“I’m not addicted,” I mutter, sliding the cooked eggs onto a plate and sprinkling crumbled feta over them. We work our bodies so hard. Nobody’s scarfing cake every night, but adding cheese to a meal is just plain necessary. “She asked me to come. I’m showing her I can.”
They stare at me, and start hollering like I’m the biggest dumbass ever created. Elliot throws his magazine at me, but the fluttering pages don’t make it halfway across the large room.
Joel rushes out. “What’s up?”
Johan’s towel is barely doing its job when he spreads his legs and slaps the counter. “Oh, you’ll show her you’re wrapped around her pinky!”
Terrence wipes his eyes from laughing so hard. “Boy, you are daft.”
I cock an eyebrow. “Daft? They still say that word?”
“I’m bringing it back. Because I am looking at this!” He waves a circle in front of my face. “Daft daft daft daft DAFT.”
Joel mutters, “I missed something,” and sticks a fork in eggs he didn’t bother to separate from the main plate. I don’t know why I even brought out more.
From the couch, Elliott stretches to smugly announce, “You know what we see every Monday morning? You looking at the clock and checking your damn phone every two minutes. Oh, it’s Monday! Is it Monday yet? Why is there any day other than Mondays?”
I dig in, despite their efforts to make me lose my appetite. Fact is, my stomach growls me awake every morning since Galloway turned our musical into boot camp. I mumble through a mouthful, “Look. She’s my best friend. She calls. I answer. Just because you nimrods don’t have someone that special to you doesn’t make it wrong.”
“Special?” Johan chortles. “Oh, I have special. And excellent. And dayum, did we really just do that?! Only with me, I’m actually getting laid by those adjectives! Are you ever going to have sex with this girl? Because I have witnessed zero nights where you are not A to the L to the LONE.”
“Sex isn’t everything.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not.”
Joel cuts in. “You think you love her?”
“I know I love her.”
They stare at me, and eat their breakfast with silence in full swing. Wow. That’s worse than an argument.
Maybe I shouldn’t go.
But I have to see her again.
I came to New York thinking she’d be here, too. I need closure, and to make sure she hasn’t changed her mind about me. Foolish? Maybe. But this is love we’re talking about.
Chapter Thirty
LOGAN
Everyone is cracking up because Grams swore, and sweet, old, May Cocker never does. It’s the matriarch’s ‘thing’ to reprimand her large family by shouting, “Language!” whenever a cuss word slips out—often intentionally.
So I’m smiling along with everyone as she shouts, “That’s my fucking title!” but I can’t laugh.
Ryder’s cough draws my attention. “Can I ask you a question?”
Frowning, I nod, “Sure.”
He glances to Zoe who shifts positions like she wasn’t staring at him. Taking my elbow he leads me out of earshot. “You and Sam hook up before you went to New York?”
“No. We’re just friends.”
Ryder nods. “I know you were.”
“Are.”
“Something feels off today.”
I look over to where she and Lexi are meeting Caden’s new girlfriend. Turns out what they say about absence is true—Samantha is even more beautiful than before I left.
She was so happy to see me it almost wasn’t awkward. Except for how intensely I wanted to kiss her. Knowing that’s off the table when I ache for it, doesn’t make this easy for me. But her attitude lightened the load.
Lexi and Hunter are fighting over who can be the biggest dick while she just watches and takes her turn in the big event, happy to be here. Their eldest brother, Max, just walked up with his new fiancé. Samantha is smiling as Lexi grabs the engagement ring and falls apart.
“We’re just friends, Ryder. That’s it.”
“That all you want to be?”
I meet his eyes and hold. “Does it matter?”
His breath is deep. “Ah.”
“Yeah.”
The two of us stand off to the side and watch the Cocker Family doing their thing, messing around and having a great time doing it. Samantha works her way back and because everyone is involved in their own conversations, they don’t notice her. It’s only Lexi they react to.
But I notice.
She doesn’t blend, to me.
I don’t have to look at Ryder to know he’s watching us and understands me as only an outsider could. He’s the nephew of Tanner, husband to Emma Cocker, Jake’s only daughter. Ryder moved here from California with his mom, Jen, and he’s always at these infamous Family BBQs. But like me, he’s not a blood-relation to a Cocker, nor is he dating or married to one. We are the rare type of guest, getting in because someone in this family loves us.
Only wish she loved me more.
As her father takes a swig from a hidden pitcher of his mom’s fresh ginger-ale, and calls out, “I do something wrong?” with a smirk that sends everyone into hysterics, Samantha rejoins me and unwittingly sends Ryder away to give us alone-time.
“I can’t believe he did that,” she laughs about her dad as she tucks soft, blonde hair behind her ear. “Nobody saw him hide it! At least he can’t take Grandma’s chili — it’s too big!”
My smile is filled with private things as I ask, “You like Caden’s girlfriend?”
“He wouldn’t have picked her if she wasn’t special.” Her eyelashes flutter up. “Are you having fun in New York, Logan? Is it everything we thought it would be?”
My lungs twist into a pretzel as I gaze into the sweet brown eyes I miss so much. “Yeah, it is.”
She nods to the grass under our feet. “Not everyone is made for fame.”
“You could have gone all the way, Sam.” I
