Page 13 of Temporarily in Love

Felix came over with our food, and we chowed down in silence for a few minutes. I sipped on my glass of water and avoided my brother’s look, but I could tell what he was about to say.

Nolan chewed on a fry. “I told Lila to stay away from you.”

“You what?” I asked, sending him a death glare from across the table. Why the fuck would he do that?

He scowled. “Every time Lila comes to town, you spiral. You go back to being that eighteen-year-old kid standing in the driveway with his heart in his hands.”

Half the time, I didn’t even see Lila when she visited, but I heard about it because people in this town liked to ask if I’d seen her. Maybe Nolan was right, because I felt like my head was somewhere else, and I’ve only said a few sentences to her since she got back.

“I’m a grown-ass man, Nolan,” I hissed at him. “You don’t have to do that shit.”

He shrugged and drank his beer. “Yeah, but man, you need to get over her.”

“I know,” I muttered sadly and ate one of my fries. “Imagine if Avery left you.”

He scowled at me. “Why the fuck would you say that? Avery and I are solid. I’m not taking this ring off my finger, and she’s not taking hers off.”

I held up a hand to calm him down. He was getting heated about the mere suggestion of him and his wife breaking up. “Imagine if she left, and you had to figure out how to move on, but no one else ever measured up to her.”

He stroked his beard in thought and had a worried look on his face. “Okay, I get it. But you dated in freaking high school.”

“Lila was my best friend since the third grade. She was my everything.”

“And what’s she now?”

I sighed. “Nothing.”

“So get over her already! It’s not like she’s moving back to Drakesville.”

I nodded. He was right. I knew he was right, but my brain was thinking of all the what-ifs—of why, exactly, Lila was in town and how long she was going to stay.

“Did Gemma say if they wanted to make the beer?” Nolan asked.

I shrugged.

Nolan nodded. “All right, I’ll ask her. It would take a while to make anyway. Are we good for the Harvest Fest this weekend?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Gemma worked her magic. I just had to sign off on some permits.”

Nolan looked at his calendar on his phone. “Okay…we have a schedule for that, right? I can be there all day—”

“No! You spend your weekend with your family. I got this. Plus, as I told you before, we have a staff that’s supposed to do this shit for us. Gemma wants to be there since this is her baby. If we’re gonna split the table with the Sullivans, we might not need everyone.”

Nolan nodded. “Okay, but I think Avery wanted to go anyway, so we’ll stop by with the baby. Who knows how long, though.”

Norah made herself known with a loud cry and Nolan picked her up. I laughed when she immediately grabbed his beard. The little stinker was like that, but she was so cute, none of us could be mad at her. I was thankful I didn’t have a beard, so she couldn’t do that to me.

I rubbed my clean-shaven jaw and pointed at my brother’s ridiculous mountain man beard. “You gotta shave that shit.”

He made an annoyed face. “Nope, then Avery would divorce me.”

I gave him a confused look.

“My wife loves her beard rides. I’m not getting rid of this, ever.”

I pretended to puke. “Gross!”

Nolan shrugged and bounced his daughter in his arms. “That’s how Mommy and Daddy created this little one, huh, Peanut? Did Daddy make Mommy forgetful, and we made you, you little stinker?”