Page 76 of More Than My Hometown

21

MAISEY

“Does that say I want to fuck?”

Errrrr….what?!

I whip around, Sawyer’s voice carrying through the entire great room of Dolly and Hux’s new home. The little white house—picked out from a stack of house plans that Dolly had saved over the years and then built to satisfy her every whim—is a sea of half unpacked boxes, packing material, and who knows what else. I don’t know how she’s ever going to find anything in this mess, or get it all organized and put away, but she swears she has a system. Something I’m just going to trust her on.

“Sure does!” Dolly confirms, beaming proudly. “Hux carried that around in his wallet for, like, years, trying to figure out a way to use it to ask me out.”

Holding it up like an item on The Price is Right, Dolly shows off the wooden sign, the words burned into it. My eyes scan across it, laughter bubbling up inside with each new line.

I want to FUCK

Find ways to make you smile

Understand and support you

Cuddle you up and hold you close

Kinda also really want to fuck you too

“I think it’s cute,” Brenna says, peering around a box she’s unpacking on the floor behind the couch.

“I’m still impressed Hux came up with that,” Emily adds from the kitchen. “I mean, he’s better than Grumpy Gus or Ewan’s silence, but still. Not the vibe that the tats and ear gauges give off.”

“Hey!” Margeaux and I call out in unison, defending our men.

Emily shrugs. “I said what I said.”

“Gus is intense, not grumpy,” Margeaux corrects, waggling her eyebrows. We all laugh, equally loving watching her blush at the mere thought of Gus’s intensity, and the awkwardness of that too-much-information reveal.

“I’m still not entirely convinced he didn’t get Jace’s help, even though he claims he came up with it all on his own,” Dolly says.

“I believe it,” Sawyer says, tying up a trash bag full of packing paper. “I stumbled across some of the suggestions Jace made for Anton’s letter to me after our fight, and well…they were a little over-the-top. He really takes that whole I read romance novels so I’m an expert thing seriously.”

I bite my tongue, trying to hold back a laugh at Sawyer’s Jace impression. Easier said than done, because she is spot-on. She might be the newest member of this family, but it’s clear that she slipped in seamlessly.

Wait, no. She’s not the newest. I am.

I step back from the box I just cut open and take a look around the large, open concept space. The beautiful kitchen with all the bells and whistles Dolly could ever want, including her massive walk-in pantry and an island with a built-in range, gives way to a bright living room with large windows that overlook a beautiful open meadow leading to a creek on the Hayes property. Around the corner is an office and a set of stairs that leads to bedrooms and a loft that will undoubtedly be a playroom soon enough.

Right now, the house is filled with us girls—Dolly, Brenna, Margeaux, Sawyer, Emily, and me, with Alice and Rose on the way at some point—waist deep in an unpacking party. Something all of us were more than happy to agree to. Because it’s about spending time together, as a family.

Three of us actually related by blood.

Five us by something stronger than Gorilla Glue.

Family, nonetheless.

One that I get to be a part of.

“Something the matter?” Brenna asks, looking at me like she can’t tell if I saw a ghost or I need a drink.

“Emily’s comment got her thinking about Ewan,” Sawyer comments. “I mean, the whole I like my mouth on a big rod thing came from somewhere, right?”

I gasp, amazed that serious, no-nonsense Dr. Sawyer Brown just said that. Of all the people, I was not expecting that from her. Had it been Brenna, well, I don’t know that I would have thought twice. She’s proven more than once since I moved home that she’s not the sweet and innocent tween that she was when I left for college—Cummins Cider, anyone? But Sawyer? No. She’s the grounding force to Anton and all his antics.