Until it was finished, Everly and Chuckanut were staying in my apartment, just where I wanted them, and Everly was making house calls to service her clients, while still referring out any surgical procedures to the next closest clinic.
Thankfully, she’d found her rhythm with the house calls—and with Starlight Cove. The former had gotten easier once she’d settled in and figured out the new timing for each appointment. As for the latter… Well, after Mabel’s video in which Everly could see firsthand just how much everyone in town loved her, it’d become easier for her to see it for herself.
Brady sat next to me, Luna’s position mirroring Everly’s as she sat on his lap. Smiling at Addison, Luna leaned forward, bracing her arms on the table while Brady curled a possessive hand around her hip.
“I’m telling you, with your spa offerings, it’s going to begold. And I think I can really sell Harper on that article idea,” Addison said, hands flying as she spoke, narrowly missing toppling over several glasses in her wake. “Weddings could be our next big draw!” Her words were a little sloppy, eyes a little glazed.
I glanced over at Aiden and raised a brow, silently telling him he’d better make sure she got back to the inn safely when she was ready to leave. He just tipped his chin at me, already on it. Thank God, because I didn’t plan to be here. I was already itching to get home and out of the crowd. Lose myself in Everly for a while.
Or all night.
Levi downed the last of his drink before setting it on the table with a clunk. He’d shown up, scowl firmly on his face, and slid into a chair without a word, only offering Everly and me a nod of congratulations, though that’d been more than I was expecting. To be honest, I was surprised he’d come at all.
With a groan, Levi said, “This is why I never hang out with you. Can you talk about literally anything else but the resort? Do you even have a life?”
“Oh, that’s rich coming from Starlight Cove’s hermit,” Addison shot back with an eye roll.
“What are you, twelve?” Aiden said to them both. “Christ, I’m having flashbacks to when you were little and constantly fighting.”
“I kind of like it,” Everly said with a shrug. “Reminds me of me and my brother.”
“I wish we could’ve officially met him,” Luna said. “Does he have any plans to visit again?”
Everly took a sip of her fruity cocktail and nodded. “Definitely after the house is built. He and my parents are excited to see it.”
“We all are,” Addison said. Then she snapped her fingers and narrowed one eye in a move that made her look like a pirate. “That reminds me…I need to talk to Ford about adding flower boxes to the cottages. Where is he?” She twisted around, looking for my twin and nearly falling out of her chair while she was at it. Fucking hell, Aiden was going to have to drag her out like a sack of potatoes.
“He’s around here somewhere,” I said, glancing around and finding him standing in the corner with Quinn, the two of them facing off in some kind of heated exchange. Par for the course with them.
As the rest of the table continued chatting and exchanging barbs, I turned my attention back to Everly. “How is Brother Dick Breath doing anyway?”
She huffed out a laugh and twisted on my lap, effectively rubbing her tight ass against my cock and making me swallow back a groan. We’d overslept this morning, which meant I hadn’t had my daily fix of her pussy yet, and I was dying for it.
“Are you twoevergoing to get along?” she asked.
I shrugged, one hand palming her ass, the other resting on her bare knee, my thumb slipping beneath the fluttery hem of her short skirt. “That depends on if he plans to be an absolute shitstain the next time he visits or not.”
“Do you just have, like, a thesaurus of insults for him that you run through, or what?”
“It’s easy when I have the right inspiration.”
She rolled her eyes, but a grin tugged at her lips. “What do I have to do so you’ll be nice to him?”
Ishouldbe nice to him. He was her brother, after all, and my initial impression of him couldn’t have been more off. And he did look out for her, even if it was in his own misguided way. But it was going to take a hell of a lot for that first impression—not to mention his efforts to try to drag her back to Washington—to fade.
“Oh, it’d have to be good, for sure,” I said.
She draped her arms over my shoulders, playing with the hair peeking out from under my hat. “How about you choose our next chapter?”
My brows lifted. Everly usually steered that ship, and I was all too willing to let her be the captain. There was little else in this world I loved more than pleasing her, and finding all her pleasure buttons was a quest I would gladly pursue for the rest of my life. But I couldn’t deny a few chapters recently had piqued my interest when she hadn’t said much at all about them.
“How long do I have to be nice to him for?”
She tossed her head back and laughed, the tinkling noise heard even over the chorus of voices in the bar. I fucking loved that sound. Loved knowing I’d been the one to make her laugh. Loved knowing I made her happy, period.
When she stared back at me, her eyes were shining, so full of love and contentment, it nearly had me in a choke hold. Christ, this woman was my whole fucking world, and all I could do was orbit around her. She’d come into my life, not like a hurricane but like the rising sun, her warmth seeping over me, her sunshine illuminating all my dark shadows.
I never wanted to spend a day without her sparkle. And I was going to spend the rest of my life making sure I didn’t have to.
