Page 43 of My Brother's Billionaire Best Friends

Later, we sit on the dock with our legs in the water, wrapped in a shared blanket I ran and stole from the couch. The sun is higher now, the light brighter. The chill’s faded, replaced by warmth that settles in my bones.

Parker leans her head on my shoulder.

“You okay?” I ask.

She nods slowly. “Better than okay.”

“You still scared?”

“A little.”

“Of me?”

“No.”

I glance down at her. “Then what?”

“Of how good this feels.”

I kiss her temple. “Let it feel good.”

She closes her eyes. I don’t push her for anything else. But in my chest, I know—I’ll do whatever it takes to keep her safe. To keep hermine.

Whatever this turns into…I’m all in.

11

GAVIN

I waketo the smell of waffles.

Real ones. Not the frozen kind you pop in a toaster, but fresh batter on cast iron, crisping into golden edges and soft middles. There’s cinnamon in the air too, and something citrusy—orange zest, maybe? Someone’s gone gourmet.

It’s not Jack. He doesn’t believe in breakfast that doesn’t come in a shaker bottle. Can’t be Harrison. The man treats food like fuel—efficient, unceremonious.

Parker.

I lie in bed a few seconds longer than I should, staring at the ceiling. There’s a knot low in my chest that’s been there since yesterday—since I agreed to bring her here, into this place that was never meant to hold anything fragile.

The lodge is for retreat. For strategy. For solving problems in a place where noise can’t follow. Bringing her was reckless.

But watching her last night, flushed from tequila, laughing at Jack’s muttered sarcasm, resting her hand lightly on Harrison’sknee without even realizing she’d done it, having her here feels less like a risk and more like something that was always supposed to happen.

I sit up and scrub a hand down my face. My jaw’s tight. My head’s full. Busy. Incessant. Group dynamics are easy. They’re friction and impulse and heat. No expectations. No time to think too much.

But when it’s just her and me…that’s the part that scares me. I’ve been avoiding it like the plague. Not because of her. Because of me.

I’ve never been good at real intimacy. Not the kind that lingers past morning. Not the kind that makes you stare at someone across a room and imagine what she’d look like sleeping in your bed, in your space, in yourlife.I want it. But I don’t know how to be that way.

I don’t know how to want someone like this. Not without fucking it up. And that’s exactly why I’ve stayed on the edge of this thing, orbiting around her like I’m made of discipline and self-control.

That self-control is wearing thin.

I throw on gray sweatpants and a white tank top and head downstairs, barefoot and still a little asleep. Or maybe I’m so bogged down by my thoughts that it just makes me tired.

She’s in the kitchen. Back to me, hair pulled up in a messy twist, standing at the stove in an oversized sweatshirt that probably doesn’t belong to her—mine, maybe, or Jack’s. The sleeves are rolled up to her elbows. Her legs are bare, and I can see the faint pink marks on the backs of her thighs from where she must’ve been sitting cross-legged.

There’s a plate of waffles on the counter and a bowl of berries beside them. Syrup’s warm in a saucepan. She’s humming to herself, off-key, but somehow it fits. She turns just as I step in. “Oh—hey,” she says, brushing a flyaway hair behind her ear. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”