small liberal arts college he went to in New England, he moved back home to join me at Hayes Electric, our family’s electrical contracting company.
It was our dad’s dream, and he had worked tirelessly to make it successful.
And to keep it successful, even after he got sick.
He and I spent long hours sitting on his hospital bed, sheets of paper spread across it while he explained the ins and outs of the company.
He was so proud that I’d take it over one day, even though he wouldn’t be there to see it.
And then he was gone, with nothing but his expectations left behind. And a grieving widow who fluctuated between debilitating despair and extreme bursts of productivity so she could maintain her husband’s legacy for his sons, forcing all of her five-year-old’s care onto her thirteen-year-old.
Harrison takes a bite of his eggs, his hum of appreciation bringing me back to the present. “These are great, Owen.”
“I’m sure. Now spill.”
He smiles down at his plate. “You know Addy said yes?”
I nod, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’m happy for you, man.”
My loud, self-assured little brother blushes. “I can’t believe she’s marrying me. I don’t know how I tricked a woman like her into loving me.”
“I agree. She’s far too smart and beautiful for the likes of you,” I tease.
In truth, I don’t get it. I’ve only met Harrison’s girlfriend—fiancée, I guess—a handful of times.
She works at Hayes with us, but there’s no overlap in our roles.
Addy’s sweet, if a little bland. Like a doll with eyes that blink and a voice box to speak, but whose expression never changes.
But Harrison loves her, and that’s all that matters.
“We called Nana to tell her about the engagement, and she mentioned there was an unexpected cancellation at the vineyard.”
“That’s great.” Every Ellis—our mom’s side of the family—in the past three generations has been married at Black Bear Winery, and Harrison’s always wanted to follow in their footsteps.
Our family here in Florida is small, just us and our mom.
But for two months every summer, before real life and jobs took over, we got to run wild with our extended family in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Four aunts and uncles, too many cousins to count, and our grandmother.
The untamable, unconquerable Cecily Ellis. It’s home, in every way that matters.
But my family, my company, needs me here.
“When’s the big day?” I ask.
“The twelfth of August,” he says with a guilty smile.
I flip through the calendar on my phone, landing on the date. “You’re getting married on a Sunday?”
“No.” He clears his throat. “You’re in the wrong year.”
I look up at him so quickly my head spins. “Please tell me you’re waiting a couple years to get married and not getting married next month.”
He smiles wide, almost manically. “I’m getting married next month!”
I run my hands down my face. “Mom’s going to have a conniption.”
“She’s just happy one of us is getting married,” he says with a laugh.
“I’m thirty-two, not fifty! She acts like she has to save me from becoming a decrepit bachelor.”
Harrison laughs at my misery. “So, who are you going to bring to the wedding?”
“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t come over before I had my coffee, Mom.”
Harrison lets out a whine. “Was that an attempt at a joke? Haven’t we established you should leave the jokes to the funny people?”
He chuckles, and if he notices the forced nature of my laugh, he says nothing.
I know who I am. I’m not the fun brother. Definitely not the funny brother. But every reminder feels like a jab between the ribs.