“You’re staying all week?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Oh,” I whispered, my voice breathy. I cleared my throat and said more confidently, “Cool.”
I didn’t miss Jaxon raising his eyebrow and giving me a slight smirk, but was able to ignore it since Wendy ushered us inside.
“I’m putting you in Cassidy’s old room,” Wendy said. “It’ll be quiet and you have a private bathroom.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you have time for a beer?” Wendy asked Jaxon.
He smiled. “Yep. I got all the time in the world.”
His smile did things to me. Naughty things, and I knew I needed to get a grip, or I’d kneel before him right here and beg to taste every inch of him.
“You okay?” Jaxon asked, and I blushed sure he could read my mind.
“Yep.”
He leaned forward. “You wanna stop biting your lip, Harmony? It’s messin’ with me.”
I gasped quietly and nodded, turning quickly and following Wendy into the kitchen. I heard him chuckle behind me and swallowed to keep myself from sighing out loud.
This was gonna be a big problem for me.
* * *
Jaxon
Ireluctantly leftHarmony two hours later. Mostly because she could barely keep her eyes open, and I didn’t know her well enough to crawl into bed with her.
But it was gonna happen sometime sooner than later, if I had anything to say about it.
Jesus, she was gorgeous. And not just because she was beautiful. She was also funny, thoughtful, and smart. Seemingly, the polar opposite of her sister. Maybe that was ungracious, but the more I heard about Melody, the less I liked her. And that wasafterHarmony made a valiant effort to defend her sister.
How the fuck she could defend her was beyond me, but I kept my mouth shut, and let her fill Wendy and Patrick’s heads with bullshit. I was quickly figuring out that Harmony loved her family, almost to distraction, and I wasn’t the one to open her eyes to her sister’s vapidness.
I climbed into the truck and headed to my parents’, wishing I’d stayed at Patrick and Wendy’s. I wasn’t looking forward to whatever hateful words my mother would passive-aggressively deliver about her daughters-in-law.
Mostly Josh and Carter’s wives, to be honest. Melanie and Cassidy, respectively, didn’t measure up to Mom’s ‘standards,’ but Kim was revered because she had more money that God. It was disgusting and it was the reason my brothers had cut all ties with her.
Matt, Luke, and I were the holdouts, but, admittedly, I rarely came home because I wasn’t interested in hearing the vile things she said. She and I had had multiple conversations on the subject, and I was hoping she’d be a little more gracious this time around.
Pulling up to my parents’ home, I parked in front of the garage, taking a deep breath to bolster my patience. I always carried a change of clothes with me, so I grabbed the bag from the trunk and headed inside.
“Oh, honey, you’re late,” Mom said, rushing into the foyer.
This was the first thing she said to me, indicating this might be a more uncomfortable visit than even I expected. “Sorry, Mom, traffic,” I lied as she hugged me.
“There was traffic at Wendy’s?”
“Jesus, Mom, you gonna keep bustin’ my balls, or are we gonna visit?”
She sighed. “I’m sorry, baby. I just don’t understand why you’d stop there first.”
“Because I had a package to drop off and it meant I didn’t have to come here and then drive back the way I came. Now I can visit with you without interruption.”
