Page 27 of Down & Dirty (Holden Cove #1)

CHAPTER 27

CORY

I f it hadn’t been tradition, I never would have left. Sky’s face had lit up with this magnetic kind of gratitude as I ran her a bath, filling the thing with bubbles and lighting the few ratty candles we had along the windowsill... it was far from a luxury spa, but she’d been entranced. When she sank into the water, her sigh was so loud it came through the door. The sound of it made my dick swell, and I realized staying would have been a terrible idea after all.

Before we left, I went to say goodbye and it was only because of the thick blanket of bubbles obscuring her perfect body that she let me in. The sight of her did something to me. Hair gathered in a mess atop her head. Cheeks rosy and glowing. And a look of satisfaction that was on her face far too rarely. The whole scene was so enticing, I didn’t even stop to think before I bent low to kiss her goodbye.

She tasted like mint and honey, from the mug of tea I’d set beside the tub. And she’d leaned into me, taking more when I pulled away.

“Be back soon,” I whispered against her lips.

She turned up her music with the remote. “What?” she shouted, laughing at herself .

I nodded down at her, appreciating the playful look on her face. “Punk,” I muttered as I shut the door behind me.

Mack met me on the porch in his thick Carhart canvas jacket and work boots. His scowl deepened when I opened the door. With a glance behind me, he shook his head. “What’s she doing?”

I started down the steps. “Having a nice relaxing soak.”

He huffed. “Sounds like it.”

My brother’s disapproval was comical. He’d been single longer than me and I didn’t wonder why. Mack had closed himself inside a narrow little slice of the world, and anything or anyone that upset his neat, orderly life got shown the door faster than you could say “commitment issues.” We Ellis men all had ‘em, but he was probably the worst of us.

“We’ll take my truck,” Jake called, stomping down the steps with his keys in his hand. “I need to get gas anyway.” He was wearing almost the exact same outfit as Mack, and I hid my chuckle under my breath; these two had been in close quarters too long.

The townie attention Skylar and I had gotten the day before warmed up considerably with the addition of my father. He waved congenially at most, smiling at friends. It had been so long since I’d been in a town where faces were familiar and history was shared. It was a little suffocating at times, but as Jake pulled into the parking lot, I tried to imagine the way Skylar would see it. Based on the joy on her face yesterday, she’d probably love that small town feature.

“Cory’s on cart duty,” Mack grumbled as he hopped out.

I closed the door behind me, catching his eye over the truck bed. “What are we, twelve?”

“Beau’s not here, so you’re the youngest.”

“And you’re the shortest,” Jake spat, his eyebrows going up when Mack turned to glare at him. “Are we gonna sit around and state a bunch of useless facts, or are we going to get some food? I want to get back before dark. ”

I wouldn’t have thought my brother’s scowl could get any worse, but there he was, red and angry. Mack hated being the shortest.

“You’re still nearly six feet, bro, it’s okay,” I laughed, strolling by him to the cart corral.

“Fuck you,” he muttered.

Jake turned around, his eyes on me now. “Don’t you want to get back to that pretty girl you convinced to come freeze her butt off this weekend?”

Of course I did. But there was something nice about knowing we’d given Sky a little time to herself. So I pushed the cart ahead of me into store and reassured him, “She’s enjoying herself just fine.”

“Without you around, I believe it,” Mack said, falling into step beside me. “You two work together, right? Fishing off the company pier?”

It was a little shocking that my brother had actually noticed that detail. “We don’t work together directly. It’s fine.”

“Too bad we don’t have any ladies in our office for you,” Jake snickered, clapping Mack on the shoulder as he passed him.

“No thanks,” he muttered bitterly, but my father had already disappeared down the frozen food aisle.

“Bachelor for life, huh?” I teased.

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Like you’re husband material now? Whatever. With your revolving door, you’re worse than me.”

I coughed into my hand to hide an uncomfortable laugh. Husband material. Shit. Given my track record, I wasn’t going to argue with him. And I sure as shit wasn’t going to tell him I was already married. But the amount of disbelief on his face pissed me off. I’d never cared about marriage, or even considered it, before Skylar, but now? Now that I’d gotten to know her, to hold her? Now, husband material was maybe exactly what I wanted to be.

“Maybe I’m finally growing up. ”

“If that were true, you’d stop riding and get a real job.”

I shot Mack a look. “I have a real job, asshole. Just cause it’s not as boring as moving dirt, doesn’t mean my paychecks are any less real.”

He laughed, but it wasn’t funny. “That’s right, it’s all about the money. You figure out that magic number you need to hit? Or are you just going to keep falling until you stay down?”

The memory of my fall at the end of last season flashed through me, my back twitching like it had heard him. This was a tired argument. Normally it came from Jake, but he was too busy looking at what was left of the frozen vegetables. “I’m pretty sure OTM wouldn’t have hired me if they didn’t think I still had some wins left in me.”

My brother shook his head with a disgusted smirk. “Always for sale.”

“At least I’m doing something I enjoy.”

“Are you?” he asked, his head cocking to the side like he knew something I didn’t.

I went to respond just as Mack was pelted in the chest with a bag of frozen corn.

We both looked over to see Jake coming our way, a second bag still in his hands. “Go get the marshmallows.”

Mack shook his head again but walked away without saying anything else.

Jake tossed the second bag in the cart while I bent to retrieve the one off the floor. “Skylar know what she’s in for tomorrow?”

“You mean his attitude?”

“I mean you two arguing about the mashed potatoes and god knows what else.” My father’s eyes were bright and playful, even as he gave me a long-suffering look. I didn’t think it was just having Skylar there; he seemed more at ease in general.

“She has a brother, she understands.”

He sniffed, like he didn’t believe me. “At least it’s just the two of you.”

“You heard from Beau lately?” I was still surprised he’d reache d out after the photos from the premiere had hit the tabloids.

“He checks in. Seems like they’ve got him on something super high-level these days. We have our calls monitored or some nonsense.” His tone was annoyed, but I didn’t miss the way he gripped the cart handle a little tighter. We were all uneasy with Beau’s deployments. How could we not be?

Beau would hate us worrying about him. Especially at Thanksgiving. It was his favorite holiday. “It’s probably for the best, keep him from talking your ear off with stories.”

Jake laughed at that, pushing the cart around the corner as I grabbed a bag of pastel mints from a display and dropped them into the cart.

We found Mack two aisles over, standing behind a couple of women, each of them rifling through the bags of marshmallows on the bottom shelf. They were clearly unaware or uncaring that he had been waiting for them to move. Jake and I stopped back and just watched as Mack tried once, twice, three times, to bob between them and grab a bag, but every time he got close, one of them would shift, and rather than risk grazing them with his arm, he’d jump back.

“He’s definitely going to die alone, you know that right?” I joked.

Jake just shook his head with a heavy sigh. “If even one of you manages to find a bride, I’ll die a happy man.”

If I didn’t know he was kidding, it would have been torture keeping my mouth shut. But Jake had never once mentioned a dream of his sons building families of their own. If anything, we’d stayed far away from the topic; the memory and loss my mother a pain none of us wanted to revisit.

Mack finally darted between the women blocking his way and snatched a bag far bigger than we needed. He saw us both watching and hucked the bag into the cart with enough force that Jake looked down with concern at the rest of the contents.

“Those aren’t the right size—“ Jake started .

“Get ‘em yourself then,” Mack barked. “Fricking vultures.”

My father and I laughed, because this was exactly what we expected. This was the yearly tradition. The chaos around us would have been enough, but it was Mack’s annual meltdown that really completed the picture.

“I take it you don’t want to get the turkey then?” I asked, already anticipating his glare.

Jake puffed up, doing a piss-poor job of containing his smirk as he looked my way. “You brought home a bird for the holiday, seems only right you should face the bin.” He made the last bit sound ominous, knowing what I’d face.

Weaving through the store, the shelves nearly barren in sections, children running between us at full sprint, ripped bags of flour painting the floor white, we found ourselves staring at a wide open-topped cooler section between the dairy and bread. The infamous Turkey Bin. Inside it was what was left of the frozen turkeys. And around it were the scavengers. The hawks. The late comers and last minuters. These people were our kind, but they were not kind . Pulling one bowling ball-shaped hazard after another and tossing it back. Too small, too large. You never knew what the reason. But as I stepped forward, I felt my brother’s amusement return. Glancing over my shoulder, it was clear in the sparkle of his eye; Mack had faced the gauntlet the last few years. This year was mine.

“Let’s see if your racing speed helps you here, bike boy.”

A laugh burst out of me, several of my competitors whipping their attention my way. “I don’t need speed. It’s all about precision.” I left the two of them to circle the freezer, my eyes scanning for a turkey larger than the one we’d had last year, but not so big as to be a waste. I found it, just as I rounded the far corner. And with graceful, gazelle-like movements, I snaked an arm around the prize right before one of the marshmallow women went for it.

I heard Mack laugh from the far end of the aisle, no doubt catching the look of fury on her face. But I simply tucked the bird under my arm and walked back to my family. Another successful expedition under our belts.

“We better get out of here before she slashes our tires,” Jake muttered, giving a quick peek over his shoulder. “You two are terrible for my image.”