Page 19 of Stuck with my Mountain Daddies (Men of Medford #4)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Riley
This was weird .
Waking up alone in the cabin to a note from Beckett telling me they’d gone to check on Lucy’s place was strange. It was like I didn’t know how to be alone in the silence anymore.
Maybe that had been an issue for longer than I remembered.
I sank onto the edge of the couch, elbows on knees, forehead in my hands, my thoughts speeding through me way too quickly.
What the hell am I doing?
This was supposed to be a break. A pit stop.
Not… whatever this was turning into.
Real life was waiting.
With contracts and brand deals and followers who would absolutely rip me to shreds if they saw even half of what I’d been up to.
Never mind my best friend and savior.
I groaned, flopping backward until I was staring up at the ceiling.
The thing was—and this was the part that scared the hell out of me when I thought about packing up and heading back to LA, back to my curated, perfectly controlled life?—
My chest actually hurt.
Because here, in this messy, snowed-in, whiskey-scented cabin, I felt more me than I had in a long, long time.
No cameras.
No comments section.
No pretending.
Just me.
And Garrett’s quiet steadiness.
And Beckett’s rough edges.
And Asher’s ridiculous, infuriating charm.
I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes, huffing out a breath.
Get it together, Brooks.
This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
And I could not get totally lost in it.
The phone buzzed on the coffee table, and for a second, I stared at it.
Lucy.
Shit, that timing. It was as if she knew.
With a shaky breath, I snatched it up and hit accept, tucking my legs under me as I sank deeper into the couch.
“Hey, Lucy.” My voice came out soft.
“Riley! Finally.” Her own voice was a rush of warmth through the line. “Are you okay? Are you still stuck?”
I closed my eyes for a second, a tiny smile pulling at my mouth. “Yeah. Still snowed in, still stuck, but alive.”
She exhaled, sharp and quick, then softened. “Good. I was starting to wonder if I needed to borrow a snowmobile to come rescue you.”
A laugh bubbled out of me. “That’d be a sight.”
“Don’t tempt me,” she teased, then gentled. “Seriously, though. You’re okay? You’re holding up? Because I want to get back as soon as I can. But with the flooding…”
There was a pause. I chewed the inside of my cheek.
“Yeah. It’s weird. Different.”
Lucy let out a soft hum. “Medford’ll do that to you.”
I hesitated. Then the words slipped out before I could stop them. “You… you haven’t seen anything online, have you?”
Damn it.
I was an addict. Even as I wanted to pull away from that life, I couldn’t help myself. I had to ask.
She made a confused little noise. “Online?”
“Yeah, like Instagram, TikTok, the usual disaster zones. About… me.”
“Riley.” She laughed, light and breezy like it was the easiest thing in the world. “I haven’t even looked. I’ve been too busy dealing with work to even think about social media.”
I blinked. For some reason, that landed like a punch to the gut. Because, of course, she hadn’t looked.
Because here, in Medford, people were living their actual lives, not measuring their worth by likes or comments or who was dragging who in their stories.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“I miss you,” I blurted. The words hit the air before I could swallow them back.
Lucy went quiet for a beat, then her voice softened. “I miss you, too, Ry.”
I pressed a hand to my eyes, squeezing tight. “I should’ve been better. About… you know. Keeping in touch.”
“You’re here now,” she said simply. “That counts.”
Shit, I didn’t deserve her. Especially with what I’d done.
“I can’t wait to see you,” I whispered. And I meant it.
But as soon as the words left my mouth, the guilt came crawling back in.
Because what the hell was I going to do when I saw her?
Lie?
Pretend I hadn’t been wrapped up in her brothers like a bad plotline in a scandalous romance novel?
Would they want to keep this a secret? Would I?
I had no answers. Only a head full of questions and a heart that was already tangled up in ways I wasn’t sure I could untangle.
“Let’s make it happen. Soon, okay?”
I nodded, although she couldn’t see me. “Can’t wait.”