Sweet Ache

Hawkin’s fingertips slide over my thighs and pull my chair so that my knees fit between his legs. He leans back and looks at me with that rock god smirk that turns me inside out. “Lead singer trumps guitarist any day.”

“I thought it was rocker trumps racer?” His fingers grip my hips in a hint of what he wants to do to me when we leave the Surf Shack where we’re eating our lunch.

“Sweetness, I’ll trump anything you like as long as—” I cut him off with my kiss again.

“Is this the asshole rocker?”

My brother’s voice shocks us apart and every part of me wants to whirl around and tell him to take his protective-brother bullshit down a notch because I’ve got this handled, but I don’t because I’m too busy watching Hawke. And God how I love the fact that even though my heart feels like it was jump-started from cardiac arrest, Hawkin’s hands stay firmly in place on my thighs and his eyes meet mine before slowly shifting to the voice behind me.

“Colton.” He nods his head, the back the fuck off warning apparent in his stare.

“Oh chill out!” It’s Rylee’s voice that has me turning with a wide smile on my lips. Of course I love my brother, love how he takes care of me, but I love how Rylee puts him in his place even more.

I shift out of my chair and stand to wrap my arms around her. She leans back and raises her eyebrows in approval when her eyes dart over to Hawke. “What is it with you and hot men?” she whispers with a devilish smirk on her lips.

“You must be Hawkin,” she says as she releases me. I turn to face Colton. He angles his head and looks at me before watching Rylee take a seat next to Hawkin and start up a conversation.

“The paper flattened out enough, I take it?” he asks in that gruff voice that tells me he’s trying to be a hard-ass but at the same time is glad I figured my shit out and got the outcome I wanted.

“Yeah,” I whisper in his ear as I pull him into a hug. “Thank you.” He just squeezes me a bit tighter in response.

“Remember what I said?”

When I lean back and stare at him, his warning about having a talk with Hawkin should things work out comes flooding back. As much as I dread the idea, I know that it’s Colton’s way of showing he loves me. “Go easy on him.” My request earns me a wry chuckle.

Rylee doesn’t break stride in chatting up Hawkin about his upcoming tour when we take a seat at the table. I’m far from blind and so I catch the intermittent glances that Hawkin and Colton share, each one laying claim to my protection.

As the topic comes to a close, Hawkin shifts his attention completely to my brother. “So Colton, lay it on me, man.”

Holy shit. Both Rylee and I startle and whip our heads at Hawkin, who’s going boldly where no man has gone before. And the fact that Colton chokes on his sip of beer makes it that much sweeter.

Colton sets his beer down and his eyes are locked on Hawkin’s. “Wanna get something off your chest, man?”

I roll my eyes at Colton’s testosterone-laced question and love how Ry quirks her eyebrow at him in a come on gesture.

“Nope.” Hawke shakes his head a couple of times, and I love that he’s not backing down and is playing Colton at his own game. That I mean enough to him to take a stand. “But I think you do.”

Silence stretches, and both Rylee and I are fighting smirks over the invisible battle the two men that we love are waging. “Q’s need to protect you from me is a first and tells a whole helluva lot about what she thinks of you…. But no bullshit, man, no one’s ever going to be good enough for her, so sorry—but I’m not sorry because that’s the breaks. You’ve got a lot to prove.” Colton pauses to reinforce his words. And as much as I hate this, I love this. Love that Colton is laying down the law and being a big brother, and that Hawkin’s letting him. Colton glances over to me and then back to Hawke. “My sister’s a big girl, she can take care of herself, but flat out, if you fuck with her again, you’ll have to deal with me.”

“Colton!” I kick him under the table and enjoy the grunt he emits in return.

“Nah, it’s cool,” Hawke says as he stands and reaches across the table and holds out his hand. “I understand. Deal?”

Colton eyes Hawke’s hand for a moment, working his tongue in his cheek before standing to shake his hand. Their hands grip tightly, gazes lock, and trust is passed from begrudging brother to a worthy lover.

I glance up at my sister-in-law across from me and she mouths, “So he’s the one, huh?”

I nod subtly and feel stupid for the tears that suddenly spring to my eyes when I realize that she’s absolutely right. Hawkin is the one. He’s my one. I guess I believe in fairy-tale endings after all, so long as I can write my own ending….

And I sure as hell am going to make sure this ending counts for us.

Epilogue

HAWKIN

“You didn’t have to come here with me,” I tell her as we stand at the nurse’s station. I look over at her, blond curls piled on top of her head, pink lips, hand in mine, and fuck, I just stare. She’s absolutely gorgeous.

And I don’t understand why under these fluorescent lights surrounded by the medicinal smell, it hits me. I’ve looked at her hundreds of times before—naked, clothed, blushing, moaning, pissed, sad, sleepy, coming—and yet maybe it’s me that’s changed because right now as clichéd as it sounds, it’s like I am seeing her for the first time. When I brought her here before, I was trying to prove a point. She called my cards to the table, thought I was cheating on her, and little did I know that taking her to see my mom would shift my whole goddamn world off its predetermined axis.