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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

ELLIOT

“ W hat do you think we’re walking into?” Cooper asks as the four of us make our way up the front walk of my parents’ house.

“What do you mean?” Noah takes off his gloves and shoves them into his pocket, hopping up the stairs like a puppy dog.

“I mean, Mom and Jo have been pretty close-lipped about what happens at book club. Who knows what’s going on in there?” Cooper glances at Jordan, who holds up his hands.

“Don’t look at me. I’ve asked Jo. She always just tells me to mind my own business.”

Cooper’s face screws up in concern as he stops on the porch just short of the front door. “Maybe this was a mistake. Book club has real no boys allowed energy.”

I chuckle, shoving his shoulder. “Mom said it would be fine to come by later. Stop worrying so much.”

“Yeah, but this isn’t later,” he says, shoving me back.

“This is definitely sooner because someone decided he wanted to see his girl more than he wanted to have brother time.” He whips around at the sound of Jordan’s laugh.

“I’m talking about you too, asshole. You and Jo literally live together, and you were staring at your phone at lunch like you were counting the damn minutes until you could see her face again. ”

The incredulity in Cooper’s tone has me laughing too, and then Noah joins in. “Just look at them, Coop. They’re all in love and shit. We love to see it.”

“I never said I was in love.”

Jordan grins, tossing an arm around my shoulders. “Takes one to know one, little brother. You are head over heels in love with that girl. It’s useless to deny it.”

“I think I’ve been in love since the first time I saw her,” I mumble, my arms actually aching to get around her, knowing she’s just on the other side of the front door.

Noah ruffles my hair like I’m a two-year-old. “Our boy is all grown up.”

“Fuck off.” I shove him away, but he just laughs and shoves me back.

“You know I’m kidding, right?” Cooper says. “I really like her. She’s, like, made for you.”

I smile because Cooper really is the best of us. One of these days he’s going to meet someone and fall harder than all of us. That’s just the way he’s made. “I know. And she is. She’s…fuck, she’s everything. Now can we go inside? It’s fucking freezing out here.”

“And you want to kiss your girl.”

I grin at him. “And that.”

Just as I go to open the door, Noah’s phone rings.

“Shit,” he mutters when he pulls it out. “It’s the hospital. Gotta take this. I’ll meet you inside.”

As he walks to the other end of the porch, phone pressed to his ear, I push open the front door.

The raucous laughter is the first thing we hear.

Following it to the living room, my eyes find Amelia immediately.

She’s sitting on the sofa, feet kicked up on the coffee table and margarita glass in her hand.

She’s laughing at something my mom is saying, her face all lit up, and the rush of love is so sudden and so strong that I’m in front of her even before my brain registers I’m moving.

“Hi!” She laughs as I take her glass from her and set it on the coffee table, then grab her hand and pull her up.

I say nothing, just slide a hand around her neck and cover her mouth with mine.

The kiss is definitely not parents’ living room appropriate, but when Amelia gasps into my mouth, curling her hands into my sweatshirt as she melts into me, an earthquake could level the damn house and I would still be standing right here, kissing her like I can’t breathe without it, because I’m sure I can’t.

I pull away only enough to press a kiss to her forehead, inhaling her sunshine scent as she lets out a shaky breath.

“I just knew it.” At Cece’s smug tone, Amelia inhales sharply and whips her head around, her face turning red as she takes in my family sprawled around the room like she forgot they were all there. I grin, taking her seat on the couch and pulling her into my lap.

“Don’t be embarrassed, Mystery Girl,” I murmur into her ear. “Everyone in this room already knows I’m crazy about you.”

Cece nods. “Like I said, I knew it. The second El told me you walked into his classroom last month, I knew exactly how this would go.”

Amelia laughs as my mom grins, her gaze bouncing between the two of us. “I know everything there is to know about my boys, and what I know is that he was crazy about you from the second you met on that plane.”

“I knew too. I hadn’t even known him for five minutes before he was telling me the story of his mystery girl from the plane,” Jo says, laughing.

“I didn’t know but I sure do now. That kiss was the stuff my romance author dreams are made of. Hi,” says the girl on the other side of Jo I’m just noticing for the first time now. “I’m Hannah Evans, and that was some serious swoon. I think you might even have your brother beat in that department.”

Jordan scoffs, lifting Jo up from her spot on the couch and sitting down, cuddling her up in his lap. “As if, Hans.”

Jo leans her head up and grins at him. “J, you know you’re the only Wyles brother to get my heart racing, but the way El just stormed in and went for it?” She fans herself. “So hot.”

Jordan scowls then grasps Jo’s chin, tipping her head back and bringing his mouth to hers in a searing kiss. When they finally break apart, Jo has a dazed look in her eyes that makes Jordan smirk. “That’s what I thought.”

“I have never been prouder in my entire life,” my mom says, clapping her hands together and grinning maniacally. “I mean, I knew I was a good mom, but seeing the two of you just now? Jesus, I really undersold it.”

“They kissed girls, Mom. They didn’t cure cancer,” Cooper says, flopping down in a chair.

My mom eyes him. “And when do you think you’ll be bringing someone home to kiss in my living room? I’m not getting any younger, you know. I’d like to see all my boys settled before I die.”

“Oh, don’t you worry about that, Pammy,” Cece says. “Cooper’s time is coming.”

Cooper just rolls his eyes. “You’ll never die, Mom. You’re going to live forever and then nag us from the afterlife. And it’s a fucking miracle I could get away from my computer for an entire weekday evening. I’m too busy for a relationship.”

“That’s what you think,” Cece mumbles.

“Okay, but Cece is a little spooky, right?” Amelia whispers to me.

I kiss the sensitive spot behind her ear and tighten my arms around her, loving how she settles deeper into my hold. “Totally spooky. She’s always been that way. No one can explain it; she just knows everything, and she’s always right.”

“What’s going on in here?” We all turn at my dad’s voice. He’s leaning against the doorway to the living room, broad smile on his face as he takes in the scene, his eyes lighting up with love when they land on my mom.

“Hi, honey,” my mom says, patting the seat next to her. “Come hang with us. It was girls only for a while, but then my sons decided to crash the party.”

My dad strides into the living room, introducing himself to Hannah and kissing Jo on the cheek before he stops in front of Amelia.

Pulling her up, he hugs her, whispering something in her ear that has her whole body relaxing, a smile I can’t see but I know is there spreading over her face before she sits back down on my lap.

Seeing the way my girl fits in with all my favorite people has warmth careening through me. I send a little prayer out into the universe Cece loves talking about so much that it will always be this way. Her. Me. These people. This family. It’s everything I ever wanted, and the only thing I need.

“Hannah?” Noah’s voice breaks me out of my thoughts. I turn and see him standing in the living room doorway staring at Jo’s older sister with a mixture of surprise and something else—something far more interesting—in his eyes.

“Oh, hey, Noah,” Hannah says casually, glancing at him.

Nothing in her voice tells me she sees how Noah is looking at her, and he knows it.

His face falls so fast it’s almost funny as he slinks into the living room and slouches into the empty chair across from the couch, his gaze pinned to Hannah as everyone else starts to talk.

I think it’s something about dinner, but I lose the thread when Amelia puts her mouth close enough to my ear to speak without being overheard.

“You saw that too, right?” she whispers.

I grin, kissing her cheek. “Yeah, you bet. He’s got it bad.”

“Did you know?” she asks.

“He mentions her sometimes. I think he’s had a thing for her for a while, but I don’t know how long. He’s only seen her, like, three times in the last two years. He barely knows her.”

She turns a little and locks eyes with me. “Well, when you know, you know, right?”

My breath backs up in my lungs at the look in her eyes, and it takes every amount of restraint I possess to not either tell her I love her right here in my parents’ living room in front of my entire family or pick her up and carry her all the way back to my apartment right fucking now.

Instead, I just kiss her forehead, then her lips, tightening my arms around her waist. “Yeah, Mystery Girl. When you know, you know.”

We turn back to everyone just in time for Noah to ask, extremely casually, “So, Hannah, how long are you in town for?”

She shrugs, her eyes shuttering a little, and I know Noah sees it too because he frowns. “I’m not sure. I just needed to get away for a while. I’m going to grab a hotel room downtown.”

“Don’t be insane,” Jo says. “Why would you stay in a hotel when I have a perfectly good guest room? I mean, I think the bed probably needs sheets or whatever since no one has ever slept on it, but I can take care of that.”

Hannah smiles but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “I love you, Jo Jo, but I’m almost positive your honeymoon period with Jordan has no expiration date. You don’t need a sister cramping your style.”

Jo leans over from her perch on Jordan’s lap and wraps an arm around her sister. “As if you could ever cramp my style.”