“I figured that’s why you took the job as a sex line operator.”
Avery snorted out a laugh as Will gasped, trying to act offended but stifling her own giggle.
“Would you shut up?” she said without heat, sparing a glance toward our daddy’s office as if to make sure he hadn’t overheard. “Finn and I didn’t… Um, well, we?—”
“Didn’t get a chance to bone this morning?” I finished dryly.
Much as I’d like to scrub the memories from my mind, I had been the unwilling voyeuristic party in many a wild night between Will and Finn—at least until Will had moved out of the house we’d shared and in with Finn. And I could say with certainty that little else had scarred me more than overhearing my sister’s sex life.
Will and I had been the closest for the longest out of all our sisters, but even we shouldn’t be privy to the sounds the other made while…ahem…having a good time. Thank God for noise-canceling headphones.
“I’m not dignifying that with an answer,” Will said.
“Ah, but you just did, my sweet sister.” I tossed my arm around her shoulders and tugged her close. “Is Rory meetin’ us there?”
“I don’t think so. She said she’s gonna be swamped this week, gettin’ The Sweet Spot’s reno started. I guess they’re tryin’ to minimize the demolition so they can keep the shop open as long as possible.”
I glanced at the bakery across the Square that I knew almost as well as I knew my own home. I’d spent more hours inside those four walls than I could count, keeping my childhood best friend, Hudson, company while he did all he could to help his momma run her new business after her husband had died in combat. It’d been a long time since I had been over there to help.
Even longer since Hudson had been home.
The familiar pang in my chest at the thought of him kept me company as the three of us walked to The Willow Tree—Havenbrook’s first and only bar, and an homage to Willow herself, courtesy of her fiancé—and ducked inside.
No matter how many times I’d seen the space—and since this was where I received a steady paycheck, I saw it a whole shit-ton—it never failed to impress me that Rory had made it come to life. Though my eldest sister and I hadn’t seen eye to eye on a lot of things over the years, it seemed time had healed some of those old wounds. We still weren’t as close as Will and I were, but we were getting there.
I couldn’t be happier for my sister’s success—in life and love. And if I was a little jealous about both of those things, well, I’d just keep it to myself.
“If it ain’t three of my favorite girls,” Finn called as he strolled out from behind the bar.
“Oh, sure, lump your fiancée in with the other two,” Will said, resting her hand on her hip.
“C’mon, Willowtree, you know you’re my favorite. And you also know…” Finn’s words were muffled as he whispered them into her ear, but from the look on Will’s face, I could guess what he was saying.
“For shit’s sake, you two, get a room.” I walked around them, plucked three menus from behind the hostess stand and a few sets of silverware, and led Avery to a table against the wall of windows. I had half a mind to punch in so I could at least get paid for doing Finn’s job.
Some people might not want to eat lunch at the place they saw most evenings until at least midnight, but when the restaurant pickings were as slim as they were in Havenbrook, there wasn’t much choice. Besides, the burgers here were spectacular.
“I wonder if that’s going to die down after the big day.” Avery tipped her head in the direction of where Finn and Will stood, right in the middle of the bar, making out like they were a couple of teenagers.
“Unlikely.” I placed the menus and silverware on the table. “They’ll be eighty and still goin’ at it like bunnies.”
“It’s making me jealous as fuck. Is it so much to ask to get some new single men in this town?” Avery gasped and leaned forward over the table, her eyes dancing. “I almost forgot to tell you! When I was out on my run this morning, I saw one of the finest men I’ve ever seen in mylife.”
“You sure you weren’t hallucinating? Five a.m. is awful early, and you’re bound to start seein’ things.”
“Hallucinating about what?” Will asked as she slid into the seat next to me.
“The absolutely gorgeous guy I saw this morning, and no. I’m one-hundred-percent certain he was real. And I’m equally certain he’s not from around here. Plates were from Tennessee. But—” she hummed and fluttered her lashes “—he wasdelectable. Super tall. Well built. He was wearing aviators, so I couldn’t see his eyes, but he definitely had a military feel to him, know what I mean?”
A frisson of awareness zinged up my spine, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. It was probably nothing. Just like every other mention of a military man over the past decade had been nothing.
After this many years, I should’ve been used to it. I should’ve been able to ignore it. But sometimes, when you got so little of someone, you scavenged for crumbs. Even when those crumbs ended up having no correlation to the person you’d been missing.
“Once in a while, guys pass through from Fort Shelby, so that’d make sense,” I said. “Was he at the gas station?”
“No, actually, he was at?—”
“There y’all are!” Rory yelled, the front door banging against the wall as she came tearing in, her heels clicking on the polished concrete floor. “Been lookin’ for you all over this damn town.”
