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I don’t realize I’m holding the wheel in a death grip until pain arrows up my forearm. I loosen my fingers.
“But you were still in love with her.”
“Hell yeah, I was in love with Amelia. You remember how crazy I was about her. Our split fucked me up for a long time. I nearly lost my scholarship freshman year because I was so torn up about it. I was wrecked, and it showed—I played like absolute shit. I constantly wondered what would’ve happened if the test were positive. I missed her, Milly. So damn bad. But eventually, my feelings faded, and hers did too, I guess, and . . . yeah. That’s basically it.”
Milly’s eyebrows are halfway up her forehead. “The drama. Y’all were having your own little redneck version of Varsity Blues, weren’t you?”
“There were no whipped cream bikinis—”
“A shame.”
“I know. But it was a lot, the way teenage breakups usually are.”
“The way any breakup is,” Milly says, and the mirth in her expression fades.
I frown. “What’s up with you? I’m sorry I haven’t checked in.”
“You had a new kid to deal with.” She waves me away. Glances out her windshield and sighs. “Promise not to say anything to Beau?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“I just agreed to do Nate Kingsley’s wedding.”
My eyes bulge. “Nate Kingsley’s getting married? To who? You?”
Milly looks down at her lap and shakes her head, her blond waves falling into her face. “Not to me, no.”
“But I thought y’all are a thing.” Nate is the owner of a local whiskey distillery. He also happens to be the son of Daddy’s old enemy, Mr. Kingsley. Our families had a little Romeo and Juliet type feud going on back in the day. Thankfully it ended, but there’s definitely still some bad blood between Beau and Nate.
“We were a thing.” She glares at me. “But we broke up a while ago.”
I lift the fingers on my steering wheel in surrender. “You don’t tell anyone shit, Milly. Don’t be mad at me for not knowing what you didn’t share.”
My sister swallows. “Sorry. You’re right. I kept things close to the vest because, well, Nate is Nate, and Beau hated his guts for a while, and—”
“You liked having a dirty little secret, running behind everyone’s backs and falling in love.”
“I never said I was in love,” she replies with a scowl.
“But you are.”
“I was. Yes. I’ll admit that much. But Nate’s getting married to someone else now, and she’s dead set on me planning their wedding. So, yeah, fun times.”
“You still love him?”
Milly sighs again. “Doesn’t matter. Anyway, I’ve already kept you for too long. I really am happy for you, Rhett. I’m happy you’re happy.”
“Thanks.”
“And Rhett?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t make the same mistake I did. If Amelia’s perfect, don’t let her get away this time.”
Chapter Eighteen
Rhett
I walk through the door to the sound of laughter.
Tiptoeing through the house, I find the back doors flung open to the gorgeous summer afternoon. As I take in the view, my heart does a backflip and lands in my throat.
Amelia and Liam are leaping through a sprinkler shaped like a duck—where the hell’d she get that?—the two of them giggling when the spray hits Amelia squarely in the face.
“We-wa get owie!” Liam howls. “Lili want owie.”
“Owies are actually bad things, but we’ll roll with your interpretation today. Let’s do this, sweetpea,” Amelia replies, then uses her foot to direct the spray in Liam’s direction. He takes off running, laughing so hard he falls onto his knees in the grass.
She jogs over to help him up, and that’s when I notice her bikini.
Her pink fucking bikini. It’s not scandalous or especially revealing. But what it does show is glorious. Pert tits, long legs. An expanse of naked, lily-white back.
Blood gathers between my legs. Legs that are suddenly moving down the steps and into the grass. I reach behind me and yank off my shirt, and Amelia’s face is lighting up when she turns around and sees me; she’s giving me this huge, unguarded smile, and I’m hit in the chest by a bullet I don’t wanna name.
“You’re home early,” she says.
“Dada!” Liam says.
My heart thumps.
My son called me Dada. I don’t think I’ll ever get over how cool that is.
“Thought I’d join y’all.” I nod at the sprinkler. “Looks fun.”
Amelia’s eyes catch on my stomach before moving to Liam, who’s squirming on her hip. “Your son is quite the little fish. He can’t get enough of the water.”
“Lili get down,” he says.
She slides him off her hip onto his feet, pulling down the tie of her bikini bottoms in the process. I’m gripped by the vicious desire to hook a finger through that tie and pull it back into place.
Pull the damn thing loose and make the bottoms fall off. Would her pussy be groomed? Bare? Wild, the way it was in my dream?
