Page 34 of Some Like It Hott

“It’s so…dumb,” he says, but there’s no heat in it.

“I think you mean it’s sofun.”

“I meant what I said,” he tells me, giving me a stern look that I don’t actually hate at all.

“We did it,” I say. “We met our first milestone.”

He crosses his arms across his broad chest and scowls deeper. “We’re nowhere near done. I’d guess we have, what, less than half of the activities we need by the time the summer festival rolls around? And we’ve picked the low-hanging fruit.”

“We’ve got this,” I say, shrugging. “Ye of little faith.”

Ever since the rage room, it’s been more like this. Our combativeness feels different now, like we’re somehow on the same side.

It feels good, and also…dangerous. Like I knew what to do with Preston when I thought he hated me, or at least was holding me at arm’s length. This Preston—one I nudge with my shoulder, almost affectionately—is too big, too beautiful, and too likable.

It doesn’t help that he’s wearing cutoff navy sweats and a gray T-shirt. Stripped of his armoring suits, he seems younger and more vulnerable. Not to mention that the soft cotton loves his muscular body.

As, we already know, do I.

I tear my gaze from the intersection of T-shirt sleeve and curved bicep.

“I love your family,” I tell him. I point to where Quinn and Shane are demolishing each other in the Jell-O pit while a horde of Wilder children cheer on one or the other. “They seem like they’re all good people.”

His expression softens. “I don’t know the Wilders well, but they all jumped in to help Sonya and Quinn when there was a flood at Hott Spot last year. And my brothers…they can be grumpy bastards, but Quinn and Shane, when they got their letters from Granddad, they totally stepped up. And earlier this summer, Hanna was trying to host a celebrity wedding—January Stark and Tobias Bauer?—”

“Tobuary!” I say delightedly, because like everyone else on Earth, I shipped January and Tobias. Hard.

“Someone tried—well, wethinkmaybethey tried—to sabotage it, and all my brothers came through to?—”

He’s cut off by Hanna. “Pres!” she says, racing up to his side. “I need to finish frosting a cake, and I just heard Eloise waking up over the monitor, and Easton’s down at the river. Any chance you could grab her for me?”

“On it,” Preston says and strides off.

I watch him go, stunned.

Hanna is already trotting back toward the house.

“Hey!” I call.

She turns back.

“Can I help with the cake?”

She shrugs. “You ever frosted a cake? Because I haven’t.”

“No, but I’m game to try.”

She grins, giving me a sec to catch up. “You know what I like about you?” she says as we hurry to the house together. “I actually believe that’s true.”

When we’re done frostingthe cake, Hanna starts making caramel glaze for the apple pie, and Rachel offers to introduce me to anyone I haven’t met yet. We head back out into the grassy yard, which stretches for a good distance and is surrounded by a wooden lattice fence with a swinging gate. Beyond it, I can see the spa, which means that Hanna can basically roll out of bed and into the springs.

Not too shabby. Yet another good reason for Hanna’s brothers to fight like hell to hang on to the land for their sister.

Rachel and I weave among the activities as she introduces me to, or at least points out, her sisters-in-law and sisters-in-law-to-be. “Most of my brothers-in-law are in line for either Jell-O wrestling or nail painting right now,” she says, laughing and pointing out the Wilder men in her life one by one and then moving on to Hanna’s brothers, Rhys—who’s in town only for the day—Tucker, and Quinn. She gestures toward Shane, the fifth brother, who’s standing next to his fiancée, Ivy, the two of them looking like they’re alone in their own happy world. Then she tells me the kids’ names and who they belong to—Justin to her and Brody, and the rest to various Wilder brothers and their wives.

Everyone’s talking and laughing, hugging and trying to draw each other into activities. This is the kind of family I always imagined myself with—fun and games, everyone enjoying themselves fully.

It’s almost like Preston and I were swapped at birth.

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