Page 26 of Twin Babies for the Silver Fox (Happy Ever Alpha Daddies #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Josie

By the time we finish curling the last strand of my hair, I barely recognize the girl in the mirror.

"Okay, sit still or I’ll poke you in the eye," Dee warns, leaning in with the kind of concentration normally reserved for bomb defusal or threading a sewing machine. “And no one wants a burned eye. Especially not for Mom’s famous game night at The Timberline Inn!”

“I still can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” I mumble.

“You say that every time,” she says, dabbing something shimmery onto my cheekbones. “And every time, you end up looking like a goddess and eating half a pie. So really, you’re welcome.”

She’s not wrong.

About the pie part, anyway.

The rest? I don’t know.

I feel like I’ve been living in grayscale lately, and she’s trying to drag me back into color. I appreciate it, I do, but it’s hard to pretend everything’s normal when I’ve got a secret the size of a jellybean with a heartbeat.

“You’re gonna knock ‘em dead,” she says, stepping back with a proud smile. “Hell, I would date you… you know, if I weren’t your sister.”

I raise an eyebrow. “A little forward, Dee.”

She snorts. “Please. I’m trying to impress someone else tonight.”

I pause.

“Oh really?” I turn in my seat, grinning. “Do tell.”

Dee immediately flushes. “Nope. Not happening.”

“Nova?”

Her ears go red. “Shut up.”

“You shut up! You’ve been weird around her for, like, weeks.”

“I haven’t been weird.”

“You spend almost as much time at The Marrow as I do.”

She crosses her arms, clearly regretting this whole line of conversation. “Are you done being nosy?”

“Are you going to tell her how you feel?”

She hesitates.

“That’s what I thought.”

I let the silence stretch, the air thick with unspoken things. The old me, well, the me from three weeks ago, would’ve kept teasing her until she caved. But right now, I don’t have it in me to play matchmaker, even for my sister.

Dee picks up on the shift almost immediately. “Okay, your turn. What’s going on with you and Knox?”

And there it is. The question I’ve been dodging like it’s radioactive.

I stand abruptly and move to grab my jacket. “Nothing.”

“Josie.”

“I said it’s nothing, okay?”

Dee holds up her hands, softening her voice. “Hey. Sorry. Just asking.”

I nod, already regretting snapping. It’s not her fault I’m a hormonal disaster. But I can’t do this tonight. Not when everything is so raw, so fragile.

By the time the makeover is done, I’m stunned into silence.

The girl staring back at me in the mirror has glossy, curled hair that frames her face like something out of a shampoo commercial, glowing skin that could pass for eight hours of sleep and a stress-free existence, and lips tinted just enough to hint that she’s kissed trouble and liked it.

I blink.

“Holy crap,” I whisper. “Is that me?”

Dee beams. “Told you. Goddess.”

“I look like I have my life together.”

She laughs. “You look like you own your life. Even if, you know, your life is held together with duct tape and caffeine.”

I give her a shaky smile and swallow the lump in my throat. It feels good to look nice. To feel like myself. Or at least some version of myself that isn’t panicked or queasy or hiding a massive secret. But the illusion is paper thin, and I can already feel it fluttering in the breeze of reality.

Before I can spiral any further, there’s a knock at the front door.

Maya and Gracie breeze in excited for what the night brings. Gracie’s balancing a tray of homemade brownies and a container of buffalo chicken dip, while Maya carries a tote bag bursting with board games and half a six-pack of hard cider.

“Well, damn,” Maya says, eyeing me from head to toe. “Look who came dressed to slay.”

“I didn’t mean to slay,” I mutter. “I was ambushed.”

“Ambushed with beauty,” Dee says proudly.

Gracie nods, grinning. “If you don’t get at least one date offer tonight, I’ll eat this entire tray myself out of spite.”

“Not if I get to it first,” Maya says, already heading for the kitchen. “But first, let’s go and see if Momma Dawson needs any help.”

Mom gets us to work right away, always wanting her monthly game nights to be perfect. Actually, I forgot how much fun this could be. The Timberline Inn really is the center of this town in a really cool way.

Dee handles drinks, mixing mocktails and adult punches in glass dispensers. Gracie sets out the snacks with a precision that would make a Pinterest mom weep. Maya organizes the games by category, strategy, chaos, trivia, and pure friendship ruiners. I help Mom set out the tables.

We joke and bicker and tease each other like always.

“Okay, but hear me out,” Maya says, holding up Uno. “ This is how friendships die.”

“No,” Dee says, deadpan. “Monopoly is how friendships die. Uno is how you die when you stack four Draw Fours like a psycho.”

“I don’t make the rules,” Maya shrugs. “I just enforce them with spite.”

Gracie snorts. “This is why we can’t have nice things.”

I can’t help but laugh, despite everything.

No one knows my secret yet. Well, aside from Maya.

No one knows I’m standing in the middle of my childhood home, made up like a girl who has it all together, with a baby growing in my belly, all because of my boss.

But for this moment, under the string lights and the sound of old board games being cracked open, I let myself have it.

The normalcy. The noise. The illusion.

Even if it’s only for tonight.

It isn’t long before the rest of the town starts trickling in, turning what was once our family game night into something bigger, louder, warmer, and so quintessentially Silver Peak it practically smells like nostalgia and cinnamon.

Bea rolls in like she owns the place, sweet-hearted as ever. And completely incapable of showing up anywhere empty-handed. She plops her famous strawberry chess pie on the counter with the kind of ceremony usually reserved for royal coronations.

“Game night only,” she warns, wagging a flour-dusted finger at my mom. “If I see you trying to freeze a slice for later, Betty, I will find out.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Mom lies smoothly. “I’m sure there won’t be any left anyway.”

Bea kisses my cheek and gives me a once-over. “You look nice, sugar. Too nice for cards and crackers. Trying to impress anyone?”

I open my mouth to deflect, but she’s already moving on, offering unsolicited life advice to Gracie and critiquing Maya’s outfit with genuine affection and a side of caramel shortbread.

It isn’t long before Sheriff Caleb Flynn follows her inside. He mutters something to Dee about neighborhood patrol schedules, but the moment she pulls him into the kitchen to “talk logistics,” it’s obvious he’s not going anywhere.

Especially once he sees Mayor Monroe arrive and doesn’t so subtly rearrange himself to stand near her.

“Has anyone told her about his crush?” I whisper to Maya.

“Only the entire town. Twice.”

Caleb somehow manages to end up in our Pictionary group and, to everyone’s shock, he’s good. Like, scarily good.

“Is that a velociraptor?” Gracie asks, squinting at his sketch.

“No, it’s clearly a unicycle,” says Lily Prescott from across the room.

“It’s Velociraptor On A Unicycle!” yells Maya, winning the round and nearly flipping the whiteboard.

“Do you even enforce laws?” Dee mutters to Caleb as he smirks.

Mason and Lily Prescott host the lightning round trivia, dragging a folding table into the center of the living room like it’s the main stage at a championship event.

Lily’s all sunshine and giggles, reading out questions in her singsong voice and tossing Hershey’s Kisses at anyone who answers quickly.

Mason, on the other hand, keeps score with the solemn intensity of a man calculating rocket fuel.

“Which U.S. state produces the most blueberries?” Lily chirps.

“Maine!” shouts Gracie before the question is even finished.

Mason doesn’t even blink. “Correct. But minus one point for yelling.”

“Minus one?” she gasps. “This is trivia, not federal court!”

“Same energy,” he deadpans.

It’s chaos, wonderful, ridiculous chaos, full of inside jokes and playful jabs and people shouting over each other for bragging rights that last maybe a week.

Someone spills cider.

Someone else starts a round of charades that devolves instantly into interpretive dance.

My mom keeps trying to play matchmaker between Caleb and the mayor, and Bea is definitely keeping a tally in her notebook labeled ‘Potential Couples To Nudge’.

And me? I smile. I laugh. I eat two slices of strawberry chess pie and most of a soft pretzel without getting queasy. I even win a round of charades by dramatically acting out Titanic with Dee as my very unimpressed iceberg.

For a while, I almost forget.

Forget that anything’s wrong. Forget the exhaustion curled in my bones. Forget the future I haven’t figured out yet, growing quietly inside me.

But all that forgetting comes to a screeching halt the second the front door opens again, and Jace strolls in like game night is his idea of a wild night in.

He grins wide, holding up a six-pack of root beer. “Heard there was fun happening. Hope I’m not too late.”

My stomach drops.

Not because of Jace, even if he is pretty irritating at times.

It’s who’s behind him that freezes me in place.

Knox.

He doesn’t say anything at first. He stands there in the doorway, shoulders hulking in a black Henley that fits too well, his dark hair slightly mussed like he drove with the windows down. He looks like he doesn’t know if he’s welcome here or not.

His eyes find mine instantly.

And just like that, the air is sucked from the room.

The string lights seem too bright. The laughter fades to a low buzz. My heart beat kicks like it’s trying to punch its way out of my ribs.

“What the hell?” I whisper to Dee, barely moving my lips.

She leans in. “I didn’t invite him.”

“Well someone did.”

Jace elbows Knox lightly. “Come on, man. Don’t look so serious. It’s just game night.”

Just game night.

I try to swallow the laugh bubbling up in my throat, but it comes out brittle and wrong. Everyone’s watching him now, some subtly, some not. Even Bea has paused her matchmaking notes to give him the once-over.

“Josie,” Knox says, voice quiet but firm.

I flinch like I’ve been tapped by lightning. “Hi.”

That’s all I can manage. Hi .

His gaze flicks down my body, pausing for half a second too long. I know what he’s seeing—the hair, the makeup, the pretend version of me I barely recognize. I wonder if he can tell it’s all a costume. If he can see the panic pressed beneath the shimmer on my cheekbones.

Before Knox can say another word, someone from the other side of the room bellows:

“Hey! Are you two just gonna stand there making googly eyes, or are you actually gonna play?! We need one more for Jenga or this whole tower’s coming down in disgrace!”

It’s Mayor Willa, holding up a wobbly stack of oversized blocks like the fate of the world depends on it. Half the room laughs. The other half, mostly the competitive ones, start shouting over each other.

“Get in here, Knightly!”

“Josie’s on my team! She’s good under pressure!”

“She is not! She folds faster than a lawn chair!”

“Hey!” I shoot back. “I only folded once, and that was because someone, Maya, stacked all the blanks at the bottom!”

“Strategic genius, not sabotage. Learn the difference.”

The attention shifts, the energy pulling like a tide, sweeping us both forward before I can decide whether to run or faint.

Dee gives me a gentle nudge with her hip. “You heard them, sunshine. Time to defend your game night honor.”

I blink up at her. “I think I left my honor in the kitchen. Next to my dignity.”

“You look like you’ve got both in spades,” she says, then adds under her breath, “And he hasn’t stopped looking at you since he walked in, so maybe just breathe?”

But I can’t.

Not really.

Because as we’re pulled into the chaos again, Knox getting roped into Team Gracie with a resigned sigh and a reluctant smirk, me wedged between Maya and Bea in a round of ruthless Reverse Charades, I keep feeling him. Watching me. Not in a creepy way. In a way that’s impossible to ignore.

I keep laughing at the wrong times. Missing clues. Guessing things that aren’t even close. I mistake “lawn mower” for “zombie crab” and make Maya fall to the floor wheezing. I can’t focus.

Every time I glance over, there he is. Quiet. Still. Eyes locked on me like he’s trying to solve a puzzle with no edges.

And I don’t know if it’s the fact that for one night I’m pretending I’m not a walking secret, but I can’t stop looking back.

Knox Knightly doesn’t belong here. Not in my mom’s living room. Not in this small town bubble of board games and baked goods and nosy neighbors.

But somehow, tonight…

He does.

And it’s messing with my head.

Because I’m not just watching him.

I’m thinking about us .

And that’s the most dangerous game of all.