“I’m going to head back to the cabin. You okay here?”
She turned her head. “I am. I’m going to help clean up.”
“You don’t need to. You’re a g—”
“Girlfriend?” she interrupted with a laugh.
“Yes. You are that. I’ll see you in a bit.” He stroked a hand down her silky hair, the feel both comforting and stirring.
Beckett strolled out of the lodge, taking in the changes they had made in the short time they’d been there. The grounds had resembled a small jungle, complete with a variety of wildlife. They’d trimmed, cut, and planted, checked all the trails, cleaned up garbage, taking loads to the dump—a pain in the ass when using a boat. But it was coming along. If… no, whenhe opened the shop, he wouldn’t be here as often, but it was only a short commute away. Grayson was walking up the path, hands weighed down with cans of paint. Beckett hurried forward.
“Is there more?”
Gray nodded. “Yeah. We need some sort of cart so we can just load it up and bring everything in one trip.”
“I’ll take a look next time I’m on the mainland.” He hurried to the boat, grabbed the bags, and caught up with his brother. “We’ve got a full house, man. Jill said two more day after tomorrow,” Beckett said.
Grayson stared straight ahead, said nothing as they carried everything to the lodge steps. When his brother dropped his stuff, he huffed out a breath, ran his hands through his hair. Beckett recognized the frustrated gestures, waited it out.
“Listen, I’m not trying to exploit you,” Gray started.
Beckett worked to keep his expression neutral. “You sure? I was starting to wonder if you wanted to put a stripper pole up in the lodge. Maybe do one of those 24–7 cameras.”
Grayson’s jaw dropped. He started to talk but only managed tosputter incoherently. Beckett rescued him, clapping him—hard—on the shoulder.
“TikTok? What the fuck, dude?”
“Would you believe Ollie showed it to me?” Gray’s ears turned a soft shade of pink. “She was showing me these dances and I saw one that had ten thousand views.”
“That’s a lot of views. But I think we need to rein it in. Or at least regroup and think about what we want.”
Gray stared at him, his smile coming slow. “We?”
The spot just between his shoulder blades started to itch. Beckett shrugged. “Yeah. Always we. We’re in this together for now.” He backed up. “I gotta go, but I need to talk to you about something soon. You and Jilly.”
“Everything okay?”
Beckett felt confident with his nod. It would be. “Yeah. Just want to run something by you guys.”
He was only a few feet away when Grayson called him. He turned to face his brother.
“I like your girlfriend. She’s cool.”
Beckett held up his hand, lowering all fingers but one.
Around his laughter, Gray said, “Thanks, man.”
Beckett nodded. “Family first. Always.”
It’d been drilled into their heads from a young age that they all needed to look out for each other. As he headed back to his cabin, a restless energy nearly consumed him. He pulled his phone out and looked through the app store but managed not to download anything.
Instead, he thought about what he could do to make the following few days with Presley special. An idea popped into his head, one he knew would make his “girlfriend” smile. He did his best to focus on the night, not the idea of tomorrow or the next day. The intensity he felt for her had to come from the finality of it. There was no future so it was okay to go all in. Or maybe Presley was the kind of woman where he would have had no choice regardless.
Twenty-Two
Presley walked back to Beckett’s cabin slowly, savoring the sweet scents of the night air, the sound of the lake ever so gently lapping at the edges of the shore, and the feeling of peace. She spent so much time running around, getting things just right, making arrangements, organizing events, and seeing to others’ needs, she’d pushed aside her own. Not that she minded. She loved her job, her life. Rylee, her family. She thought, for a brief moment in time, she’d wanted to love Emmett.
In the distance, the sun sank low, bursts of color shooting out from its center, shimmering across the ripples of the lake. It was breathtaking. So different from the sights and sounds of her own neighborhood. Traffic, people, and activity were background music where she lived. There was an energy in her city that made a person feel like anything could happen at any moment.
