Page 76 of The Sweet Spot

Ares elbows Callen. “Dude, I’d just stop. No man wants to hear you love his wife—myself included.”

“Jesus Christ, your wife is my niece, for fuck’s sake,” Callen snaps back, and my head swims.

“The fuck?” I ask. “Are all you fuckers related in this goddamn town?”

“Pretty much,” Cross answers.

Maddox hands me a beer. “You’ll get used to it.”

I stare at him, remembering what Brynn told me when we were at her parents’ house. “Your dad is Sam, right?”

Maddox sips his beer. “Yup.”

“He might be the first man I’ve ever been scared of,” I tell him with a little humility.

“Dude, you should meet his mom,” Nix laughs, but more importantly, Brynlee’s laugh floats up to me from the shoreline, where the girls are kicking water at the toddlers.

“You guys can all love her, but she’s mine.”

Once everyone leaves, I go on the hunt for my wife.

I should have known she’d be outside, sitting in an Adirondak chair down by the lake. A soft, white blanket is wrapped around her, while she’s staring up at the stars with a peaceful look on her face.

She tilts her head up to me once she hears me coming. “Hey.”

“Hey, baby.” I scoop her up, then sit down with her in my lap. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been run over by a tractor trailer,” she tells me, then rests her head against my chest. “Tonight was a lot.”

“Yeah. It was. What you did took strength, Brynn. So much strength.” I run my hand up and down her back, enjoying the feel of her in my arms. “You’ve got a lot of people who love you.”

“Yeah,” she agrees softly. “I do.”

“I thought I was going to have to kill Callen Sinclair there for a minute.” Fucker will never know how close he came to eating my fist.

“What?” She pops her head up, confusion visible on every inch of her beautiful face.

“He tried to tell me how much everyone loves you, but it came out sounding like he was in love with you.” I lean my head back against the chair and watch the laughter dance in her emerald-green eyes.

“Nothing to worry about there, husband. He’s like a brother to me. They all are.”

“They’re all protective of you, baby. You’ve got a good group of friends around you. People who want to be here for you. By the end of the night, everyone had pulled me aside to make sure I had their numbers. They all told me to take care of you. They all told me to call if I needed anything. I’m pretty sure Easton had to drag Lindy out of here because at one point, I think she wanted to spend the night.” I tuck her hair behind her ear and twirl the strands around my finger. “He told me they live down the street, Brynn, and she didn’t want to leave you.”

She smiles softly and lays her head on my shoulder, quietly taking it all in.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is you are loved, Brynlee Kane. You have so many people in your corner, and no matter what the test results say, you’re going to be okay.” I press my lips against her head and breathe her in. Committing this moment to memory. Holding her here, just like this, with the fireflies dancing over the lake and the falls in the distance drowning out the world. I fell in love with her in this lake.

“You sure you don’t want to just get married here, Brynn?”

“No,” she whispers without lifting her head. “I want to marry you on Block Island. It’s where our story starts.”

“It’s a pretty great story, red.” I struggle to hold back the tears burning the backs of my eyes. “And we’ve got a whole lot of chapters still to write.”

Her body shakes when she loses the battle with her own tears.

“I guess it’s a good thing the length of the story isn’t what makes it good,” she tells me as she wipes her face. “It’s how you fill those pages that matters.”

She turns and sets a tear-filled smile on me. “Promise me we’ll fill every last one. No matter how long our book ends up being. Promise me we’ll make every page count. Every word count. Even if it’s shorter than we expected. It will be the sweetest love story ever told.”

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