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Wyatt
“I’m afraid I don’t have much to offer you besides water. Unless you’d prefer tea or coffee.” As Everly turned her head to look at me, her ponytail swished across her bare shoulders, still glittery from Makayla’s birthday.
I looked away and swallowed, my throat now painfully parched. “Water sounds great. Love some.”
I followed her inside, my eyes transfixed by her slender legs.
Nope. Don’t look down either.
This was Lukas’s ex-fiancée I was staring at. Myfriend.
I focused on her waist instead, and my body reacted as I remembered how it felt to hold her in my arms.
Mine.
No, that wasn’t the case. Not when Lukas still wanted me to talk to her. “So, the kids….” My words evaporated as soon as I stepped inside her house.
Everly’s front yard, with its bright yellow paint, pink door, and abundance of Halloween decor, was merely a prelude to the riot of pattern and color inside. Everywhere I looked, walls painted in various bright colors greeted me. But as incredible as her walls were, the trees surprised me even more.
Two full-sized Christmas trees dripping with colorful ornaments stood near her front window. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed them while stringing the lights the other day. And several smaller trees dotted the coffee table, mantel, dining room table, and kitchen counter.
One, two, three, four—
“Seven.” Everly paused before handing me a glass of water. “There’s one in each bathroom as well, for a total of nine.” Her mouth curled into a smile. “I started my collection last year and never stopped.”
“But it’s only October…” A pink tree covered with miniature cookies and candies on the kitchen countertop captured my attention.
“One of the nicest things about being an adult is making your own decisions. In this case, I’m choosing to celebrate Christmas in October. Since Indie doesn’t mind, I figured why wait?” Everly eyed my glass. “Do you need anything else while I get changed?”
“I’m fine.”
“Great. I’ll be right back.”
I sipped my water while soaking everything in. The sheer volume of trees and the brightly painted walls was undoubtedly a lot, but after getting over my initial shock, I realized that, somehow, everything worked.
Stop focusing on Everly’s decor and figure out a way to talk to her, a voice in my head that sounded strangely like Lukas’s insisted. I sighed.
Why had I agreed to his plan in the first place?
My StarFire series was a phenomenal success; however, the thousands of book sales hadn’t happened initially. My first two books came out over a year ago. They made me a bit of money, but I sure wasn’t planning on quitting my teaching job any time soon. But this past January, everything changed when Lukas mentioned my books during an interview.
Sales instantly shot up, and I wound up being an overnight success.
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciated my brother’s support, but I’d never have accepted it if I’d known it came with a stipulation. Apparently, they were casting the lead role in a new romantic comedy soon, and Lukas thought he’d stand a better chance of getting the part if people saw him as a doting boyfriend. That’s where I came in. Lukas wanted Everly to pretend to get back together with him. And because she and I were once best friends, he wanted yours truly to convince her. It was a ridiculous idea. As if pretending to date Everly for a couple of weeks could erase all the photos of him with various models and actresses flooding the internet.
You owe me, Wyatt. You owe your fame to me.
Persuade the girl I loved to pretend-date my brother? There was only one way this could end. Badly.
“What did you think of my school? The kids seemed to like you.” Dressed in the same tank top from before with a pair of pink leggings, Everly dumped a pile of clothes on the dining room table, picked up her glass of water and pressed the glass to her neck, presumably to cool herself.
Ironically, the sight only made me hotter.
She stared at me with eyes the shade of blue that makes men sign their lives away. “I heard about your breakup. I’m sorry. Heartbreak never gets any easier, does it?”
I dragged myself from her gaze. No. It never did. It felt like a pickaxe chipping away at my heart every time I saw her and Lukas together. Laughing. Holding hands. Sharing secrets. Planning a future that I’d never have because I’d been too slow to realize how special she was to me.
I’d planned on confessing my feelings to her when I got home from my exchange program. But when I landed at the airport, Everly was there to pick me up, and beside her stood my brother. They were holding hands.
