“I like the sound of that.”
“Shame you and Travis can’t stay,” he says, his voice lighter now. “Woulda taken you both up there, but he stays with his mom every year.”
I try to smile, but it feels all wrong. The truth is, I have no business pretending with Travis, not when I already know I won’t be spending another day with him once we leave this place.
“What was that?” he asks, his voice dipping lower as his eyes scan my face, seeing more than I want him to.
“What?”
“That look.” He steps closer, and the air between us goes thick with everything we’re not saying. “What’s on your mind?”
“I’m just happy to be here and see all this. I won’t forget how special this place is.”
What I don’t say is how special he is, how watching him create magic for everyone else while denying it for himself makes me want to gather all his broken pieces and hold them tight. Show him that he deserves the same care and attention he pours into everything else, and that someone sees the man behind all that selfless giving and thinks he’s worth fighting for.
Chapter 9
Piper
The past threedays have fallen into the same routine, and I’ve loved every second of it.
Travis has been out on deliveries, which means I haven’t had to deal with him much at all. He eats, showers, and then goes to bed. And yeah, I’ve been expected to go to bed with him every night—except for the one I spent working at the bar—but thankfully, he’s been too exhausted to try anything. Not that I’d let him. I’d rather set myself on fire than let Travis touch me. Besides, I’m not about to fake another orgasm in a bedroom that’s mere feet away from the man I would sell my entire soul to have touch me just once.
I haven’t spent any real time alone with Christian, which is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it’s a small win because I can try and ignore my feelings, but his distance is eating me alive in ways I’m not ready to admit.
Even when I don’t see him, I feel him. I feel the tension strung tight between us, the weight ofalmostpressing down on my chest like a vice. And the worst part is that I know he feels it too.
I know because he won’t really look at me. He goes out of his way to keep space between us and to be anywhere I’m not, always busy with something that conveniently takes him in the opposite direction.You don’t work that hard to avoid someone unless being near them makes you feel things you’re not supposed to feel.
Just like yesterday, the day before, and the day before that, I head downstairs, ready to help where I can. But as I reach the door, I hear Travis’s raised voice coming from the kitchen.
I stop dead in my tracks, not because I’m scared, but because this is his and Christian’s fight. This is their unresolved bullshit bubbling up again like it always does, and I know I should turn around, walk away, and let them tear into each other without an audience, but I don’t move.
“Get someone else to do it. I’m not driving around all day.” Travis’s voice cuts through the house loud enough to make my pulse jump.
“Everyone has a job to do. You know that.”
“Yeah, well, I got dealt the shit hand here, and you damn well know it.” I inch closer to the doorway, my boots silent on the wooden floor. “If you didn’t want me around, you could’ve just said so, and I wouldn’t have dragged Piper into this mess.”
Dragged? Like I wouldn’t have crawled my own desperate, pathetic ass up here just to be near that hot daddy cowboy.
“You know what? This whole fucked-up situation isn’t even worth the breath I’m wasting on it.”
Christian exhales, long and slow, like he’s trying to keep his patience from snapping in two. “This is all gonna be yours one day, Travis. You need to learn some responsibility. Take some fucking pride in it.”
“Maybe if you’d actually let me do something other than dragging trees around.”
“That’s part of the damn job.”
“Perfect. Then you can handle the grunt work today because I’m done.”
My stomach clenches as I step forward, moving before I can think better of it. I round the corner just as Travis storms toward me, his jaw tight and his shoulders bunched. His hands are clenched into fists at his sides, and his whole body radiates frustration.
Calm him down,I tell myself, but the second his eyes lock onto mine, I know it’s already too late.
“Come on, Travis, let’s just settle down. We’re here to help your dad.”
“Since when is this any of your fucking business, Piper? Pretty sure you’re just the tagalong girlfriend, not family.”
