She sits back, grinning at her brother, nothing in herexpression giving anything away, and I watch her with a puzzled frown.
“I’m having a beer,” Paisley tells her brother pertly, sliding her hand around one of the drinks and dragging it toward her. “Thanks!”
Nick’s glower darkens, his eyes flicking between Paisley and me, before he rolls his eyes, turning and stalking back to the bar. She watches him go, sipping at his beer, and then looks back at me.
“I missed you.”
Unease crawling through me, I raise an eyebrow. “Did you?”
Paisley hums softly, tracing her finger around a circle patch of condensation on the wooden table. “I started planning to come back home a few months ago, and”—she shrugs delicately—“you were on my mind a lot during that process.”
“I don’t understand why,” I say shortly. “We haven’t spoken in four years. You get that’s a long time, right? I don’t know you, Paisley, just like you don’t know me. Not anymore.”
She pushes her lower lip out slightly. “Right. You have a…You have Gracie now. Mom said you’re looking at buying a house.”
Esther talks entirely too much,I think sourly. “We are.”
Paisley looks up at me through her fawny lashes. “I’m not here to cause problems, Braxton, and I’m not lying about missing you. I just want…” She sighs. “I would like us to go back to the way it used to be. I don’t have any friends left in town, butwewere friends, weren’t we? I’d like to get that back.”
I hesitate, a sense of wrongness settling in my bones. But she isn’t wrong. There was a time in high school—before I ever confessed my feelings, before she ever cut me out—when we were friends. It had started out with her always trailingafter me and Nick, wanting to join in, but I genuinely enjoyed her company, even if she was a couple of years younger.
It takes several seconds before Paisley finally gives up on getting any kind of answer out of me, changing the subject. “I heard Analise is enjoying college.”
My lips twitch at the mention of my sister, my shoulders easing at the safer subject. “She is,” I confirm. “To hear her tell it, nothing interesting ever happens on campus, but she’s enjoying her classes.”
“She’s got another year, right? And then she’s coming back?” It feels like Paisley is trying to hammer a point home, but I’m not sure what it is.
“Right. She’s got plans of starting up her own editing business,” I murmur, searching for Nick. He’s standing at the bar, talking to someone—a cop he works with.
“I can understand why she wants to come home,” Paisley is saying. “It took me a little longer to learn that lesson, but I’m here now.” She sits back in her seat, her expression open and unexpectant. “Do you think we’ll ever be able to go back to how we were?”
I chew on my inner cheek. “I don’t know, Paisley. We’re strangers now, aren’t we?”
A soft laugh leaves her lips, and she leans forward, resting her hand on my arm. I stare down at where her pale hand rests against my tanned skin. “We could never be strangers, Brax,” Paisley says confidently, “but I’ll be happy with friends.”
I look back at her, her eyes bright with meaning, but I just swallow roughly, asking, “Do you think Nick remembered my nachos?”
CHAPTER 6
Gracie
My phone buzzes around in a tight little circle on the side table, the ringtone piercing as it echoes through my living room.
I stare at it, watching Braxton’s name flash insistently across the screen right under a picture of him.
It’s one I took of him when he was lying in my bed one night, shirtless and playing a stupid army game on his phone—the kind where he has to conquer the land around his kingdom. I had come to the bedroom doorway, watching him while he was oblivious to me, my heart feeling more than a little full. It wasn’t a feeling I was used to, and wanting to cement the moment in my memory, I impulsively lifted my phone, calling, “Say cheese!”
Braxton looked up, startled, but his face softened as he saw me, green eyes warm with affection. “What’re you doing, Rumpel?” he asked, lips twitching with amusement.
“Immortalizing a memory,” I answered promptly.
“Lies.” He laughed. “You’re taking photos of me shirtless for your spank bank. Come on, we can do better than that.” His lips curled into a wicked smirk as he grabbed theblankets, flicking them off, showing off his thick thighs and tight boxer briefs.
“Girls don’t have a spank bank,” I retorted primly, dropping the phone onto my bedside table and sliding my legs over either side of his hips. Just as I dropped down, settling the apex of my thighs injustthe right spot, I smirked wickedly. “It’s a rub hub.”
Braxton had groaned, his own phone lost in the bedsheets, and his fingers clamped firmly around my hips. “Call it whatever you want, just as long as I’m the only one in it.”
The phone stops, the sudden quiet pulling me back into the present. I don’t move a muscle, my hands clenched into fists and pressed into my thighs. I don’t take my attention off the phone, waiting to see if he’ll try again, my breathing catching in my throat.
