“Mia’s a great cook, what are you talking about?” Ford grabs three cubes of cheese, tossing them in his mouth.
“Yeah, but she’s been real emotional lately. A grocery store commercial had her sobbing yesterday. I’m not even exaggerating, there were many, many tears.” Nate’s eyes widen as he makes eye contact with each of us around the table.
I remember those days. At least, a little bit with Kristen. She’s naturally not an emotional person, so I remember being surprised when she started crying over a show she’d seen ten times before.
Conversation between the guys picks back up and I’m floating my attention between whatever they’re saying and beyond the glass window into the kitchen where my daughter sits at the counter. I assume she’s helping with something, but that seems like a loose term as one strawberry goes on the dessert dish and the next two end up in her mouth. Summer’s watching her the whole time, finally slicing up a small bowl just for her to snack on, and I smile to myself.
Nate and Mia’s house is similar to what I envision for me and CeCe one day. A lot of land, privacy, a modest home but enough room to have our family and friends over for birthdays or holidays.
I used to do that all the time when I first moved into my apartment. I loved hosting poker nights and game nights. It stopped when Kristen became pregnant and my time with my friends was drastically cut down. I want to blame that on her, but I didn’t have to go along with every ridiculous thing she asked me to. It was a choice I made. I thought I was doing the right thing at the time.
“Come eat.” Summer peeks her head out the door.
All of us pile into the dining room and I notice CeCe putting small foam hearts on every chair like she’s setting up a tea party for her dolls or something.
“CeCe, don’t do that,” I say, picking it up from the seat closest to me. When I glance at the others around the table, I notice they’re all an assortment of colors. Probably something from one of her craft books that she brought with her.
“No!” CeCe shouts.
“Hey,” I say. “No yelling.”
“That’s Summer’s spot,” CeCe says, brows creasing as she pouts.
“What?”
“Daddy, Auntie Abby, MiMi.” CeCe walks around tapping each chair like she’s assigning us all seats.
“Oh, these colors are our spots?” Abby bends down to CeCe’s level and strokes her cheek.
CeCe nods, and without a second thought or question, everyone waits for instructions on where to sit. My chest swells at the patience and just overall acceptance the people in this room have for her. CeCe’s never been looked at as a burden bythem, they’ve always loved her and treated her as if she’s their own and I can’t think of anything better than that.
When I take a seat and look up, Summer’s seated directly across from me. She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and waves her pink foam heart in the air—the same color as the one I got—and looks up at me through dark lashes. The corners of her lips turn up into a smile and I’m locked in on her gaze. I didn’t anticipate her to demand so much of my attention without even trying.
“Gravy, Hunt.” I hear my name and feel a jab in my left arm as Ford asks for the gravy, apparently a second time.
“Sorry,” I mumble, handing him the gravy boat and silently telling myself not to look straight ahead for the rest of this meal.
“Okay, but why didn’t you just sayTitanic? I would’ve gotten it then!” Mia protests, folding her arms over her chest.
“I saidThe Wolf of Wall Street. It’s not my fault that your Leo knowledge only spans to who he dates and theTitanic,” Liam jokes as he tosses the scrap of paper into the used pile.
Mia makes another grunting noise as she walks off into the kitchen to check on the dessert. I’ve been out of the game for the last couple rounds, and it looks like Ford and Abby are the winners. They’re both suspiciously good at Celebrity Charades, it makes me wonder if they practice in their spare time or something. I personally prefer a good old fashioned board game. Give meSorryorMonopoly, even a game ofScrabbleis more fun to me than this one.
“Anyone need anything?” Summer asks the group, but I don’t look up at her when I answer no. My plan for the foreseeable future—until whatever the hell this is goes away—is to speak toSummer as little as possible and only make eye contact when necessary.
But my plan is immediately shot to hell when she takes a seat beside me, knocking her knee into my leg.
“Are you all right there?” Her head tilts as she looks over at me. A piece of hair falling into her face that she quickly gathers, pulling all of her hair to her other shoulder, showing the silkiness of her skin, practically putting it on display for me.
I haveneverbeen so fucking affected by Summer Kincaid in my life.
Her and I have had plenty of conversations over the years, plenty of moments where our eyes have met or smiles matched, laughs collided and skin grazed. Yet sitting next to her on this couch has me absolutely fucking weak.
A grunt leaves my chest louder than intended.
“I’m good,” I say, pounding my chest with a fist.
I risk a glance in her direction and am met with the smirk I’ve seen a hundred times before. The challenging one. The one that taunts me. The one that wants to push me. And test my willpower, my patience.
