My Cone and Only (King Family #1) - Susannah Nix Page 0,80

hear the agony and desperation in his voice, I could feel it vibrating through him. This was hard for him too. It reminded me how lucky I was. He was wonderful in almost every way. Caring and thoughtful and devoted to me. So gorgeous he took my breath away.

So what if we had to hide our relationship for a while? We knew what we meant to each other. He’d shown me over and over again, hadn’t he?

“I believe you.” I brushed my lips against his, softly, warmly—but chastely, afraid of heating things up again, lest we throw caution to the wind.

His fingers tightened in my hair, and I felt some of the tension drain out of him.

“I’m going now.” I kissed his forehead and unwound his hands from me, backing away. “I’ll see you at my place in twenty minutes, okay?”

His rough reply followed me around the corner. “If I can wait that long.”

20

Wyatt

I stared at the wall in front of me, picturing Andie’s face as I dragged the paint roller across it. I’d left Andie grading exams at the kitchen table this morning and come over to my brother Manny’s to get his nursery ready for the newest addition to the family. Behind me, Tanner and Ryan were chattering about the creamery’s upcoming Centennial Festival—a subject I had less than zero interest in—so I tuned them out, thinking instead about the new song I’d started writing.

It was about Andie, of course. But this one was different than the others I’d written about her. It wasn’t wistful or forlorn or bittersweet, because it wasn’t about unfulfilled desires. This new song was hopeful and upbeat. About taking a risk and finding joy.

I got so lost in my own thoughts, I didn’t realize I’d been painting the same spot on the wall over and over again until Ryan’s big hand landed on my shoulder.

“You might want to share some of that paint with the rest of the wall,” he said. “I think you’ve got that one patch pretty well covered.”

“Shit,” I muttered, snapping back to the work I was supposed to be doing. The longer it took us to finish painting this nursery, the longer it’d be until I could get back to Andie.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think he had a girl on the brain.” Tanner stood on a ladder by the window doing the brushwork around the wood trim. Of the three of us, he had the best eye for detail and the steadiest hand, so he got stuck with all the edge work.

Ryan grinned as he rolled mint green paint within a few inches of the ceiling. At six foot five, he was tall enough to reach without a stool. “Wyatt’s always got a girl on the brain.”

Tanner snorted as he dabbed his brush around the corner of the window casing. “No, he’s always got his own dick on his brain. That’s not the same thing at all.”

I knew he was trying to bait me, and I scowled as I bent down to run my roller through the paint tray. “Y’all know I can hear you talking about me, right?”

“Oh, so you were listening.” Ryan scratched his head. “Seemed like your mind was elsewhere.”

Out of pettiness, I chose not to inform him that he’d just smeared green paint in his hair. “I was tuning you out on purpose because you were boring me.”

“I guess that answers my question about whether you’re participating in the Centennial Festival.”

I made a sour face. “Fat chance.”

It was the hundred-year anniversary of the founding of the creamery, and they were kicking off the celebration with some kind of weekend-long festival at King Town Park, the ice-cream-themed amusement park next to the plant. I didn’t know what it entailed, exactly, just that I didn’t want any part of it.

Tanner shot me a disapproving look. “Josie said she’s been trying to get in touch with you.”

I was aware. I’d been ignoring my sister’s texts, because I didn’t want her guilting me into whatever she was trying to wrangle me into. Most likely she wanted the whole family present for some photo op or ribbon cutting or some other damn thing, so we could all stand around Dad and pretend to be one big, happy family with nothing but the town’s best interests at heart.

After what my father had done to Andie, I wasn’t in the mood to play along with it, even to make Josie happy. I didn’t trust myself to be within restraining-order distance