Page 123 of Stuck with my Mountain Daddies

The porch had been repaired, new beams, fresh paint, the railing straight and solid again. Someone had added little touches, too.

A wind chime hung by the door, catching the breeze and humming softly. There was fresh gravel in the driveway, and the front steps no longer groaned when we climbed them.

It wasn’t just fixed. It was better.

I glanced at Lucy, who stood beside me, arms crossed as she took it all in. She didn’t say anything for a long beat.

Then she let out a slow, shaky breath. “Holy shit.”

I laughed, the sound catching in my throat. “That about sums it up.”

She looked at me, eyes glassy but shining. “I thought we were going to have to burn it down and start over.”

“Well, we still might,” I said with a weak grin. “If the heater doesn’t work.”

But it did. Everything did.

The inside smelled of sawdust and clean wood and a hint of vanilla from the candle left burning on the windowsill.

The floors were refinished, the walls patched and painted, and there was a new couch where the old lumpy one had been.

Cozy blankets were folded on the armrests. A “welcome back” note sat on the kitchen counter with Lucy’s name scrawled in blocky, familiar handwriting.

Garrett.

I ran my fingers over it, my chest tightening in that strange way it always did lately. A tangled mess of emotion I didn’t fully understand, gratitude, affection…

“Your home is beautiful, Lucy. I can see why you live here.”

I was starting toreallyappreciate the mountain life. My time in the brothers’ cabin had shifted everything inside my mind.

Lucy threw herself onto the couch and groaned dramatically. “I know, I love it here. I don’t mind working in the city, butthisis home.”

I smiled, walking over to join her, but I didn’t sit. I stood in the middle of the cabin for a second longer, letting myself feel it.

The stillness. The quiet. The safety of something solid beneath my feet.

“This is heaven.”

And for a few days, it really was.

The cabin became a cocoon. Warm, quiet, tucked away from the noise.

Lucy and I fell into a rhythm: coffee in the mornings, blankets and books in the afternoons, lazy dinners we half-cooked and half-ordered from The Foundry.

I loved the silence and steadiness of it all. But of course, silence never lasts forever.

Because the world doesn’t forget. And neither does the internet.

Ava’s livestream hadn’t just gone viral. It had spawned Reddit threads, duets on TikTok, think pieces, fan accounts dissecting my past, my choices, my expressions.

They’d paused my downfall long enough to catch the backlash, and now they were coming for the sequel.

My name was trending again. For all the wrong reasons.

Sure, Ava’s was as well, but she’d brought that on herself, so what was I to do?

And God help me, there was still a part of me that wanted to use it.

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