“Oh, honey,” Audrey says, picking up Leo and balancing him on her hip. “You think this is bad? Girl, this is tame compared to when I met Reign.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.” She bounces Leo gently. “I met Reign, we had one night together—phenomenal, mind you—and then I panicked. I ran. I moved back home.”
“That sounds reasonable,” I say. “Space is good.”
“Kind of. I moved back home to get engaged to an evil mob boss,” she adds brightly.
I blink. “I’m sorry,a what?”
“An evil mob boss,” she repeats casually, like we’re discussing the weather. “Like, actual organized crime. I was trapped, terrified, ready to sign my life away to save my father’s legacy. And then Reign found me.”
“He found you?”
“Well, hunted me down is more accurate. He showed up, looked me dead in the eye, and told me he didn’t give a damn about the ring on my finger.” She smiles, a soft, dreamy expression that seems at odds with the violence of the story. “He said he was going to fight for me. And then he proceeded to ruin my entire engagement. It was chaos. There were threats, there was danger... it was the most romantic thing that’s ever happened to me.”
My mouth is hanging open. “And you... liked that?”
“I loved it.” Audrey kisses Leo’s chubby cheek. “Sometimes, Tilly, you don’t need logic. You need a hot guy who looks at the obstacles in your way and decides they don’t exist.”
I feel that treacherous swoon again. Because when I think of Ben—the certainty in his voice, the way his arm tightened around me when I tried to slip out of bed this morning—I can picture him doing exactly that.
That’s what scares me. Not that he’s intense. But that part of me wants him to be.
“Everyone from Fit Mountain has stories like that,” Charlotte says, tapping my nose with a brush. “Mountain men don’t do ‘dating.’ They only do ‘claiming.’”
Claiming. There’s that word. The same word Ben growled against my throat while he was still buried inside me.
“But Koda is so sweet,” I argue. “Surely you guys were normal.”
Charlotte throws her head back and laughs so hard she almost drops her blending sponge.
“Normal? Tilly, Koda was my dad’s best friend.”
“Oh.”
“Like his best friend,” she emphasizes. “I literally called him ‘Uncle Koda’ until I turned twenty-one.”
“That is... a complication,” I admit.
Part of me still can’t believe I’m having this conversation. I met this woman hours ago, and now she’s telling me the story of her love life while blending highlighter onto my cheekbones. But there’s something about the easy way she shares it, the way neither of them seems to think my situation is strange or embarrassing, that makes me feel less like I’m losing my mind.
Like maybe I’m allowed to want this. Even if it doesn’t make sense.
“We tried to stay away from each other. We really did.” Charlotte pauses, a wicked grin spreading across her face. “Butthen we got trapped in a snowstorm together and... well... let’s just say one thing led to another, and suddenly I was pregnant with Elaine.”
“What did your dad say?”
“I didn’t tell him for months. But then he decided to show up and surprise me at my beauty school showcase,” Charlotte says cheerfully. “He walked in all proud and found out I was pregnant. And that his best friend is the father.”
I wince. “Yikes.”
“Girl, it was a bloodbath.” Charlotte applies mascara with the steady hand of a sniper. “My dad practically killed him. They had a full-on fist fight in the middle of the school hallway. Blood, broken ribs, the works. They didn’t speak for months. I thought our family was shattered forever.”
“That sounds traumatizing,” I whisper.
“It was!” Charlotte beams. “But then, the day I went into labor, Dad showed up. He looked at Koda, realized how much he loved me, and decided being a grandpa was more important than being angry. Now they build furniture together on weekends.”
