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Maverick
What in the hell does Max do, anyway?
Attemptingto keep up with our family text thread was a feat of impossible proportions. I shook my head at the ridiculous reality that I was sitting in the engine room with two of my brothers and we were all staring at our palms. Technology was going to turn us into androids. Empty shells of what humanity had once been, incapable of holding a real-life conversation.
“I.T.?” Axel said, a furrow between his brows as he stared at his phone, perplexed.
“Acquisitions?” I guessed, trying to wrack my brain. Max worked remotely, traveling nearly as often as an authentic Rhodes, and raking in a disproportionate amount of money, which was necessary for his obsession with Armani, despite living on the dreariest, least fashion-forward island on the planet.
“Coding?” Mav canted his head before shaking away the curiosity. The three of us slid our phones away together.
“Alright,” I grumbled, wiping the remaining grease off on my jeans. “That’s lunch.”
“It’s only noon,” Axel pointed out.
“And we’ve already knocked out ninety percent of Milo’s list for the week. I think we can take a minute to eat. Besides, I could use a cup of coffee.”
“Oooh, yes, I wonder if Brinleigh has popped yet,” Mav said affectionately, entirely oblivious to my darkening mood and smiling like every expectant mother enjoyed being described as a fucking balloon.
I scowled at him. “She’s not due for a month, kid.”
“Damn, really? She washugewhen we left last week.”
“Yes, be sure to tell her that, will you?” Axel said, smirking over the toothpick he always had tucked into the side of his mouth. “I’ll record it to send into this year’s season ofDumb Ways To Die.”
“You know what I mean,” Mav complained.
“No. We don’t,” Axel and I said together. I couldn’t help my smile. The best part of growing up in a town as small as Mistyvale was that everybody knew everybody. Coincidentally, that was also the worst part of existing here. But Brinleigh had known my order since she took over Rhyett’s coffee shop, Grizzly Grind, years ago—had likely memorized it back in high school as we ditched class to fool around or get into trouble.
She knew what pastries to stash on days we were coming back into the harbor or working in town so I could inhale my week’s worth of neglected calories at the table by the window. And she offered the promise of a tight embrace and welcome home that I relished despite myself. Anywhere else, it might have been weird to develop a platonic friendship with the woman who’d first let me finger her during a drunken adolescent round of truth or dare, but she’d stood by me through the last decade and a half, no questions asked. And I was the ‘man of honor’ at her fucking wedding. How’sthatfor small-town dynamics?
My breath left in a whoosh the moment the familiar sweet scent of coffee cake and apple pie hit me, the warmth of the bakery the equivalent of four instant layers of clothing on my skin, blotting out the spring cold. There was nothing quite like home.
“Brin?” I barked, taking off my beanie and running my fingers through my hair as the bell rang behind me. One of my brothers caught up—likely Axel, although Mav was never one to turn down a pastry. “Brin, where you at?”
“One minute!” An innately feminine voice hollered from the back. Either the baby was up in her ribcage today, or she’d gone up an octave or two. I turned, pulling my ass up on the front counter and finding both my idiot brothers had wandered in after me. Leaning around the casing, I searched for what would inevitably be waiting.
“Bingo,” I muttered, snatching the brown paper bag from under the pastry case and leaning back up to set it on my knee, ready to tear into whatever she’d left me, but my enthusiasm was cut off by a human-esque bleating noise.
“Uh-excuse me,canIhelpyou?” I blinked twice, attempting to make sense of the words so rapidly squashed together they were nearly unintelligible. There was something eerily familiar about that voice. Feet firmly planted back on the ground, I slowly turned to find disapproving, round brown eyes where I wanted green, and a sexy, tousled mess of dark red curls where I wanted blonde. Fuck. Me.
“NotBrin,” I said, not bothering to hide my embarrassment. Tugging at the back of my neck, I narrowed my eyes on the object of my current nightmares. And by nightmares, I mean unwilling fantasies. “I’m sorry,neighbor, are you lost?”
She blinked, pointedly glaring at the counter between us. “I could ask you the same thing.”
Fuck, she was pretty, even pissy. Her short hair gave the woman that chic, devil-may-care thing only cropped curls could accomplish, shy of actual sex hair. All her features were pretty and petite—doll-like, even—save for animated princess eyes that blinked back at me pointedly, like she could force me to say something. Subtle curves in all the right places made my hands buzz, even as I snapped my eyes to her face. It didn’t matter; I already knew the prize beneath her explosion of colorful clothes. She was the kind of woman that would settle in my palms, not overtly feminine, but not a stick. That sexy red hair ended just below her jaw, exposing the long, creamy line of her neck, freckles sprinkled everywhere.Goddamn.
One look at her trendy sage crop top beneath a warm yellow sweater that hung off toned shoulders, and distressed high-top jeans told me all I needed to know.Distressed jeans.Whose fucking idea was it to look poor on purpose? Where I came from, you earned those scuffs and tears. You didn’t pay triple the price to buy ‘em off the rack that way. Colorful gems hung off her slender neck, and equally bright bracelets jingled as she shifted.
The not-so-subtle snap of her fingers brought my eyes back to hers. “Eyes are up here,Wolverine.”
Wolverine?The smile was involuntary. If it was just the two of us, I could apologize again. I could grovel like I should have the first time. But with my brothers in tow, that would only bring about questions that would magnify her embarrassment if she still felt any.
“Boys,” I said, motioning them forward. It was the first time the little bombshell’s body stiffened. Didn’t much care for that. “New girl, this is Axel—” I gestured to him, smirking when he gave her a nod, still spinning that damn toothpick. When I glanced back at her, there was a thoughtful little furrow in her brow, like she was focused. “And Mav.” Maverick’s goofy, dimpled smile popped out as he gave her a lazy wave. “Call me James.”
“Hi,James.” My name was dropped with so much pointed disapproval, it was obvious I didnotimpress her with my apology. “With all due respect, keep your ass off my counter. It’s a health code violation.”
“Yourcounter?” I balked. “Where’s Brin?” I pulled open my pastry bag, shaking it in her direction so she could see my name written on the side.
