If It's Only Love (Lexi Ryan) novel Chapter 28

Shay

The Jacksons have brunch every Sunday morning at ten. If someone’s schedule doesn’t allow for it on any given week, so be it, but the time is always the same. The only exceptions are when Christmas falls on a Sunday, and every Easter, when we skip brunch and meet at the family cabin for a big dinner.

This Easter will be our biggest yet. Everyone will be here, including Easton and Abi. Even if I’m nervous about spending time around Easton with our tentative “just friends” arrangement, I’m glad he and Abi have somewhere to spend the holiday.

Jake is in the kitchen, working on the ham and a potato-and-sour-cream casserole. Nic is making half a dozen pies because that’s her way of showing us all how much she loves us. I’m hoping my stomach can handle some of this stuff. Not only is it delicious, but I suspect I’ve lost a few pounds, and I don’t want to sink back into the cycle of feeling victorious every time the scale shows a lower number.

“Do we drink red or white with ham?” Teagan asks, holding up both bottles. She’s in a pink spring dress today and looking as bright as the sunny day outside.

I position the last fork in place at the table and shrug. “I don’t think it matters.”

Still holding the wine, she presses the back of one hand to my forehead. “What is wrong with you? You’re supposed to say both.”

I laugh. Because she’s right. Typically, that would be my answer, but I’m not drinking tonight. Partly because Easton’s going to be here, and I’m afraid even the tiniest loosening of my inhibitions might land me in his bed, but mostly because my stomach is still screwed up and I don’t want wine ruining any chance I have of eating a halfway decent meal. I’m sick of not having an appetite and living on dry toast. Even coffee upsets my stomach these days. Sad times indeed. “I’m ready for my stress levels to go down so I can eat and drink like a normal person again.”

Teagan plops both bottles down on the table and props her hands on her hips. “Have you gone to the doctor yet?”

I look over her shoulder to my brother Jake in the kitchen and down the hall toward the girls in the living room to make sure no one heard her. “Would you lower your voice, please?”

She arches a brow.

“Not yet. I’ve been kind of busy, but I’ll call on Monday.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

“I know, I know.” Maybe I’m stalling deliberately. Every time I fall asleep at my computer or sleep twelve hours when I’m normally good with seven, I think about how tired Mom was before she found out she had cancer. I think of Dad losing his battle. Maybe part of me knows that I need to take this seriously and I’m too scared of what I might find out.

I hear the front door open and the sounds of Easton and Abi’s voices as Carter lets them in.

Teagan flashes me a grin. “Carter said that Easton said you two watched a movie together Friday night,” she says in a conspiratorial whisper.

My cheeks burn at the memory of Easton on my couch. His hand. His wickedly dirty mouth. “What else did he tell him?”

She smirks. “Nothing that should make you blush like that. What happened? He told Carter you wanted to just be friends for now, but he’s putting all his cards on the table with your brothers. He wants more, and he wants them to know his intentions so he doesn’t have to deal with any ‘protective brother’ bullshit when he finally gets his shot with you.”

I know how Easton feels. He hasn’t exactly hidden his intentions. Yet hearing Teagan tell it like that gives me massive butterflies.

“Abigail!” Lilly’s scream is followed by the sound of little feet running on hardwood.

“No running in the house!” Nic calls.

“Lilly! I went shopping with my mom in Chicago this weekend. She took me to the American Girl Store and bought me a new doll. Do you like her?”

“She’s beautiful! I have one upstairs. Come on, I’ll show you. Did you like Chicago? I’ve been there before and it was just so big. There are so many people.”

“It’s nothing like L.A.,” Abi says. “There are even more people there.”

“No way.”

The sound of the girls’ chatter quiets as they head upstairs, and Teagan and I exchange smiles.

“They’re adorable together, aren’t they?” Easton says.

I spin and see him at the threshold to the dining room, his hands tucked into his pockets. He takes me in slowly, and those blue-green eyes darken. “Happy Easter, Easton,” I say. He looks . . . edible. Tailored black pants, a sky-blue oxford with the top button undone and the sleeves rolled to his elbows. His forearms are a work of art, and my mouth goes dry as I ogle them and remember the muscles there bunching as he worked between my legs.

“Happy Easter.” His husky timbre is the stuff of wet dreams. Or maybe that’s the memory of what we did on my couch. Both. “Thanks for having us.”

“I’m not the one who invited you.”

His lips twitch. “This is true.”

“Easton,” Carter calls. “Do you still suck at pool? Come downstairs so I can kick your ass.”

“Language!” Lilly shouts from upstairs, and Easton laughs, delighted by her bossy reprimand.

“Do you need any help?” he asks me, looking the table over. It’s set beautifully, if I say so myself.

“Go play with Carter,” I say. “He’s missed his buddy all these years.”

Easton drags his bottom lip through his teeth and gives me one final head-to-toe once-over that leaves my skin tingling. “As you wish.” He winks then heads to the basement.

Teagan grabs a plate off the table and fans herself. “Holy sexual tension, Shayleigh. You two are gonna fog up the windows in here if you keep looking at each other like that.”

I pull out a chair and sit because I’m suddenly lightheaded.

Teagan chuckles. “You okay?”

“I’m . . .” I put my fingers to my lips. I’m so many things.

“Lemme guess, starts with an H and rhymes with corny.”

I grab a napkin from the place setting in front of me and toss it at her. It floats ineffectually to the floor at her feet.

Laughing, she picks it up, refolds it, and returns it to the plate in front of me, but her face is serious when she says, “It’s okay to give him another chance. He lives here. He has custody of his daughter. Everything’s different now.”

Yeah, it really is. This time I might be the one who ends up in L.A. while he’s here.

***

Dinner was the usual chaotic and boisterous affair of a dozen conversations happening at any given time and enough food to feed a small army.

I take kitchen duty after the meal ends, partly because I’m one of the few people here who isn’t responsible for a child of some sort, and partly because I could use the time to get my thoughts in order. The day turned out nice, and everyone’s outside enjoying the mild temp and sunshine by the water. I find myself lingering—towel-drying and putting away dishes rather than leaving them in the rack, wiping down the counters a second time, even going as far as to organize the little we keep in the pantry.

I don’t understand why until I look out the window and see the girls chasing Noah barefoot in the sand and all my brothers standing around a fire talking. This might be my last Easter living in Jackson Harbor.

The thought strikes me and cuts through the little energy I have like a sharp knife. I pull out a kitchen chair and sink into it.

“Why so sad, Short Stack?”

I turn away from the window to find Easton sitting down opposite me. “I’m not sad.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

I shake my head. Not sad. I’m a little disappointed that the truth didn’t hit me sooner, and maybe even a little embarrassed, but not sad. “I’m just thinking.”

“Tell me.”

I nod toward the window, toward my family. “This is how I want to fill my life.” I swallow, overwhelmed with the rightness of the choice. “Not with scholarly articles and stacks of papers. Not with tenure and postdoc work. I’ve enjoyed getting my doctorate, but when I choose what comes next, I want it to include this.”

He follows my gaze out the window. “I can’t blame you.”

“You don’t think it makes me a quitter? Or a coward?”

“I guess that depends.” He takes a deep breath, and I wonder if it’s fair to either of us to ask him this question. I already know he’d like me to stay. “Are you giving up a dream? Are you turning down a job you want because you’re scared of starting new somewhere?”

“Being a college professor wasn’t ever a dream. It was just . . . a job.” I laugh. “And pursing a PhD was the best way to drag out my school years when I wasn’t ready to enter the real world.”

He’s watching me. “Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“It’s a little visualization exercise. Just do it.”

“Okay.” I obey and wait. What is he doing?

“I know it’s hard, but try to forget what’s stressing you out right now. Imagine everything works out easily, and five years have passed. The stress is gone. The decisions have been made and you’re happy.”

I smile. It’s a relief to imagine being beyond this moment in my life. It’s not a hardship to imagine when I’ve moved past these worries, past my defense and my career choices, past George and the decision of how I’m going to tell his wife the truth.

“I . . .” The image is so clear, and my heart aches with how badly I want it. This future.

“In Jackson Harbor, and I have a family.” I study him and wonder if I’m a fool for having the same dreams for my future now that I had when I was a twenty-year-old college student studying in Paris. The idea of moving to L.A. doesn’t thrill me, but the idea of staying home, of letting my choices be guided by my family? Does it really matter if that makes me a small-town girl? Or old-fashioned? Maybe those things aren’t bad. Maybe they’re just me.

He smacks my ass lightly. “Pest. I was going to say not alone.”

He prowls forward. Slowly. Too slowly. “I was.”