Page 116 of Hometown Hottie

“And banish you from this fucking town forever. Not even the hero-worship you’ve got around here will survive the damage I’ll do if you hurt her.”

“Got it,” I said, and I really did. If I hurt her, I’d rip off my own balls and exile myself. I wouldn’t wait for him to do it for me. “Thanks for coming over here to talk to me about this, man. It’s really been weighing me down to feel like I betrayed you. For what it’s worth, I really tried to stay away from her.”

He scrunched up his face as he regarded me from across the counter. “You didn’t try too hard, it seems.”

“Trust me, if I could’ve chosen who I had these feelings for, I wouldn’t have chosen your baby sister. It wasn’t a choice, Ryan. That’s the whole point. It’s never been about the fact that she’s your sister or that she was the one I couldn’t have. To me, she’s Nova, the most amazing woman in the world and the only one I can’t live without.”

“So you’re telling me that your love for her was just so strong that you couldn’t stay away?” He gave me a dubious look.

I shrugged and nodded. “Yeah, I guess that’s exactly what I’m telling you. I didn’t choose her to be the one that I felt this way about, but I do feel this way about her, and because of that, I will choose her. Every time and above everyone and everything else.”

He frowned. “It wasn’t a choice, but now it is?”

“Something like that,” I said, giving him another shrug. “I took a lot of hits to the head, okay? I can’t explain it any better. It’s just that I’ve learned over these past few weeks that when push comes to shove, I will always choose her, even if I didn’t decide to fall for her, and I sure as hell didn’t pursue her just to piss you off.”

He managed a small smile. “That’s good. She deserves someone who will put her first. Why did it take you this long to do it?”

I choked on my coffee, incredulous laughter bubbling out around the liquid. “What? That’s ridiculous. I’ve always put her first.”

“No, you haven’t,” he said pointedly. “There was football and the NFL, and me, and all sorts of shit.”

“What, you’d rather I didn’t worry about what you thought at all?” I scoffed. “Forgive me for trying to be a good friend.”

“A good friend never would’ve stared at my sister in a bikini, looking like his eyes were about to fall out,” he said. “I’ve had your number for a long time, Drake. You might’ve thought you were fooling me, but I knew about it the very first time you realized she wasn’t a baby anymore.”

“Bullshit. I have a better poker face than that,” I argued. “Besides, you’d have jabbed my eyes out if you’d really noticed me staring at her.”

He scoffed, but there was amusement lighting his eyes now as he shook his head. “Maybe I should’ve jabbed out your eyes. I wanted to. And also, it’s not your face that gave you away. Swim trunks aren’t good at hiding what’s underneath them and we were young. It was more difficult to control it back then.”

I pretended to gag. “You knew I had a hard-on for her? That’s what you’re saying?”

He winced. “Unfortunately, yes. I did know that. Although, at the time, I was desperately hoping it was for someone else.”

I sighed. “To be honest, so was I. When I said I never meant to betray you, I was being honest, man. It took me by surprise too, these feelings I have for her. It’s not like I was trying to fall for her.”

“Did you though? Did you really fall for her? It’s not just about the chase, or sex, or whatever?”

“It never has been,” I said honestly, getting up and holding out my hand for him to shake. “Can we agree to let bygones be bygones?”

He left me hanging for so long I was convinced he wasn’t going to shake my hand, but then he got up and smacked his palm into mine. “They’re bygones, but if you break her heart again, I’ll make you disappear.”

“What happened to ripping off my balls and banishing me?”

He shrugged as he tightened his grip on my hand. “That was before I really had a chance to remember those first times I saw you noticing her. Now that I have, banishing you without your balls doesn’t seem good enough. You’d find some way to still make something of your life, so making you disappear seems to be a better option.”

“I don’t doubt it,” I said. “For now though, we need to worry about the bakery and what’s going on down there. There’s no risk of me breaking her heart today, but if they really suspect arson, there might be other risks we need to be aware of.”

He put more coffee on, then pulled three to-go mugs from a cabinet. “You know, having you around to help me protect her might not be so bad. At least I know that she’s got one person watching her back. It helps that I know it’s a person I can trust to keep her safe.”

“You’ve got that right. I won’t let anything happen to her, Ryan. I swear.”

His eyes lingered on mine. “I know, but we might have our work cut out for us. On the other hand, if we don’t get some caffeine in her soon, it might be the people from the fire department who are in trouble. Let’s go. I want to talk to the chief personally before he leaves.”

So did I.

After helping him fix the coffees, I drove down to the bakery with him, glad to be moving past old grudges. Ryan was a formidable enemy and he was tenacious as fuck. So was I. Especially when it came to protecting the people we loved. The two of us together? Whoever had done this wasn’t going to get away with it.

That much, they could be absolutely fucking sure of.