I roll my lips together, glaring over at my sister, who’s throwing some serious shade at her husband. Maddie snorts beside me.
“Babe. I told you—that isn’t the flex you think it is,” says Chelsea. “You were meant to tell her that he abseils in his free time.” Her focus shifts to me, eyebrows bobbing up and down. “He’s very fit.”
“Well, I asked Jacob if any of the guys on his team were single, and guess who recently got divorced?” My head drops back between my shoulders with a groan. “His coach,” finishes Maddie.
“Mark has three sisters and is very close to his mum. He knows how to treat a lady,” Chelsea says matter-of-factly.
“Mama’s boy.” Maddie coughs under her breath, making Evan and Chelsea narrow their eyes.
“He also travelled to the US last year to run the New York Marathon,” Evan says, holding his fist out to his wife, who bumps his knuckles.
“Coach has a neck tatt, and you just know that thing’s going further. Tattooed boys are such freaks,” Maddie sings, then holds her fingertips up to her mouth and releases them with a kiss.
“You know this from experience, Maddie?” Chels asks.
Her husband is covered in his fair share of tattoos. It’s not something I would have thought was on my list of must-haves in a potential partner. I’m always looking to connect with a person’s mind, their values, their stories, before anything physical. Call it my curious nature, the satisfaction of learning something newthat rules my attraction. I’ve always found that physical need builds after I’ve gotten to know a person. I don’t know what makes Gage different. Maybe it’s the fact that he isn’t open. All he’s given me are opportunities to focus on the outside, and I’m desperate to try to understand what’s going on on the inside. I’m insatiable.
“Izzy?”
Everything comes back into focus, and I find my sisters and Evan staring at me, waiting.
“Um, yeah?”
Maddie smirks, then tips her chin to the crowd. Gage and Beth are at a stall on the other side of the open lawn area. Beth laughs up at her brother as she holds various little garden pots up to him.
“Maybe she’s not interested in our guys because she’s already found the one she wants,” says Maddie.
“It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t date,” I say.
“People who say that just haven’t found the one they want to date yet,” Chelsea argues.
“Trust me, he’s not interested. I thought he might have been, but I was wrong.”
The four of us turn our heads, looking at Gage and Beth. From here, I can see the slightest smirk on Gage’s face as Beth says something.
And then, he looks up.
My cheeks heat, my heart races, and tingles dance up my arms. The wind picks up, a gentle breeze that sweeps a lock of hair over my face. I push it back behind my ear, and Gage still hasn’t looked away.
Chelsea clicks her tongue. “I think you might be the one who’s wrong, dear sister.”
Chapter twelve
There’s a booth at The Wayside behind a velvet rope reserved for my family. Well, I guess it’s mainly for Beth, since Caleb and Mason like to venture past the rope to hit on women. It’s a nice change to see Caleb park his arse at that bench for longer than twenty minutes. Every time I glance over to their table, he’s staring at his phone while Beth seems to be talking nonstop.
“Hey, Mason.”
I look up from the beer I’m pouring to see a woman sidle up to my brother. There’s already another woman on the other side of him that he’s been chatting up for the last five minutes.
My brother looks over his shoulder with his signature side smile. “Hey, sweetheart. How you doing tonight?”
“Better now that I ran into you.”
I roll my eyes as I put the first beer aside and pour another.
“Ah, excuse me. We were talking here,” the blonde sitting with my brother says with a sneer.
“It’s alright, ladies. There’s plenty of me to go around.” With a heavy sigh, I pass the two beers to my customer, moving on to the next person in line.
