AllFreeNovel
Share Us
June looked across him to Dragan, noting the disappointment on his face and the slow nod.
“Sure thing, Michael. I guess good game, but I think having you, Dragan, Leon, and Casmir on the same team gave you an advantage,” June said.
Michael smiled and rolled his eyes, gently leading them to the rest of the group. “Hey, we had Granny and their mom. Believe me, the teams were as even as they could get.”
“Suuuure,” June laughed. “Whatever you need to tell yourselves.”
“Pizza okay?” Adrianna asked as they reached everyone. She was eagerly looking at everyone and patting June on the arm.
“Yeah, Ma. Pizza is good,” Dragan said, ducking out from under Michael’s arm and putting himself between June and his mom.
“Okay, okay. Let us go.” She started herding everyone inside to the small food court, directing who would save the seats and who would carry the food. She flitted about like a nervous butterfly, and June could see how being brought up with that led Dragan to be so steadfast, so responsible for the siblings he’d left behind.
She looked up at him, so easy around people he’d struggled with. And yet, despite all the hardship, they were still laughing and telling old stories like nothing bad had happened. Or maybe because of it, and they knew they were stronger together. June’s heart warmed, not only for the man that had stayed by her side for so long, but for the family she now found herself a part of.
13
Dragan looked over the top of his laptop at Archer, unable to focus. It’d been less than twenty-four hours since he last saw June, when he walked her to her door after she’d spent Friday with his crazy family, and he still couldn’t stop thinking about her. The way she’d softened to him, standing closer and occasionally leaning her head on his arm. The way she fit right in with Alice and Kasia, even trying to make conversation with sullen Leon and shy Lucas. She entertained the nonsense his mother went on about and tried her hardest with the few Polish words he told her to say to his grandma.
Instead of running from the crazy life he’d been born into, she embraced it even more than he thought possible.
He sighed, glancing back at his screen as the code swam before him, and decided to switch gears. He’d been hunting for years for a particular music box for June. He found it a couple weeks ago, but hadn’t pulled the trigger on buying it yet. But now was as good a time as any, and he filled in the details, checking his bank account after to watch the damage.
Archer was intently looking at his own laptop, clearly not distracted by a woman. Colton had secured them a meeting with the CEO of an app company next week, and they were supposed to be busy fixing the few errors in their app and building a pitch deck. The deck was more involved than Dragan wanted, so he’d pushed that over to Archer.
Dragan chuckled. He’d never be able to sign his life away to a desk. Coding was one thing, but he still needed to get out. To do shit. And if everything went to plan, the app would afford them both a life to do with as they pleased. If Archer wanted to work as a firefighter or switch to building apps full-time, he could. And if Dragan wanted to explore something else, he could.
He swallowed, trying not to think of exploring the sexy little blonde in the back of a bookstore.
“Yo, if you focus on your work it’ll, you know, actually get done,” Archer said, taking off his noise-cancelling headphones, a smirk on his face.
“No shit.” Dragan rolled his eyes and leaned forward, staring at his screen.
“You okay, man?”
“Yep.”
Archer let out a low whistle. “Yeah with that attitude, how could I miss the sunshine blowing out your ass?”
Leaning back, Dragan found a lock of hair to twist.
Archer stood and stretched, his muscular body pulling at the fabric of his sweats and tee-shirt. “You can talk to me, Dragan. I know you and Colton have grown tighter as friends, but I’m not too shabby at giving advice. Or lending an ear. You want coffee and another donut?”
Dragan sighed and nodded. Archer grabbed their empty mugs and plates covered in crumbs from their first baked victims and went to the fancy-ass espresso machine he’d bought himself for his birthday one year. Archer’s house one of the few properties in the center of Oak Valley that sat on five acres and had access to Deer Creek. It was a fixer-upper, but it was Archer’s childhood home and it gave his friend something to work on after leaving the Marines two years earlier, before he got involved with the fire department. It was decently sized, with three bedrooms and two baths in an open floor plan that Archer had implemented. Fresh paint, new appliances, he went the whole nine yards. It was on the opposite end of the street Dragan lived on, and larger than his two-bedroom apartment, so they often worked at Archer’s.
It helped that Archer had outfitted it as a home.
Archer set the mug in front of Dragan, drinking from his own as he sat down across the worn table, a large oak farmhouse heirloom from his mom. He raised a blond eyebrow and eyed Dragan over the rim.
“So? What woman’s driving you nuts, brotha?”
Dragan scoffed. “What makes you think it’s a woman?”
“I’ve been around enough men — hell, people — to know that torment usually stems from love.” Archer shrugged. “I mean, that’s always how it is, right? They write books, make movies, play songs about that shit.”
“June,” Dragan sighed, looking away.
His friend shook his head, eyes wide with shock. “June? June Beaumont?”
