“We’re going to make this happen.” Addison stood, gathering up her iPad and the folders she’d brought in. “And I just want to make it very clear to the rest of you assholes that you’d better tell me before you get married—realorfake. Or I’m never speaking to you again.”
Aiden’s brows lifted. “That’s a little drastic, isn’t—”
“Never,” she cut in, hand raised. “Again.”
“You don’t need to make anything happen,” I said. “In fact, I’d appreciate it if we could just rewind the past fifteen minutes and pretend this conversation never took place.”
“Too late!” Addison said, striding toward the door. “Already on it.”
“I’m out, too,” Levi said, tipping his chin toward me on his way out.
“I hope you’re ready for this, man,” Brady said, clapping a hand on my shoulder as he headed toward the front door.
“Don’t think your new nuptials are going to get you out of figuring out the fundraiser for the uniforms,” Aiden said before following Brady out of the diner.
With a groan, I braced my elbows on the counter and dropped my head into my hands. “Fuuuck.”
When I finally lifted my head, I found Beck staring at me, arms crossed and an unreadable expression on his face.
“What’s that look for?” I asked. Which…yeah. That was a dumb-as-fuck question because whatwasn’tthat look for?
“I just want to know why you didn’t tell me.”
It was a fair question, considering Beck and I told each other everything. He knew me better than anyone in the world—sometimes I wondered if he knew me better than I knew myself. And that was exactly why I hadn’t wanted to tell him before I’d gone through with it, worried he would have found a way to talk me out of it.
It was the same reason I never told him before I went off on one of my impromptu adventures. I always told him everything he wanted to know, but not untilafterthe fun had been had.
“Because I thought you’d try to talk me out of it.”
He scoffed. “For good reason.”
“Maybe, but we’re doing this for a good reason, too. The jackass she works for refuses to even consider an offer from her unless she’s married. You should hear the shit he says to her. I’ll be lucky if I get out of this without Brady arresting me for assault and battery.”
“And what are you getting out of this?”
“A date to Chelsea’s wedding.”
“And?”
“And…I get to show up with a smoking-hot woman on my arm who happens to be my wife.”
Beck leveled me with a look. It was his big-brother look. He didn’t pull it out often—hard to do when he was only sixteen minutes older than me—but when he did, I knew I was in for a lecture.
So I saved him the trouble and held up a hand, the other going into my pocket to rub my thumb over our napkin contract. “No lecture needed. We both know what this is and what this isn’t.”
“Yeah? So she knows you’ve been obsessed with her since you were fifteen and her table partner in chemistry?”
“I’m not—nor have I ever been—obsessed with her. Jesus.”
Beck glanced down to my wedding ring before lifting his gaze back to mine, his brow raised as if to say,aren’t you?
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
QUINN
By the timeI pulled up outside Ford’s cottage—ourcottage, for the foreseeable future—it was after seven. I’d been done at the clinic for a couple hours, and while I’d run a few unscheduled errands and drove around town for far too long, I couldn’t delay the inevitable any longer.
When I’d woken up this morning in Ford’s bed—a place I never thought I’d be—I hadn’t anticipated finding him so close. Although that was a gross understatement. Ford wasn’t just close—he’d been curled around me, his chest pressed against my back, knees tucked up under mine, and his arm slung possessively around me, hand spread wide over the soft flesh of my stomach as if he was afraid I was going to try to sneak out.
