“It is a big deal when our youngest brother has got a new wife we haven’t met yet,” Alex drawls, his tone jovial and filled with provocation.
“Alex, leave him alone.”
My eyes snap over to the brunette. I hadn’t expected her to have an accent exactly like mine—American. It’s been a little over a week, where all I’ve heard is English, and it’s a comforting change.
She also pulls me into a hug, instead of the English handshake, though we’re separated by her pregnant belly. “Hi, I’m Haven. It’s so good to meet you. Sorry about this. You’ll get used to the Burlingtons after a couple of months. . .”
A couple ofmonths.
The season will end in a couple of months, and who knows what will happen then.
“. . . but you should come,” Haven continues. “We’d all really love to meet you, and it’s a fun night. I know it can seem intimidating when there are so many of us, but Holiday and Lando are here for the weekend.”
I turn to Miles, unsure what to say. There’s a nervous energy about him that immediately makes me wary, and he picks up on it instantly. Shoving all of his siblings out the front door before they can say another word, he slams it shut.
A chorus of complaints erupts from the other side.
“Just fucking wait there,” he yells through the door before he turns back to me. “Ruby, I’m so sorry. This is my family. Yes,we have dinner every Friday. But I already told them we weren’t coming this week.”
“You already told them we weren’t coming?”
He nods. “We have our first match on Monday. I thought we could spend the weekend in peace with some light training. And . . .” He grimaces. “I didn’t think it was fair to subject you to them all quite so soon.”
“Do they know about me?”
“Yes—”
“I mean . . . do they know that this isn’t real?” I lower my voice automatically, mouthing the last part of the sentence as a precaution.
“They know why we got married,” he says quietly. “But that doesn’t stop them from wanting to meet you because they’re meddling bastards. I’m warning you now—my family is a lot.”
“We can hear you, you know!” someone yells from behind the door. I think it’s Hendricks.
Miles bangs his fist against the wood. “Yes, because your ears are pressed against it, like the nosy fuckers you are.”
A grunt confirms it, and I laugh despite myself.
“Okay,” I say. Moving Miles out of the way, I hold on to the door and pull it open. “We’ll come for dinner. But I have to shower, and Miles has to shower too. Can you give us thirty minutes?”
“Jeans are absolutely fine,” Haven says quickly. “You can wear whatever you want. Come like that.”
“No. Absolutely not.” I put my foot down firmly. “We are showering. I need to shower.”
“Yeah,” Alex calls. “You do stink, Milo.”
“Fuck you, Al. You’d stink too if you’d been working even half as hard as we have today.” Miles turns back to me. “Ruby, I hope you know what you’ve let yourself in for. But say the word, and we are out of there. Deal?”
He holds out his hand to shake, and once again I take it. “Deal.”
My confidence isn’t quite so high forty-five minutes later as we drive over to Miles’s family house. What I thought was a turnoff road, he informs me, is actually the driveway. It’s two miles long. While I’m used to big ranches and endless acres, there’s something different about this place.
It feels regal.
Impeccably aligned trees. Picturesque fields. Freshly cut grass. Hay bales stacked with perfect symmetry. Horses grazing peacefully.
And then we round the corner.
The house comes into view through a long path of oak trees, and I swear it’s more palace than house.
