Brendon (Alluring Indulgence #8)(103)
Author: Nicole Edwards

It was a full house, and it seemed like the chatter had escalated the noise level a few hundred decibels. No one was sitting down, mostly because there was too much going on. Jessie carried Kate in her arms, taking her around to visit each and every person while Mason clung to Curtis’s neck as he watched everything going on around him.

It was a beautiful gathering, but Cheyenne wasn’t sure what the special occasion was.

“Dinner’s ready,” Lorrie called out. “I could use some help setting the tables.”

Cheyenne smiled. Yep, she’d said tables. Plural.

There were now multiple tables and tonight they’d been set up outside because the weather was surprisingly mild. How they’d managed to sit sixteen or seventeen people around the twelve-person table before in one room, Cheyenne had no idea. It seemed so small now, but she knew they were a close family. Overall, the house was large, but it seemed Lorrie had always wanted her children within reach, so the confined space probably didn’t bother her.

The thought made Cheyenne smile.

In fact, Brendon had informed her that Curtis was working on building an addition to the house—or at least drawing up the plans for one. Another dining area that would be used solely for dinners such as this one. There had to be somewhere around twenty-five people in the house tonight—not counting the kids or the dogs—which explained why they were moving the festivities outside.

When Brendon arrived to help push Grams’s wheelchair out onto the deck, Cheyenne moved to the kitchen and offered to help.

WHEN EVERYONE WAS seated, Brendon took a moment to glance around at all the faces, some he saw every week, others he didn’t see nearly as often as he would like. They were all family.

The temperature was tolerable, and fans had been set up to help keep the air moving while everyone started filling their plates. Waiting his turn, Brendon looked around the table, taking in all the changes that had happened over the last couple of years.

Travis, Kylie, and Gage were sitting together, Kate next to them in her high chair.

Brendon had always looked up to Travis—they all had. Even when he ran off after high school, apparently getting hitched without telling anyone, Travis had been the guy Brendon wanted to be like. Now, watching him juggle a relationship with two people and a beautiful baby made Brendon wonder whether the guy had superpowers. He certainly wasn’t the same man he used to be, and Brendon knew that Kylie and Gage deserved full credit for that. They’d apparently completed Brendon’s oldest brother, and seeing them together was confirmation that Travis completed them as well.

Then there was Sawyer and Kennedy, the couple who looked so completely in love, it made Brendon nauseous. Okay, not really, but the two love birds certainly didn’t make it easy to look at them. Sawyer was happy, but as far as Brendon was concerned, not many people deserved that happiness as much as Sawyer did. The man had always made them laugh with his antics, and after learning the secret feelings he’d harbored for Ethan, and how all of them had inadvertently leaned on Sawyer, Brendon wondered how he’d managed to keep up such a front. But Sawyer wasn’t the kind to dwell on the negative, and Brendon wanted to believe that Sawyer did what he did because his goal was to keep everyone together. If any of them were like their father, Sawyer was it. Then again, he’d always aspired to be, and that wasn’t a bad thing at all.

Across from Brendon was Braydon and Jessie. He swallowed hard as he watched the two of them. Brendon knew he was the main reason for their slow going, but as he watched the pair now, he was content to see that nothing was holding them back any longer. Those two were meant to be.

Did it mean Brendon was completely at ease being away from his twin every day?

No. Not at all.

That was something he’d shared with Cheyenne and they were working through it. His life was full to overflowing, but his heart still felt as though part of it was missing. Braydon was that piece. When Cheyenne went back on the road, Brendon knew that he’d still feel a part of himself missing where she was concerned and he’d have to deal with that at the time, but for now, they were all spending time together. In fact, Cheyenne was helping to plan Braydon and Jessie’s wedding, along with the other women. And when that day came, Brendon would be right there beside his brother, wishing him all the best.

Of course, there were Ethan and Beau. They’d already started eating, casting sideways glances at one another. Brendon found them the most entertaining because he didn’t think that either of them realized just how much love they each projected for one another. When Brendon looked at them, he saw the pure, unaltered definition of love in its simplest and most complicated form. Those two … well, they were meant to be and it showed in every single move they made.