AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The shoulder sit half mile race is usually my best event. Levi and I have always partnered together and I’ve got great core muscles. I’m solid as a rock up there and Levi is built like a tank. “I saw a flower.”
He groans and rolls his eyes, dropping back to lean against the wall next to me with a thump, his short blond curls bouncing. “I don’t even want to know.”
“It was a Bluebell. Jaxon’s favorite flower. I want to paint it on a mug for him.”
“Didn’t I say I don’t want to know? The man is gone. According to Dani, you dumped him. Get over it and get your head in the games.”
I snort. “Says the guy who’s begging me for breadcrumbs of information about the woman he’s crushing on instead of just manning up and talking to her?”
“Telling someone to man up is toxic masculinity, Honey. I have feelings too.” He sighs and rubs the bridge of his aquiline nose. “And she hates me. With very good reason. I need an in. A sneak attack to convince her I’ve grown up, and I’m not the asshole brat of a kid I used to be.”
I press a hand to my chest. “Because that’s what every girl dreams of, an ambush from a former tormentor.”
He rubs hard at his forehead. “It’s not a good look. I get it. Realistically, I’ll probably never convince her to go out with me, but I can’t stand her hating me. At the very least, I need to make her tolerate me.”
I shrug, sadness washing over me. “Unfortunately, you can’t make anyone do anything.”
He gives me a slight shove. “You dumped him, Weston. Quit moping like you’re the victim here.”
“I—” What? Did it for his own good? Was protecting him? Maybe, but Levi’s not wrong. There was a big part of me that pushed Jaxon away before he could walk away. Because that’s always what he was going to do.
“Listen up, everyone,” Sebastian, Levi’s older brother, stands in the middle of the field clapping his hands. All the Sullivans are larger than life, but Sebastian is the biggest of them all, six five and all muscle. He’s let his beard grow out and his long hair is down to his shoulders, with a couple of small braids on either side. He’s leaning hard into the viking look this year. “I’m serious,” he shouts. “Shut the h-e- double hockey sticks up.”
“Thank you,” our cousin Riley shouts. She’s been yelling at everyone all day about language now that her ten-year-old is taking part in the family games for the first time.
The cousins gather around and quiet down. “The Sullivan brothers, minus Keating and Sloane, who’ve left us for bigger and better pastures, are moving to Catalpa Creek. Permanently.”
“What?” I turn to Levi, my jaw aching from how far it’s dropped.
He grins. “Thought I was going to move here and not drag the whole family with me?”
“But why? You moved here to build something on your own. That’s what you told me.”
He shrugs. “I made my point. Next time they try to push me around just because I’m the baby of the family, I can remind them how easily I can walk away.”
“But they have a thriving business in Aspen Cove. How could they leave it behind?”
“We didn’t,” Levi’s brother Ryland throws an arm around my shoulders. He’s cut his dark hair close to his scalp, but his beard is rivaling Sebastian’s in length. “We left it in excellent hands. We’re franchising, baby.”
“But why?” I’m so confused. “You loved it there.”
Ryland squeezes me against him. “Catalpa Creek is where we did most of our growing up. It’s where we want to raise our kids if we ever have them. Watch them grow up surrounded by family like we did, before our family exploded and we moved away.”
“Even Sloane wants to move back here,” Levi says. “If Clarion ever stops touring.”
“They’re still together?” My heart aches. “I can’t believe Sloane gave up his career to tour around the country with his pop star girlfriend.”
Levi gives me a knowing look.
Ryland, oblivious to my dating drama, lets me go and crosses his arms over his broad chest. The scar across his left cheekbone stands out as he sucks in his cheeks to get serious. “That’s what we Sullivan men do for love. Whatever it takes.”
“Besides,” Levi says. “It’s not like Sloane’s not doing anything. He’s started his own fashion line of sunglasses and has made a full-time job of viral posting.”
Ryland snorts. “Like that’s a real job. Man doesn’t even get his hands dirty anymore.”
I look back and forth between my burly cousins. “There are seriously going to be five Sullivans living here full time?”
“And Sloane and Keating for every holiday and family game day.”
