Page 24 of Just This Once

But Damien only smiled back in warm reception, keeping eye contact the whole time. Andnotblushing. “Hey, Hope,” he greeted, sounding pleased to see me. He even nudged my elbow acceptingly as he passed by to approach his own girlfriend. “Welcome back to town. Did you have a good trip?”

I blinked, not used to getting more than three words at once from the shy one. “It was—”Long. Terrifying. Painful. “Fine,” I told him, only to blink in confusion when he grinned over at me, not at all bothered by my presence.

“Good. Are you staying for supper? Smells like Ivey’s cooking up—” Wrapping his arms around Oaklynn from behind, he pulled her back against him as he lifted his nose into the air and winced. “Something.”

“It’s going to be a whole new creation when I’m done with it,” Hudson swore as he poured a can of cream ofwhateverinto the dish and began to stir. “But it’ll taste good, I swear.”

Leaning toward Alec, I whispered, “What the hell happened to Bashful?” It was as if he weren’t…bashful anymore.

Alec only grinned. “Oaklynn happened.”

“Huh.” I lifted my brows and nodded, deciding I had to like the dimpled woman as well.

Returning his gaze to me, Damien asked, “So what do you say?”

I shrugged, unable to decline such a nice offer, especially when he was looking right at me like that. His whiskey-colored eyes were damn-near hypnotizing, and I swear, he’d also gotten five times hotter since I’d last seen him.

They all had. Every single one of my brother’s best friends was gorgeous as hell.

“Count me in,” I answered.

“Right on!” Alec cheered, throwing an arm around my shoulders in celebration, while I swear both Hudson and Keene groaned in misery.

For some reason, my attention shifted toward Parker, though. He was watching me with a condemning scowl as if he knew exactly what kind of thoughts I’d just had about his friends, and he did not approve.

Lifting my chin in challenge, I perked up an eyebrow briefly, and his glare narrowed before he drained the rest of his glass and turned away to refill it.

5

HOPE

“After supper, I’m showing you what I did with my room,” Alec gushed excitedly. “There was so much space in there I turned half of it into my own personal studio with a backdrop and all the computer equipment I need to make a podcast or anything I want.”

I smiled warmly and squeezed his arm. “That’s awesome. So have you started your own channel yet?”

“No.” His enthusiasm dropped a notch. “Not yet. I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do. Faith wants to run a series of Hudson cooking shows, and Oaklynn needs to beef up her newscasting portfolio, so we’ve been tossing around ideas for those, but I don’t know. I just want it to be perfect.”

When he shrugged, I smiled, loving to watch him in his element and working through goals in his head. I swear, he practically glowed whenever he talked about his filming projects.

It made me glad that I’d come. I really needed to see that he was happy.

“You’ll figure it out,” I told him encouragingly, while across the room, the others were gathering around Hudson as he slid the girls’ improved dish into the oven.

“What is that, anyway?” Damien wondered.

“I’m calling it Brisket Surprise,” Hudson answered before casting a questioning look toward Faith. “That was brisket, right?”

“I mean…” She shrugged through a wince. “It started out that way.”

Damien chuckled and glanced toward my brother and me.

“Yo, Alec,” he called. “Could you fetch Keene? We need to make a house vote real quick.”

“Er, sure.” Alec sent me a look, silently wondering what that was about. Then he patted my arm and loped from the kitchen.

I glanced toward the others, already missing my brother’s presence, mostly because everyone else was now paired off.

Foster and Raina were whispering and cuddling amongst themselves. Faith was still watching what Hudson was doing as he started to prepare some kind of salad. Damien was grinning at Oaklynn as he drew a bottle of wine down from the cupboard for her. And Parker seemed intimately involved with his alcohol, moodily sipping from his bourbon with his back propped against the counter.

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