Page 104 of Even if It Hurts

I shot her a look in time to see her wink at me, but then I noticed the rest of the kitchen. “Whoa,what?” I quickly blinked as if that might clear up all the food. “Aunt Ada, what army are you feeding?”

She scoffed and glanced back at me from where she was making sausage gravy. “Sweet Ray, you’ve never seen these kids eat.”

“What kids?” I asked just as there was a thunderous knock on the door, abruptly followed by two quick rings of the doorbell.

Aunt Ada clicked her tongue and gestured to Asher as if this were all his fault. “Get that before Adam breaks down my door.”

He sighed and stalked out of the kitchen as Wren and I asked, “Who?”

But even as I twisted to watch Asher leave, the name Adam was pulling at some memory.

“I thought you were invitingmeover for breakfast,” Wren said as the front door opened to loud voices that tugged even harder at that memory until the wildest sense of déjà vu fell over me just before a group of terrifying people filed into my great-aunt’s living room.

Asher’s team.

“Because I was already gonna be cooking all this—” Aunt Ada abruptly cut off and turned from where she’d been talking to Wren to yell, “Come get y’all something to eat.”

I hugged Kaia closer to my chest as the five members of Asher’s team came walking into the kitchen, starting with the heavily tattooed one.

Adam, as I finally remembered from the day of the funeral.

He gave me a feigned irritated look as he passed by me. “I’m not allowed to talk to you.”

“Hit on her,” Hudson said, enunciating each word as if they’d had this conversation multiple times. “You’re not allowed tohiton her.” He gave me one of his roguish winks. “No one said anything about me though.”

Mallory shoved Hudson in the back, making him stumble forward. “Yes, we did. Rein it in.”

“I’m Beau Evans,” the next guy in line said, holding out his hand for me to take, but my entire body had seized up the moment he said his name. “I never officially met you.”

It took Asher’s subtle throat clearing for me to awkwardly snap out of it and shove my hand out to take Beau’s. I forced my smile to match his and desperately tried not to sound like I was silently dying from sorrow and worry. “Lainey. Pearson. It’s nice to meet you.”

Cameron leaned close once Beau had moved on, his voice barely a whisper as he offered me a hopeful look. “It’ll be okay.”

My head bobbed in a shaky nod as I wrapped my arm around Kaia again. “You already know then?”

At that, a bright, meaningful smile lit his expression as he glanced between Asher and me. “I know everything.”

Heat flamed in my cheeks at the clear implication, but he just laughed when Asher shoved him away.

“What does he think he knows?” I hissed at Asher because, technically, there was nothing like that to know.

“He’s just happy,” he explained as he deftly took Kaia from me. “He’s wanted this for me for a long time.”

I wondered if Asher felt the same way for his best friend. I wondered if he’d still feel that way if he knew what it’d been like to be in a room with Cameron and Peyton once Asher left it.

Not that I planned on telling him.

“Get something to eat,” he ordered gently. “We’re gonna have our meeting here once we’re done so Ada doesn’t have to go anywhere. You can be there if you want but...”

“But Kaia.”

“And your sister,” he mumbled irritably.

I looked over to see her blatantly flirting with the four boys. Adam and Hudson were eating it up. Beau looked like he was trying to find the line between polite and not interested in someone who was interested in everyone. Cameron looked like he’d rather do anything else than listen to my sister compare him to Thor.

“I’ll get her out of here,” I assured Asher.

An appreciative grunt left him as he pulled a phone from his pocket and handed it to me. After a second, I started when I realized it was mine. “Gray brought it.”

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