“Sure seems that way.” I’m pouring that delicious creaminess into my coffee.
He leans his hip against the counter and faces me. “Well it suits you. I haven’t seen you look like this in a very long time.” He takes a breath. “I really love this for you.”
“You’re being really sweet.”
“I’m getting emotional, let me finish. I don’t know how much of that is those three men in my living room and how much of it is you, but whatever’s happening, it’s working.” He lifts his mug toward me. “And I am just so fucking glad.”
Then he sets his cup down and pulls me off the counter and into a hug. I awkwardly place my mug down and sink into him.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He leans back just enough to look at me. “For what?”
“For how I’ve been these last few years. Distant. Quiet. Busy.” I wipe at my face and let out a shaky breath. “A lot of it was me trying to outrun my own mess. And I let all of that pull me away from you, and that wasn’t fair. You needed a sister and I was half present on the best days, drowning in my own life, instead of seeing how much I’ve been missing out on.”
“Addi, you don’t?—”
“I’m serious. I kept thinking I’d fix it once things calmed down, and then too much time passed and it got easier to stay quiet than explain why I’d been.”
His face softens, and I’m going to cry.
“I’m fixing it,” I say. “Starting now. I want to talk more, pester you more with calls, text you stupid stuff. Tell me Hannah made for dinner, what Noel and Kane are up to, all of it. I want to be better in touch.”
A laugh catches in his throat. “Who are you and what have you done with my sister?”
I smile through fresh tears. “I’m trying, Chris.”
“I know and I truly appreciate the effort.”
“I’ve been missing you for a long time.” My voice cracks.
“Me too.” He squeezes me closer. He pulls back, eyes shining, wipes at them with the side of his thumb like I won’t notice, and reaches around me for his coffee pot.
“So,” he says, pouring into the last mug, “you said on the phone your Alphas are from Hawaii. You staying out there now?”
“We’re actually buying.” I stare at him, trying to read his face.
“Yeah?” He perks up, staring at me expectantly.
“Two places in fact.”
He stops pouring. “Oh.”
“One on Maui,” I say. “Somewhere quieter than Oahu. More space, more privacy, a little retreat, the kind of place we can disappear to when we need to.” I pause, then add, “And one here, in Whispering Grove.”
He goes very still for half a second. “Here?” he says, like he wants to make sure he heard me right. “You’re coming back home?”
I nod, suddenly feeling shy about it. “Yeah.”
A grin breaks across his face, quick and fierce and so full of joy it hits me straight in the chest. “Well, shit,” he says softly. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard all week.”
I laugh, because now he looks almost smug about it, like the town personally won some kind of custody case.
“You hated this place,” he says.
“I hated being a teenager in this place,” I correct. “That’s not the same thing.”
“No,” he says, stepping in and pulling me into another hug before I can brace for it. “It really isn’t.”
