Why the hell would she need to ask my brother for anything when I was sitting right next to her and perfectly fucking capable of doing it myself? My twin might’ve been the resort handyman and all-around town fixer-upper, but I had a toolbox. I could do things. And if I couldn’t, that was what YouTube was for. If anyone was playing handyman for Everly, it sure as shit was going to be me.

  “What kinds of things?” I asked.

  “Oh, nothing big. Just my garbage disposal is making a really weird noise, and the dishwasher won’t latch, which means I can’t run it. I’m sure it’s a simple fix, but you know I’m never going to get around to it.”

  “Considering you can barely get around to eating, no, probably not,” I said dryly.

  She laughed and leaned against me, nudging my shoulder until I finally lifted my arm to allow her to burrow into my side. She shimmied in with a sigh. “Much better.”

  This casual affection from her had taken some getting used to—my brothers weren’t exactly touchy-feely, and my sister would just as soon wrap her hands around our throats as she would her arms around us for a hug—but after years of friendship, I’d grown to expect it from Everly.

  Grown to crave it, too.

  “I mean, I’m grateful Aunt Shirley gave me this place when she died,” Everly said, “but it’s not exactly in tip-top shape, you know? I don’t need anything fancy, but I draw the line at doing my own dishes.” She balanced her salad on her lap before pulling out her phone and navigating to her messages.

  I glanced down at the screen and saw a text thread at the top from someone named Sebastian. The preview read, See you tomorrow.

  Every muscle in my body tightened. Who the fuck was Sebastian, why the fuck did he have her number, and what the fuck was he doing with her tomorrow?

  “What’re you doing?” I asked, but I couldn’t keep the bark out of my tone.

  She raised a brow but didn’t look in my direction. “I know, no cell phones during the movies. Sorry, sorry. But I’ll forget if I don’t send Ford a text right now. I just want to see if he has time this week to—”

  I reached over, snatched the phone from her hands, and slid it into my pocket.

  “Hey!” She huffed, elbowing me in the side, so I grabbed that, too, and pulled her even closer, caging her against me. “I was almost done.”

  “Don’t bother. Addison’s been keeping him pretty busy at the resort.” Not exactly a lie, considering our baby sister was a dictator when it came to bossing her brothers around. “But I’ll swing by your place and see what I can do.”

  Correction—I’d take care of it, whatever it was, and she wouldn’t have to worry about it at all.

  She rested her hand on my chest as she shot me her thousand-watt smile, and something tugged low in my gut. A tug I batted away easily since I’d been doing so for two years. Everly wasn’t interested in a relationship, and she’d said as much when she’d broken up with that tool she’d been dating when she’d first moved here.

  Besides that, I couldn’t go there with her. I didn’t make friends easily—or at all—and other than my family, Everly was it for me. I refused to screw that up. Not when I had a one hundred percent fail rate for every past relationship I’d ever had, dating all the way back to Jackie Henderson in the sixth grade.

  Everly was too important to me to take a chance on something that would, without a doubt, crash and burn.

  CHAPTER TWO

  EVERLY

  Moving to Starlight Cove hadn’t been in my five-year plan. Or my ten-year plan. Or my life plan, period, actually. While I’d spent every summer break of my childhood here with my aunt—Starlight Cove’s own Dr. Doolittle—being her shadow as she cared for every animal within seventy-five miles, uprooting my entire life to a tiny dot on the map three thousand miles away from home hadn’t been on my radar.

  But then she’d died two years ago—not unexpectedly, thanks to a CT scan that had showed cancer almost three years before she’d passed—and bequeathed me her home and attached vet clinic—completely unexpectedly, thanks to the fact that I technically wasn’t even a Bowman. Aunt Shirley had been my dad’s only sibling and hadn’t had any children of her own, but still…I hadn’t expected this. None of us had.

  Yes, I’d studied veterinary medicine, and it’d been my plan to become a vet since I was ten years old and had witnessed my first calf birth right here in Starlight Cove. And yes, Aunt Shirley had taken me under her wing and shown me the ropes before I’d even realized this was what I wanted to do with my life. But the fact of the matter was, I was a Bowman in name only. Even though my younger brother had zero interest in caring for animals and preferred to spend his time with numbers, he was a Bowman by blood.

  That I was adopted had never been a secret. Neither had the fact that my infertile—or so they thought—parents had miraculously conceived my baby brother just a few months after adopting me. I was their angel, and he was their miracle—that was what they always said. They’d never once made me feel like an outsider, despite our differences as apparent as a billboard. Being the only short, blue-eyed redhead in a family of people the tall, dark, and handsome moniker was based on led to a whole lot of mailman jokes that I hadn’t made heads or tails of when I was younger but had sunk in, nonetheless.

  My family may not ever have tried to make me feel like an outsider, but I had that covered all on my own, and I’d spent my life overcompensating for the fact that I didn’t always feel like I belonged.

  So now, despite that Starlight Cove hadn’t been in my plans, there’d been no way I’d turn my nose up at the gift my aunt could’ve given anyone else. Plus, it’d been an adventure—a sometimes rocky adventure, but an adventure, regardless. I loved meeting new people, making new friends, immersing myself in new surroundings.

  And, okay, so Starlight Cove and I hadn’t quite settled into a rhythm yet. After two years, I still felt like an outsider most days—fine, every day—but it wasn’t all bad. I’d found one safe space in this new life.

  I snuggled into the warmth of Beck’s side, one of my few comforts in this town, and stared blankly at the inflatable screen showing the first movie of the double feature. As much as I tried, movies rarely held my focus—my brain was always going a million miles an hour, and nothing seemed to keep it from doing so. Not meditation, not music, not brain exercises…nada. Which meant I had to ask Beck every fifteen minutes what was going on. My grumbly bestie just loved that.

  “Do we know who that guy is and why he’s there?” I whispered around a mouthful of Nanaimo bar as I pointed to the man in the corner of the screen.

  Beck slid his eyes to me, the irritation plain on his face, even under the cloak of darkness. “They just explained who he is and why he’s there. Fuck, sunshine, you drive me crazy.”

  “Can’t help it.”

  “I think it’s more than that. I think you do it on purpose.”

  “I do not.”

  “No? Every week, it’s the same damn thing. What goes through that pretty head of yours while you’re supposed to be watching these movies?”

  I shrugged. “Pretty much everything. My schedule for tomorrow, any animals who were sent home for post-op recovery, what food I have in my fridge, when I’m ever going to be able to go grocery shopping, the three unread text messages on my phone, how I can—”

  “All right. Jesus. I get it. Does your brain ever turn off?”

  “Never.” And I really meant never, but I wouldn’t mention to him that my nonstop brain interfered with sex, too. Which was why it took my own diligence and favorite clit-sucking godsend of a toy to get me off. Beck and I were close—hell, we even read spicy books together that talked about, in explicit detail, using said toy—but telling him how I masturbated felt like a step too far.

  He blew out a frustrated breath, his mouth set in a flat line, and I hit him with the full force of what he called my Everly Voodoo. Big eyes, bright smile, and a hopeful expression he couldn’t say no to—or if he could, I hadn’t yet encountered such a situation.

  “Why the hell do we even come to these?” he grumbled more to himself than to me.

  “Because you love hanging out with me.”

  He grunted in response, but I knew he enjoyed our time together as much as I did. Beck was all tough exterior with a gooey marshmallow center—something he didn’t let anyone but me see—and even that was only because I looked really damn hard. It may have taken months of persistence on my part, but I’d finally broken him down. Hell, even his nickname for me had changed in that time. Not literally—he’d called me sunshine since the first day I’d popped into the diner seeking caffeine after my morning run—but where it had once been laced with scorn and irritation, now it held an underlying fondness I knew he would deny to his dying breath.

  “Fine,” he said with a sigh, and I grinned up at him. “That guy”—he pointed to the man in question—“is the bad guy, but he’s got everyone else fooled. And if you don’t shut up and watch, you’re going to miss the best part.”

  I gasped. “You’ve already seen this?”

  “Of course. Like I could handle watching a movie with you for the first time. I’d never hear anything over your incessant questions and comments.”

  “Oh, come on. I’m not that bad. It’d be great.”

  “It’d be aneurysm-inducing.”

  I laughed, clapping a hand over my mouth when a few people shot their gazes our way. I lowered my voice and leaned into him, my lips close to his ear. “You’re so sweet to me.”

  He shifted in his seat, then with the hand draped over my shoulders, he tugged on my ponytail but otherwise didn’t say a word. But he didn’t have to. I snuggled into him, settling into the warmth of his side and breathing in the familiar scent that had come to feel like home.

  It was exactly this companionship we had that had made my transition to Starlight Cove easy. Or easier, at least.

  And I wouldn’t change it for the world.

  CHAPTER THREE

  BECK

  The next evening, I flipped the sign hanging in the front window of the diner to Closed and locked the door. My sister, Addison, sat at the counter, laptop open in front of her, with her tablet set up, all while she typed rapidly on her phone. I could honestly say I had no idea what she did for the resort—her title of social media manager and resort liaison meant fuck all to me—only that she was always busy and never without technology at her fingertips as she attempted to right the sinking ship that was this resort. Against all odds, she’d partially succeeded, too. But I was old enough to remember exactly how bad it could get. Old enough, too, to know those peaks never lasted.

  “I’m leaving, so that means lights off.” I strode past her and grabbed my toolbox from behind the counter.

  Without looking up, she waved a hand in the air. “Leave them. I’ll take care of it. Where’re you headed?”

  “Swinging by Everly’s.”

  She snapped her head up, her eyes glittering with interest. “Oh, really.”

  Jesus Christ. She acted like Everly and I were having a secret affair instead of one friend doing something for the other. I refused to give Addison a reaction since goading me about Everly was one of her favorite things to do.

  “Her garbage disposal isn’t working, and her dishwasher won’t close. She was trying to hire Ford to do it for her, so I told her I’d handle it. She doesn’t need to waste her money when I’m perfectly capable.”

  “Perfectly capable or positively dying to take care of it for her?”

  I grunted but otherwise didn’t respond. So what if I enjoyed making sure she had what she needed? That was what friends did.

  “I’m just saying…” Addison turned her attention back to one of her three screens. “You’re not fooling anybody but yourself, buddy.”

  This time, I couldn’t keep the eye roll to myself as I strolled out the back door without another word. It was late enough that darkness had fallen, the stars twinkling in the sky as the ocean lapped at the shore a hundred yards away. Some days, it sucked living above the diner—and this close to my siblings—but having the Atlantic Ocean as my backyard never did.

  On my way to my truck, I thumbed out a text to Everly to see if she was home. It didn’t matter if she was or not. I could let myself in with my key, fix what needed fixing, and be gone before she even knew I was there.

  8:52 p.m.

  You home?

  The dots didn’t immediately pop up, so I placed my toolbox in the truck bed and climbed into the cab. I’d just turned my key in the ignition when my phone buzzed with a text.

  8:53 p.m.

  Not exactly. I’m at the clinic. Mrs. Farmington’s

  dog decided he was very hungry for socks

  today. Gonna be here a while. What’s up?

  8:53 p.m.

  Nothing. Do your thing.

  Then, I added:

  8:54 p.m.

  And text me after you get home and

  actually lock your doors.

  I tossed my phone in the passenger’s seat and headed toward town and to Everly’s place. Either she’d see my truck in her driveway since the clinic was attached to her house, or she’d come home and find all her shit fixed and know I’d been there.

  I pulled into the driveway of the tri-level home, the single story of which served as the clinic. After grabbing my toolbox out of the truck bed, I strolled up to the back door. The light in the kitchen was on, but that didn’t mean anything. Whenever there was an emergency, she left in a flurry with little thought. I’d gotten many a text as she was heading into surgery, asking me to turn off her curling iron or to check to see if her gas stove was still on or to blow out a candle she’d left burning. She was going to give me a goddamn heart attack one of these days. She also rarely remembered to lock her door, which I’d snapped at her about more than once. I didn’t care if our crime rate was comically low. It wasn’t none.

  I tried the knob, anticipating the worst but, thankfully, found it locked. Usually, the sound of keys was enough for her dog to absolutely lose her shit and come running, so I was surprised and a little on guard when I let myself in to no greeting—exuberant or otherwise. Everly didn’t usually bring Chuck over to the clinic when she performed surgeries, but maybe she’d made an exception tonight.

  I closed the door behind me and set my toolbox on the counter, checking first to make sure the stove was off—check—before scanning the place for anything out of the ordinary. My gaze automatically bypassed the person sitting at her kitchen table before snapping back, and my shoulders stiffened.

  A man around my age stared back at me, brows raised, wearing nothing but a pair of goddamn basketball shorts, his dark brown hair wet like he’d just gotten out of the shower.

  “Who the fuck are you?” I barked, glancing around to make sure Everly wasn’t here and in trouble, never mind that her text had just confirmed she was at the clinic. When it came to her, I wasn’t always known for thinking rationally.

  I’d lived in Starlight Cove my entire life, and thus I knew each and every resident within. Knew their families, too, and their friends, and their friends’ friends. And running the diner meant I knew even those strays who didn’t reside here but just stepped foot in our little town, and I’d never seen this fucker before a day in my life.

  With a spoonful of cereal halfway to his mouth, Fucker gave me a once-over, quickly disregarding my backward baseball hat, plain gray T-shirt, and worn jeans. “I’m Sebastian. Who the fuck are you?”

  Sebastian, Sebastian… Why did I recognize that—

  I narrowed my eyes on him. That’d been the name I’d seen on Everly’s texts last night. Before yesterday, I hadn’t heard a single thing about this guy, and now suddenly, Sebastian was texting her and hanging out in her home while she wasn’t there, showering, and eating a bowl of cereal like he owned the damn place? “How’d you get in here?”

  “Everly, obviously.” Then, under his breath, he said, “They don’t grow ’em smart around here, do they?”

  “What the fuck did you just say?”

  “I said,” he enunciated, louder than necessary, “how’d you get in?”

  “My key.” I pulled my ring from my pocket and held it up. That’s right. I had a key to her place. One I used enough that I’d just added it to my own set. What’d he think of that?

  He glanced to the toolbox on the counter, then regarded me with raised brows. “I didn’t realize she gave the handyman free entrance to her home.”

  I clenched my jaw, irritation getting the better of me. “I’m not the handyman. I’m her—” I cut myself off, for some reason not wanting to admit to this cockmuppet that I was just her friend. So instead, I settled on another truth. “I’m the guy she calls when she needs help.”

  I didn’t know who the fuck this guy was, why he was in Everly’s home at nine o’clock at night—okay, so I could guess on that one, but I shoved the thought out of my mind as quickly as it came—or why he wasn’t able to take care of the shit that needed fixing, only that I was the one who’d shown up for her how she needed.

  It was late—way too late for a casual date, especially when Everly was currently at the clinic side of the house, taking care of a sock-eater. This guy could use her shower, eat her food, and—probably—sleep in her bed, but he couldn’t be bothered to fix her disposal or dishwasher? That was real fucking nice. What the hell kind of men was she involved with?

  Thankfully, I’d never had the misfortune of meeting anyone she’d been dating. When she’d moved here, she’d been in a long-distance relationship with someone—James…Justin…Jonah… Something that began with a J, so I’d just started calling him Jackass. Their relationship had lasted all of three months before she’d called it quits and declared a self-imposed man embargo while she’d gotten acclimated to Starlight Cove and the brand-new clinic, following her aunt’s passing.

 

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