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Violet: Can I give Cade your number?
What the fudge?
I stood up, looking around my living room as if my décor had answers to why in the heck he wanted to contact me. My girly parts wanted him to want me, while my boring brain shouted that he just wanted answers about the crash.
Me:What for?
Violet:He wants to talk to you, silly. Don’t forget about book club next week!
Me:I won’t forget. And yes, give him my number.
I stared at the screen, waiting for it to light up with a call, or ping with a text. My heart expanded with anticipatory glee while my stupid weak knees shook. If I hadn’t suspected I had residual feelings for Cade before, I sure as hell suspected it now. My body was going insane as I stood there grinning like a fool. Angels were singing, misty rainbows tickled my bare legs, and cloud nine was about to become my second home.Gah!I was floating on air as I waited for him to contact me.
And yet, the frickin’ phone remained silent. I stared harder, trying to will a notification into existence.
Damn it, I was such an idiot. He’d asked for my number; that didn’t mean he would callimmediately.
And why was I flipping out over this?
We were divorced for eff’s sake. He was my ex-husband for a reason.
I was out of practice. My fake marriage to New York-bestie-Trent had taken me off the market for a long time, and it had been well over a year since I’d had a date. And I wasn’t exactly a player before my fake marriage. My game was seriously lacking, my experience was completely limited, and my heart was about to be smashed to pieces by Cade—again—because I never learned.
Ping!
“Ahhh!” My stomach shot to my feet and swirled back into place along with a burst of tingles. I tried to swipe to answer the text, but my trembling hands fumbled the phone, sending it tumbling to the couch.
“Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap.” I picked it up, frowning at the screen when I saw it was one of my brothers—Hunter, number one, the scary one—demanding that I attend dinner tonight at the house to “talk over a few things.”
Without bothering to text back, I called him. Yelling at someone would be great for my stress levels. Lucky Hunter. “What do you want, Hunter?”
His tone was accusatory when he hissed out, “You went to lunch with Cade today.”
“And that’s your business, how?” My hand hit my hip as I prepared to go off.
“I’m your brother. He hurt you once and I won’t let him do it again. That’s how.”
His kindness toward me and the implied threat against Cade took the edge off my annoyance, and I sighed. “I hurt him first. You know it’s true.”
“I might eventually concede that it was a tie and you hurt each other, but I’m still debating it. Come to the house for dinner at five o’clock. Dad’s grilling out back. We’ll talk about it when you get here.” He hung up.
They were all nosy.
Intrusive, every single one of them.
And let’s not forget bossy.
But I’d missed them, and my dad kicked ass on the grill, so I decided to forget how much I hated being ordered around and headed over there.
* * *
I was sitting on the covered back porch, wrapped in a quilt in front of the fire pit watching my dad and brothers cook a mountain of rib-eyes. It had started pouring rain and was now freezing cold, but nothing stopped them when they were in the mood to grill. They just threw up the portable tarp, lit up the fire pits, and went for it. Brody was prepping baked potatoes with all the fixings, Spencer was making a banana pudding, and Deacon’s sun tea was struggling for life on the edge of the porch. We were in Oregon; sun tea was always an iffy beverage to attempt. As the saying went, if you don’t like the weather in Oregon, wait five minutes. I mean, right now it was supposedly spring, for eff’s sake.
I was glad I was here. Being alone in the mood I was in would have been terrible. “Hey, can one of you text me real quick?” I shouted. “I need to see something. My phone might be messed up.”
Suddenly five texts blew up my phone and I smiled. “Thanks guys.” Also, boooo! My phone was fine, and Cade hadn’t called, texted, or FaceTimed me.
This was bullcrap.
