True love couldn’t be destroyed.
It couldn’t be buried.
It was effervescent and irrevocable and forever.
Maybe it made me a sap to believe in something that I’d seen fall apart firsthand with my parents. But pain didn’t make love any less beautiful; it made it essential. And no one could ever convince me otherwise.
16
Weston
Here I was, determined to stay away from Nora, and she had come over to tell me she…missed me. All I could think the whole time Annie and Jordan said their I dos was that Nora had missed me. That the house had been empty without me.
I’d barely been able to pull myself away. I wanted to dig into that comment. Was she saying what I thought she was saying? Because despite how I’d told myself I’d stay far away, I kept thinking about her, too.
Whitt stood at my side in the reception as we waited for the bride and groom to show up. Harley was on her phone, ignoring us both.
“Hey, did you miss Dad’s call?” Whitt asked.
I shot him a look. “I saw that he called.”
“He keeps asking about you.”
“And why are you even answering his calls?”
Whitt shrugged. “Because he’s still our dad.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Debatable.”
“His semen created half our DNA,” Harley interjected. “But yeah, fuck him.”
This was one of the few things that Harley and I agreed on. Whitt still talked to Dad. As if there were some reason to still talk to the man who had hidden us as a secret family while he was married to someone else. He was the one who had fucked up. I didn’t owe him a damn thing.
Whitt sighed, as if he knew that he’d lost this battle again. “Fine. He just wants to congratulate you.”
“He never wanted me to pursue music full time. Why would he congratulate me?”
“He was wrong.”
Damn right he was.
“I’ll believe it when he says that to my face.”
“And how can he do that if you never talk to him?”
I rolled my eyes. I didn’t care if Owen Wright ever congratulated me. I wasn’t sure I’d believe it even then.
Whitt hit me. “Bro.”
I glared at him to tell him I was done with this conversation. But his eyes were elsewhere.
“What?”
He pointed across the barn. I followed his finger past dozens of guests in their finest, sipping on drinks and eating finger food while they waited for the bride and groom to make their appearance, to the golden girl who had just stepped inside.
My heart stuttered. “Fuck,” I whispered.
Whitt patted me twice on the back. “Good luck with that.”
“What?” Harley asked. She looked between us all. “What are you talking about?”
Nora Abbey glided into the barn. She’d changed out of the floral dress she’d worn to work the ceremony and into a floor-length gold dress that made her look like a goddess. The dress plummeted between her breasts and left her arms bare, but the material swished delicately around her legs as she maneuvered the room, saying hello to everyone who knew her. She might be shy around guys, but she was in her element here.
“Oh,” Harley whispered. “Is that Nora?”
“Yeah,” I said, entranced.
“Well, she’s a bit out of your league, isn’t she?”
Whitt nudged Harley. “Seriously?”
“Look at her,” Harley said with a laugh. “She’s gorgeous.”
“She is,” I admitted out loud.
I was glad that Campbell and Hollin were on the other side of the room. That they hadn’t seen that I was eye-fucking their sister from a distance.
A few minutes later, after she made her rounds, she walked toward me with Eve on her arm. Eve wore an emerald dress that matched her eyes, and her black hair was down in waves. But I barely noticed her. I couldn’t say the same for my brother, who gripped the table tighter as she approached.
“Hey, handsome,” Eve said, looking at Whitt.
“Eve,” he said with a charming smile.
“You look…” I said, gesturing to Nora.
She ran her hands down the sides of her dress, accentuating her hips. “You think?”
“Stunning.”
Harley huffed at all the hormones flying. “I’m going to go get a drink.”
“No, you are not!” Whitt said at the same time I said, “Harley!”
She laughed. “Can’t stop me.”
Then, she disappeared. I ground my teeth together, and Whitt looked like he was about to follow her.
“Let her go,” Eve said. “This is a safe place. She won’t get into any trouble.”
“You don’t know my sister,” Whitt said.
I couldn’t disagree. “Harley finds trouble wherever it is.”
Eve laughed. “I know all about that.”
“Tessi will keep an eye on her,” Nora said. “I gave her a list of minors ahead of time. There are a few of them.”
Whitt still looked like he wanted to go off after her, but Eve was still standing there, admiring him up and down.
She touched the sleeve of his suit. “Mind if I steal you for a minute?”
Whitt’s eyes shot back to Eve. The gentle touch, the familiar flirting. He nodded. “After you.”
Eve shot him a simpering smile. She winked at Nora and then headed off with my brother, leaving us all alone.
“Well, they’re unexpected,” I admitted.
Nora shrugged. “Eve is the kind of girl who goes after what she wants.” Her eyes flicked up to mine. A small, knowing smile came to her lips.
I should resist that smile. The look from under her lashes. The way she leaned in toward me. Yep, I should definitely walk away from this.
“The wedding turned out amazing.”
“Thank you,” she said brightly. “I was pleased.”
“You have a talent.”
Her eyes moved around the room and then back to me. “I was told not to talk about weddings right away, but hey, we’re at a wedding, right?”
I blinked at her. “Nora…I…this…”
She laughed softly. “Oh man, am I that bad at this?”
“That bad at…what?”
“Flirting,” she said, biting her lip.
“You’re flirting with me?”
“I mean, apparently, I am not good at it.”
“No,” I said quickly. “You’re not bad at it.”
“Okay. I’ll keep practicing then,” she said with a wink.
I clenched my hands on the table to keep from reaching for her. She was playing me at my own game. And it was working.
“Did you practice while I was gone?”
Her eyes were guileless. “Why would I do that?”
“Because you said that you wanted to move on. You wanted to flirt and date and all that.”
“I did. I do,” she said firmly. “And I can’t say that everything is perfect, but I have moved on. And I want to flirt and date and all that.”
“But you didn’t while I was out of town?”
“I didn’t,” she confirmed. “Did you…see anyone when you were out of town?”