Page 27 of Twin Babies for the Silver Fox (Happy Ever Alpha Daddies #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Knox

When Jace told me about game night, I laughed in his face.

Literally. Laughed. Out loud. The kind of laugh you give a man who suggests you willingly walk into a buzzsaw and call it recreation.

“Game night?” I said. “What am I, seventy?”

But somehow, here I am, standing just inside the Timberline Inn like I accidentally time-traveled into a Norman Rockwell painting, blinking under string lights and the smell of cinnamon, watching half the town shout over trivia while the other half argues about Jenga physics.

And it’s fun.

Which is confusing. Because fun, at least once upon a time, used to come with bottle service, velvet ropes, and a bill that could feed a small country.

But this? This is better.

I’m not even sure when I realized it. Maybe when Bea shoved a slice of strawberry chess pie into my hand like it was a mandatory toll. Or when someone handed me a Sharpie and told me I had to label my cup or suffer “consequences.”

Or maybe it was the exact second I saw her.

Josie .

Damn near knocked the breath out of me.

She was laughing at something Maya said, head tilted back, lips painted just enough to be dangerous, hair curled like she stepped out of a dream I haven’t admitted I keep having.

And then she saw me.

Her eyes locked on mine, and the whole damn room faded. Like someone turned down the volume on the world just so I could hear my own heartbeat.

Which was a mistake, because it’s going about a hundred miles a minute.

She looked stunned. Like she wasn’t expecting me.

Like I was a ghost from a dream she didn’t want to wake up from.

Or maybe that’s just me.

Before I can say anything, do anything, we’re swept into so many games it’s hard to keep up.

And then Jace claps a hand on my shoulder like he’s just drafted me into war.

“Okay, Trivia time. Now it’s game night.”

He’s grinning like an idiot. Already wearing a red bandana around his head like it’s a headband of honor and not a napkin he found in the snack table’s utensil basket. I blink.

“What are you…”

“Team Bloodhound,” he says proudly, lifting a clipboard like it’s Excalibur. “Me, you, Gracie, and Dale the handyman. Who apparently has been in training for this since last year’s scandal.”

“There was a scandal?”

“Apparently, Maya knocked over the Scrabble tiles and claimed a triple word score on a word that wasn’t real.” He leans in, lowers his voice. “It was ‘snorgle.’ We can’t let that shit slide. We have to crush them in Trivia.”

I stare at him. “You good, man?”

“No,” he says brightly, already walking toward the trivia corner. “But I will be once we crush Team Moose Drool.”

Which, apparently, is what Josie’s team is called.

Of course it is.

I trail after him, mostly because I’m worried he might physically explode if left unsupervised. He’s bouncing on his heels like a golden retriever at a tennis ball convention, firing off random facts about state capitals and sports I don’t know if anyone has ever heard of.

But none of it registers.

Because she’s looking at me again.

Across the room, Josie’s perched on the edge of a mismatched sofa, knees tucked under her, lip caught between her teeth in concentration as she scribbles something on her team’s whiteboard.

She’s wearing this soft green sweater that looks like it was made from clouds, and every time she brushes her hair back behind her ear, I forget how to breathe.

She catches me staring.

I don’t look away.

Neither does she.

Fire flickers between us, uncertain and electric. She tilts her head, like she’s trying to figure me out all over again. Like maybe she thought she already had.

Spoiler: she hasn’t.

Because I barely understand what I’m doing here either. Not just here in this inn, in this town, in this oversized flannel, but here, standing still for once, wanting something I don’t know how to ask for.

“Dude. Dude.” Jace elbows me hard enough to make my ribs click. “Pay attention. We’re about to win the lightning round.”

He’s got a marker in one hand and the eyes of a man possessed. His usual laid-back, too cool to care attitude? Gone. Obliterated. Replaced by a trivia gremlin who thinks Buzzfeed quizzes are a legitimate training tool.

But despite all the noise, all the shouting, all the strategic overthinking of whether “cummerbund” has two M’s, I can’t focus.

Because Josie just laughed again.

And I’d rather lose every game in this building than miss another second of that sound.

“Knox,” Jace says, nudging me again. “You didn’t even hear the question.”

“Didn’t need to.”

“We’re losing, man.”

“I’m okay with that.”

He pauses. Then follows my gaze, lets out a slow exhale, and mutters, “Ohhh. You’re so gone.”

I don’t deny it.

Because I am.

Utterly, completely, inexplicably gone over a girl who wears aprons like armor and looks at me like she doesn’t know whether to kiss me or kill me.

And all I can think is:

Let her choose.

I’ll take either.

The night winds down in a haze of spilled cider and leftover cookies, victory debates and lopsided board game stacks.

Team Moose Drool ends up winning the whole thing, of course.

Gracie demands a recount. Jace tries to rally a protest. Someone throws a marshmallow.

But I don’t care.

Because Josie laughed when they won.

This full bodied thing that tilted her head back and crinkled her nose and made every damn person in the room want to laugh with her. Including me. Especially me.

Now, the crowd’s thinning out, the room softening.

The lights are dimmer, the fire’s burning low.

Bea’s off arguing with Dale the handyman about who left the Monopoly money in the chili pot one time, and Jace finally tapped out, muttering something about being robbed and “needing to emotionally recharge his trivia battery.”

And somehow, it’s only me and her.

The Timberline Inn is quiet now. Warm. Lit by firelight and the last strands of fairy lights twinkling overhead like stars someone strung up on purpose.

Josie’s sitting at the long wooden table, absentmindedly stacking coasters into a crooked little tower. The smile playing on the corner of her lips has my pulse absolutely pounding.

I step closer.

She glances up.

For a second, neither of us says anything. There’s no need to. It’s all there. In the air. In the way we look at each other. Like we’re both standing on the edge of something big and real and maybe terrifying.

“You didn’t collect your trophy,” she says, voice low, teasing.

“We lost,” I remind her.

She shrugs. “Participation trophies still count. You did technically spell ‘cummerbund’ right. Eventually.”

“That was Gracie.”

“Still counts.”

A smile flickers across her face, quick and wry and a little sad.

I sit down across from her, close enough to smell vanilla on her skin.

“You good?” I ask, voice quieter now.

She nods.

Then hesitates.

And I know that look. That pause.

Like she’s about to say something important. Like her words are balancing on a cliff, and one wrong move will send them tumbling.

“Josie—”

“I…” She stops, biting her lip. Her eyes search mine, wide and uncertain. “Knox, there’s something I?—”

I can’t take it.

I don’t know what she’s going to say. Don’t know if it’ll undo me or save me or both. But I can’t wait anymore.

Because her voice is soft and shaky and real.

Because her eyes are holding a whole damn galaxy.

Because every part of me wants her.

So I do the only thing I can do.

I lean in and kiss her.

Her breath catches, this tiny gasp against my lips, and then she’s there. All in. Her fingers fist in the front of my shirt like she needs something to hold onto or she might fall apart, and damn, I get it.

Because I’m unraveling too.