I glanced around at all the people. Friends I didn’t see that often, my father, my cousin, Rhys, Amy. Shit. Everyone who meant anything to me was here.
Hell, I hadn’t had a birthday celebration like this one since I turned twenty-one.
Peering down at Amy, I tilted her chin up, then leaned closer. “Remind me to thank you properly later on.”
“Okay. I’ll remind you.”
I just bet she would.
Amy
It really was hard to keep secrets in a small town. I had learned that firsthand over the past week.
The day I realized Wolfe’s birthday was coming up, I had recruited Calvin, Lynx, Rhys, and Reagan to help me surprise him. I hadn’t thought it would work, but I'd figured we could give it a shot anyway.
Turned out better than I thought it would, actually. Seeing Wolfe walk into Reagan’s, completely confused over why there was no one there, had proven to me that people were willing to go the distance for someone they cared about. The people in this town were top-notch in my book.
And now, everyone was drinking beer, laughing, joking, and telling stories about Wolfe. I was technically working, but Wolfe continued to pull me into his lap, refusing to let me go, so I wasn’t getting much done.
“For his tenth birthday, he wanted a shotgun of his own,” Calvin said from his perch on a barstool. “His momma wasn’t on board with the plan. But I knew how much it meant to him, so I took him out on the range and worked with him. Turned out, Wolfe taught his momma a few things about guns that day.”
Wolfe smiled, his eyes warm. I liked the way he interacted with his father; the love and admiration between the two were apparent. Not to mention the respect. And they both obviously missed Wolfe’s mother.
It made me miss my family. My parents had been taken from me so suddenly. There was still a void deep inside me, one that would forever be empty. Then my aunt and uncle… The thought of how they’d suffered. Why they’d suffered. The ache in my chest had never gone completely away, and times like this, it intensified. I felt short of breath because of it.
“What’s wrong?”
I jerked my attention to Wolfe. It took me a minute to shake off the thoughts. “Nothing. Why?”
Wolfe frowned, clearly not believing me.
Feeling too many eyes on me, I dislodged myself from Wolfe’s grasp. “I need to take care of some customers,” I murmured, then headed for the bar.
I took a deep breath, tried to compose myself. This was a party. I was supposed to be having a good time, not getting trapped in the past.
“The surprise party turned out great,” Reagan said. “You did good.”
The unexpected praise helped to ease some of the longing that had consumed me. “Thanks. I couldn’t’ve done it without your help.”
“Pfft. Whatever. It was all you.”
I rolled my eyes. It wasn’t all me. Not by a long shot. Sure, it might’ve been my idea initially, but I suspected someone would’ve come up with it if I hadn’t. Wolfe was popular in this tight-knit community. They would’ve pitched in to celebrate his thirtieth birthday without me.
The thought didn’t sit well, though.
I hadn’t realized how much I'd come to love this small town, the people, the interaction. It was so much more than I'd ever had. I almost felt like family, and I didn’t want to think about how it would be if I weren’t here.
A warm hand curled around my hip and I turned to see Rhys standing behind me. “You okay?”
I nodded, wishing I could lean in and kiss him. Wolfe was all about public displays of affection when it came to me, but Rhys and I had to remain distant. He had never out-and-out said anything, but I had gotten the sense when we were in public. He always seemed to keep a safe distance between us. With us but not with us.
I briefly wondered if it would always be like that. Should this thing between us become permanent, how would that work out?
Geez. I needed to get my head back in the game here. Why I was thinking about things that didn’t matter, I wasn’t sure. This thing they had going was great. It was simple and easy and…
It wasn’t either of those things, I realized.
Not simple.
