Page 9

“No, no. Dallas will be here shortly, and he’ll help me finish up.

You go ahead and find your dad.” I know she means well and that she certainly doesn’t have favorites, but damn if it doesn’t dredge up my insecure feelings.

As the fourth-born and youngest boy, it’s been hard to find my place in the family.

My older brothers easily found theirs—Sawyer is the oldest and bosses us all around, trying to control everything going on.

Dallas, his twin, is a heavy mix of the oldest and middle child.

He has a wild side that comes with being a middle kid, but he’s also our caretaker and the glue that keeps us all together.

Liam is calm and collected, so close to my dad and easily following in his footsteps.

Kinsey is the baby and only girl, who can do no wrong in anyone’s eyes.

I’ve forced myself into a role of being the fun, energetic one who’s always up for a good time, never backing down from a dare, and trying to make jokes about everything.

But in reality? I’m fucking lost as shit and I always have been.

I’m not naturally good at anything—my brothers are exceedingly talented at running our family business, boxing, hockey, and creating whiskey.

My sister is an amazing teacher, friend, daughter, and is loved by everyone who meets her.

Besides fucking my way through random partners, I don’t have any idea what I’m good at or what I should be doing with my life.

It’s nothing anyone has done or said, and the guilt for feeling the way I do weighs heavily on me, but it’s bound to happen when you’re one of five siblings.

Someone is going to get left out, someone is going to feel out of place.

I’m drowning in love and support from these fuckers, but I’ve always felt like some part of me was missing, like I’m not wholly myself, and I don’t know what that part is or where to find it.

I chase that good feeling that comes with sex, with knowing that I’ve made another person feel good, at least in the moment.

But other than an orgasm on my end, I’ve never felt anything other than a quick burst of satisfaction for giving them a release and doing it well; it is simply transactional.

I’ve never felt anything other than empty with every partner I’ve had . . . until Griffin.

I find my dad at the bar at the back of the house, rearranging his bottles.

He looks good, and even though he wasn’t ready for it, retirement suits him well.

He had several strokes before Sawyer and Dallas took over the company from him.

I know my mom loves having him home with her full time rather than being at the distillery, even if the way we got here was less than ideal.

My dad had inherited the business from our grandfather, and then it was passed to Sawyer. None of us were expecting the strokes and the lingering health issues that followed them, but I suppose no one expects these things to happen when they do.

He’s doing surprisingly well, all things considered.

He gets exhausted quickly, has some facial paralysis on one side, and his speech is quite slurred.

Any emotional or mental health issues he deals with privately with my mom and his therapist. We do our best to fill him in on what’s happening at work, as he loves still being as involved as he can be.

The distillery was his life; he grew up running around that land, watching his grandfather and then his father build what it is today.

It runs deep in his blood, and not being able to work every day at the place that he loves so much has taken a toll that we’re all aware of.

Another check for why I’m such a fuckup for hooking up with Griffin. Even if I didn’t know who he was, had I not been at that damn club to begin with, he wouldn’t have any information on me that could paint us all in a bad light. But I’m going to fix it. I have to.

“Hey, Dad. Rearranging or reminiscing?”

“He-hey, son, both.”

“Yeah? Got a favorite?”

He pulls out a twenty-year-old signature bourbon from our distillery and shows it to me.

“This one. Small batch. Single barrel.”

This is one I haven’t seen before. The bottle is smaller than that of our other bottles, a distressed black label across the front. Aspen Ridge Distillery’s logo is proudly on the small label around the neck. The amber liquid is darker, more of a caramel color than a diluted amber.

“It’s beautiful, Dad. Hey, can I ask—” My words are interrupted as chaos unfolds.

A loud bang is followed by my idiot twin brothers falling into the room from the doorway.

Dallas is on top of Sawyer, his arm wrapped around his neck, Sawyer throwing punches into Dallas’ ribs as they each grunt and groan.

“They’ll never grow up.”

“Nope. I got it, Dad,” I say as I walk away from him and toward my idiot brothers, irritated that they couldn’t give me ten frigging minutes with him without interrupting .

“Li! Gimme a hand in here with these animals!” I yell down the hallway, hoping Liam has already arrived before turning my attention back to Thing One and Thing Two.

“Shut your mouth, I know you took them all on purpose! Hannah said you did!”

“I fuckin’ wanted them!”

“What are you gonna do with five dozen muffins, dumbass?”

“Eat them, shithead!”

“Not five dozen!”

For fuck’s sake why are they the way they are?

Fighting over goddamn apple cinnamon muffins that Ivy can’t get enough of.

Sawyer makes it his sole responsibility to make sure his woman is stocked with them from the coffee shop that our sister-in-law owns–Bean Haven.

Dallas must have bought them out this morning.

I chuckle under my breath, pretty quick way to get Sawyer riled up is to fuck with Ivy.

Liam meanders down the hall with Hannah right behind him, her lavender hair swishing around her face as she rolls her eyes at the two idiots plowing into each other on the floor.

“I told him it was a bad idea! I said that all I had was what I had already made since it was Sunday, and I’ve changed my hours to come here every week.

He doesn’t listen!” Hannah defends herself, as if we don’t already know that Dallas is the guilty party here.

She’s been best friends with Liam since they were in preschool, and I’ve known the girl almost my entire life, so she knows the deal with our unhinged family.

She throws her hands up in the air and bends down to the massive pile of males on the floor just as Dallas winces, Sawyer’s elbow cracking into his lip hard.

Hannah braces her hands on her knees and yells into the fray, “Serves you right, Dal! I told you poking the bear wasn’t a good idea, didn’t I?

You don’t listen!” I can’t help but laugh.

For so long it’s been just the five of us siblings, it’s nice to have some other family around here to yell at these morons.

“Get them off each other! I don’t want blood on my carpet again! Sawyer Hayes, don’t you break any of his bones today!” our mom yells from the kitchen. I look at my dad, who is standing at the bar with a smile on his face.

Liam and I give each other a look and shrug, moving at the same time to grab a brother and yank them off of each other, putting some needed distance between them. I’ve got Dallas’ arms pulled back hard, clinching them behind his back as he still tries to lunge for Sawyer.

“You don’t own a monopoly on the fuckin’ Bean Haven muffins! It’s our sister-in-law’s bakery, and I can eat as many as I want!”

“Will you give it a rest, dumbass?” I ask as I drag him out of the room and shove him down the hallway. “Why you gotta piss him off?”

Dallas shakes out his shirt, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth and smearing blood across his cheek. “’Cause it’s funny. Why don’t you try it?”

“Nah, don’t need the beast busting my pretty face, now do I?”

“Right. What would the women think then?”

My imagination immediately conjures Griffin and the fact that I may be into men. Or am into men? Hell, I don’t even know what way is up right now. And just like that, my mood deflates again.

“Oh, go figure, you’re bleeding. Do you get some sick enjoyment from riling people up?” Blaire asks Dallas as she blots at the cut on his lip with a rag. He gives her a devious look I’d rather not have seen. “Don’t you dare answer that, Dallas Maverick. Not at your parents’ house.”

“Gross,” I say under my breath as I walk away from them. Blaire works at the distillery as our event coordinator and has had quite the whirlwind romance with my brother. He’s lost to that woman wholly, and after the life she’s had up until this point, I understand why he’s so protective of her.

The rest of dinner goes as smoothly as it can, considering the company we’re in.

All of my brothers are swooning over the loves of their lives.

There’s a tiny twinge of jealousy that flutters in my chest, but overall, I just don’t understand how they can give themselves up so completely to another person.

Especially after what Sawyer went through when Ivy left him at eighteen.

The way he can just fall back into the fold, give someone else the power to completely wreck you—this is exactly why I stick to just sex.

No feelings involved. No chance of anyone destroying me.

Griffin made you feel something.

Choosing to ignore the thoughts in my head, I help clean up from an early dinner and head home to change. There’s only one place I want to be tonight, and it’s only because I need to deal with Griffin Nash. It has nothing to do with him becoming a permanent fixture in my head.

Not at all. I’m in complete control.