Rory just smirks, but Lexi scoffs. “Ugh, this isn’t fair. Now everyone around me is loved up and getting laid.”
The bench creaks as she plunks down on it. The far end, away from us.
I shoot her puppy dog eyes and hold my hands out to her.
She tosses her head, wild curls tumbling around her with the movement. “I can’t be near you two, you’re sickening right now.”
Weston cackles, hemming me in with an arm around my middle, and grabs a couple beers with his other hand. I try not to focus on the patterns his fingers are tracing on my skin through the delicate fabric of the dress, doing my best to keep my attention on Lexi and our host across from me, trying to stay engaged in their conversation rather than wrapped up in West.
“You’re full of it,” Rory laughs, waving a hand at Lexi. “You were their biggest cheerleader before they got together.”
“You were their second,” she retorts, like it’s an insult, making a face that one would only pull at a sibling.
“Obviously,” Rory says with a catlike smile. “I wanted to poach them both for the Heights. I couldn’t be happier at how this is working out.”
She winks at me, and I’m reminded again that she’s my hero.
I push away the pessimist in me that wonders how long this facade can last. If, when my grant application comes back approved, I’ll decide that’s enough playing house, it’s time to hit the road again.
Luckily, Rory keeps talking, distracting me from the shadows that live within me. “Besides, Lexi, I hear there’s fresh meat in town.”
Lexi’s faces visibly darkens, like clouds rolling in, or maybe lightning struck and that’s her hair starting to stand on end.
I’m distracted by the drag of the pads of Weston’s fingers across my bare skin, then over the dress again, but I try to focus.
“Youhearthat, do you?” Lexi’s teeth are clenched, eyes violent as she has a wordless conversation with her sister that none of the rest of us are privy to. “Could that be becauseyougot him here? And stuck him on me? And now I have to work with the most infuriating man-child on the planet, because you gave me no other choice?”
The man beneath me pops the tops on the beers, the bright scent of hops making my mouth water as he places one within reach for me and taking a swig of his own.
Rory sips her white wine, not opting for beer tonight. I wonder if it’s because of the new place that just opened downtown, Smoky Sips. We’re supposed to do a girls’ night there soon, maybe she’s prepping her palate.
Me, at a girls’ night. With friends.
Pinch me.
She gives Lexi an innocent expression and bats her lashes a couple of times to really sell it. “Whatever do you mean, dear sister? I got you a talented chef, straight from New York. The cafe is going to be so much better off with him behind the line.”
“You got me a sandwich maker from a bodega!”
“Wait.” Weston perks up beneath me but his fingers don’t stop teasing me through my dress, my breaths coming shallow. “Thesandwich maker? Fromthebodega?”
Clearly I’m missing something because Rory’s face turns bright red and Lexi screams a laugh, pointing at her sister in accusation.
“Wilder isthatman! How did I not put this together sooner?”
I turn to Weston in confusion, and he gives me a subtle shake of his head. “I’ll explain later,” he whispers in my ear, and the graze of his lips against my skin brings a flutter to my insides and a chill to my flesh, despite the comfortable—okay, hot—temperature.
The girls continue bickering, Rory pleading with Lexi in hushed tones as Wyatt brings out their daughter, just woken up from a late nap and clinging to her father in a way that makes my eyes sting.
It’s a mild form of chaos as the men carry the dishes of piping hot food from the house, setting out the family style meal on the table.
I quickly learn that family dinner at the Grady cabin isn’t a formal affair. The food was brought back in a cooler with dry ice from New York, and it’s delicious too. The conversation is noisy, hilarious, and overly personal. Very little seems to be off the table in terms of subjects up for discussion, and the jibes flying between both sets of siblings makes my head spin trying to volley between them all, like my own personal tennis match. The only person who’s more quiet than me at this table tonight is Wyatt, but when he speaks, it counts.
My house was fun once upon a time, but it was never like this. Love pouring from everyone present, even with the ribbing and some jokes at the other’s expense. My brother and I certainly were never close like these four are.
Even the older man keeps up with them, digging into each of them as called for, with lots ofoohsandaahscoming from the witnesses every time he gets one in.
Weston keeps me in his lap while we both eat, and he manages not to get anything on my beautiful new dress. He sneaks in kisses to my shoulders and the nape of my neck every so often, dragging his lips over my skin for a moment longer than necessary each time. I wiggle my butt in his lap just enough so that he gets the point, something hard nudging my ass from beneath me.
