“West!”
“Stop wiggling, or I’ll drop you.”
“Put me down!”
He laughed as he stopped in the middle of the living room, freezing at the redecoration that I’d done to the space. “Snickers, what did you do?”
But he didn’t sound upset as he gently set me back down onto my platforms. I brushed down my skirt, trying to cover the heat on my face and the heat…everywhere else, too.
“Well…” I whispered.
When Weston had left six months ago, the house had looked like a bachelor pad with an old couch, a coffee table dented from too many nights of quarters, a deformed beanbag, and an Xbox hooked up to a giant television. Since then, I’d reupholstered the entire couch with some light-gray fabric. It had taken three weekends to get the measurements right. I’d refinished the coffee table with wax and made the beanbag into a poof.
I’d begged a favor from an old Best Buy acquaintance to mount the television and hide all the cords in the wall. I’d purchased secondhand curtains for the bay window and refitted them to the space. Then, I’d filled the space with plants. Dozens of plants of every shape and size. Some hung from hooks in the ceiling. Others were in pots on little stands. Some were big enough to sit on the floor.
And…I’d painted the walls.
Every wall in the house that I had access to. I could only stare at beige for so long without going insane. And yes, the place was pink. Not as pink as my bedroom, but I had clearly designed the place for me and not for a dude.
“It’s incredible. Is that my couch?” He looked gobsmacked.
“Yeah, I kind of fixed everything.”
“And the plants. Holy shit, you have a green thumb.”
“Sort of,” I said, suddenly shy.
“Why did you think I’d hate this? It’s awesome.”
“Oh, well, uh, thanks. I just…you know, this was temporary, and I kind of took over. I don’t have a place yet, but I can find something if you give me a weekend.”
Weston blinked at me. “What are you talking about?”
“Well, I know you said that I could have the place while you were gone in LA and that it was, you know, a temp situation until I got back on my feet.”
“Fuck, Nora, that’s not what I meant! I thought you’d want to leave. I left you an out in case you wanted to get your own place. I’m going to be back and forth from LA. So, I won’t be here all the time anyway.” He shrugged, a small smile hitting his features. “You can stay.”
“You’re sure?”
“I want you to stay.” He grinned at me. “Stay.”
“Okay,” I said softly.
“That’s a yes?”
I tipped my head down and bit my lip, trying to cover my excitement. “Yes. Yes, I’ll stay.”
3
Weston
Telling her to stay was skating a dangerous line.
I knew that, even as I told her to stay. She was my best friend’s little sister. She was my roommate. And she was also gorgeous.
Crossing that line was ill-advised.
To put it lightly, Campbell would probably murder me.
He and Hollin had warned me off Nora when we first agreed to move in together. They’d made themselves perfectly clear, and I’d given them my word that it wasn’t like that with us. Which I was determined to stick by, even as she smiled up at me with her gorgeous heart-shaped face, Abbey blue eyes, and plump lips.
Best friend’s little sister. I stamped the words on my brain as I stepped back.
“Good,” I told her. “Did you touch my room?”
She laughed and shook her head. “No. I kept the door shut. I didn’t touch the studio either.”
“The drums are probably collecting dust.”
“Well, I dusted last week. Didn’t think it’d be good for the instruments.”
I grinned. “Thanks, Nor.” I took another step back from that smile. Friends, roommates, best friend’s little sister. “I should go see Whitt and Harley.”
“You haven’t even seen your siblings?” She slipped out of her heels and was suddenly several inches shorter. She rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet. “Not that I’m going to see Campbell until he and Blaire are…finished.”
“Wife,” I offered as if that explained everything.
She waved me off and headed into the immaculately decorated living room. “Yeah. Yeah. Say hi to Whitt for me.”
“You guys been hanging out?”
She shrugged. “Not really. You know how Whitt is.”
I smirked. “Yeah. He’s a bit uptight.”
“I was unaware that twins could be complete and total opposites until I met you and Whitton.”
“That’s Whitt. Mr. Responsibility.”
“I’m sure he kept y’all out of trouble.”
“Don’t be deceived. Whitt can get in just as much trouble. He just never gets caught.”
She laughed. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”
“We’ll get him drunk. That’s when the best Whitt comes out,” I assured her. “All right. I’ll see you later.”
She waved as I hurried back out of the house. Unlike Nora, who I’d wanted to surprise, I’d told Whitton and Harley that I was coming back into town. Whitt would not have been pleased with an ambush, and Harley was busy as a freshman at Texas Tech University. Her schedule was a nightmare. Between classes, her scholarship requirements, and her active party life, I’d be lucky to see her at all.
I slung on a jacket out, which I’d left behind since I didn’t need it for perfect LA weather, and grabbed the keys to the Subaru. I’d gotten the Forester back in Seattle for a deal. She had nearly a hundred thousand miles on her and was still going strong. With all the money coming in from the Cosmere album, I might be able to replace her, but I hated the idea of it. We’d had a lot of good trips.
The drive to Wright Construction wasn’t long, and then I was parking in the lot off campus. Whitton had gotten a job at the company that had our namesake by making a phone call. I still didn’t know how I felt about it all, and Whitt felt weirder, but he wouldn’t squander an opportunity when it looked him in the face.
Because two years ago, our entire lives had been flipped upside down. The three of us had grown up in Seattle with our mom, Tanya, and our dad, Owen. He’d given us his name, but they weren’t married. As we’d gotten older, we had known that him living in Vancouver and showing up randomly to be with us was strange. A lot different than the other kids in our school. But we let it go.
Then, I decided to dig. What I found made me sick—we were dad’s secret family.
He had two other sons, Jordan and Julian Wright, who had lived in Vancouver for most of their lives and recently moved to Lubbock, Texas, where the head of the corporation was. I emailed my half-brothers, and when I didn’t get a response, I decided on a whim to drive over from a show I’d been playing in East Texas. Whitt had advised against it, but we got the truth that way.
After a year of back-and-forth about what to do, I decided to give this new life in Texas a shot. It ended up being the best thing I’d ever done. I’d met Campbell while working at a local studio and recorded a major album for the biggest band in the world.