Page 27 of Cajuns. Love. Curves.

I roll my eyes. “Trust me, when I tell you I don’t need you to come with me to Belize. I will be fine all on my own.”

I stand and grab my purse from the back of the chair. Then round the table and lean down to brush a kiss on Remy’s cheek. “Sorry I can’t stay longer.”

“You’re not leaving already, are you? You just got here.”

“I have to be at work in the morning. I told you this would be a short visit. If you’re still in Saddle Creek when I get back from Belize, I’ll come visit you then.”

I ruffle Remy’s hair, because even though I’m the youngest in the family, when you’re the only girl, and your parents own a restaurant and therefore work really long hours, you do a lot of mothering, even to your older brothers.

I glance at Nick and flash him a smile. “Nice to finally meet you.”

As I walk out of Ace’s, I try not to be too sad that the visit was so short. It’s even harder to pretend that unexpectedly meeting Nick for the first time didn’t leave me shaken.

What was Remy thinking, bringing him without giving me a heads up?

What was Nick thinking? Why didn’t he mention to me he was coming? We exchange emails and other messages a couple of times a week. He could have told me.

Instead, he just showed up.

Which just made this shit show of a day that much shittier.

Not that meeting Nick in person was bad.

It was just… unexpected.

And, yeah. Shitty. Because all this time I’ve been telling myself that Nick was just like some third brother my parents had adopted. Now that I’ve met him in person, I can’t fool myself anymore.

Nick isn’t my brother. He’s a hot AF man. And that swagger of his is not the kind of thing I can unsee.

chaptertwelve

Emails exchangedbetween Nick and Cassie over the last 12 months…

* * *

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Re: Ready Player One

Cassie,

Thanks so much for the book. You’re right, of course, it was amazing. I shouldn’t have doubted you. But I’m guessing not all audiobooks are as good as this one. And of course, the downside is now I just wanna go play a bunch of video games and re-watch Blade Runner. Luckily, I’m pretty sure I know a guy who has Blade Runner on a Plex account. I’ll have to see if I can download it and watch it the next time I have some downtime.

Cheers,

Nick

* * *

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Re: Ready Player One

Nick,

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