Page 19 of My Three Hometown Alphas

She wraps her much smaller hands around his wrists. “Owen, look at me.”

His hands fall to his lap, and the look on his face is enough to slice my heart clean in half.

“Liv, I can’t talk about this,” he says, shaking his head.

Her hands move to hold both of his. “I need to know Lyla’s going to be okay.” More tears fall as she gives his hands a firm squeeze. “I also need to know you’re going to be okay.”

“I’m never going to be okay without you,” Owen says as he starts to cry. I think I’ve seen him cry twice since he was ten, but here he is letting his heart bleed freely for all of us to see.

“I think you and Lyla will be okay if you have each other,” Liv gets out between quiet sobs.

Owen takes in a shaky lungful of air, closing his eyes. When they open, he looks right into Liv’s matching eyes.

“Okay,” he says. His voice is barely above a whisper, but it’s filled with determination.

I have no fucking clue how we are going to do this, but somehow, I know in my heart we will make it work. For Lyla. For Liv.

Avery’s voice jolts me back to where I’m standing in our kitchen.

“Oh, shit… I mean shoot,” Avery stammers when she sees me standing there.

Lyla giggles. “My uncles cuss all the time. I know all the bad words.”

“Way to throw me under the bus, kid,” I say in mock outrage, trying to bring myself back to this reality from where my head’s been for the last few minutes.

Lyla narrows pale blue eyes that are so similar to her mom’s and Owen’s. “I know not to use them, obviously,” she says, like the thought is ridiculous.

“Obviously,” Avery says, smirking at her.

“What are you guys making?” I ask. Stepping closer to them, I try to peek around them to peer into the bowl.

“Back off, Uncle Will,” Lyla says, placing her hand on my chest and giving me a quick but ineffective shove.

“Yeah, back off, Will,” Avery says, placing her hand on my hip and pushing back gently.

A bolt of awareness courses through me at the contact.

Now I’m probably going to have erratic thoughts about that tonight. I’m going to be up half the night with thought of her touching my motherfucking hip. Lovely.

I can’t really find it in me to be mad at the moment because she’s still touching me, and her eyes are intently locked on mine.

“Vanilla cupcakes with cream cheese frosting,” Lyla says.

My niece’s voice snaps me out of the trance Avery sucked me into, and I take a step back. Avery’s hand falls back to her side.

“Sounds yummy,” I say, looking only at Lyla now. I motion over my shoulder, toward the stairs. “I’m going to go get changed, then I’ll get dinner going. Can you guys preheat the over to four hundred?”

I make it halfway to the stairs before Lyla speaks up. “Can Avery stay for dinner?”

Most nights after we get home, Avery has gone back to her place to spend her evenings alone.Rightfully so.“I’m sure Avery has things to do tonight.”

Even from my spot behind the couch, I can see the puppy dog eyes Lyla has turned on Avery. I’m about to say something else, but Avery beats me to it.

“I don’t have much going on tonight. I got all my assignments done earlier.”

Lyla’s head snaps back in my direction. “See? She does want to stay. Please.”

I pause for a beat before answering. “That’s fine with me, but only if Avery wants to.” I look at them both for a few more seconds before making my way up the stairs.