Dropping The Ball - A New Year’s Billionaire Romance - Weston Parker Page 0,61

few.”

“Your parents are just as nice as I remember them being,” Rylee said once we got on the road. “Do you mind if I give my family a call while we’re on our way? Seeing yours has made me miss them something terrible.”

“You do know that my parents are taking the rental so we can talk, right?”

The corners of her lips moved, but they didn’t form a full smile. She’d also gone back to avoiding my eyes. “Yep. They’re pretty obvious, but I think it’s cute. That whole situation back in the kitchen could’ve become a lot more awkward very fast if they’d started asking questions.”

“I think they’ve learned over the years when to ask questions and when not to.” I grinned despite the tension in the cab. “They walked in on Parker the first time he jerked off, on Jeremy one night in the garage when he was kissing an older girl who hadn’t even known he still lived with his parents, and on Tucker while he was trying to propose.”

For just a minute, things between us felt normal again. Rylee laughed so hard she had to wipe her eyes, shaking her head when she finally looked at me again. “Wow. I never thought I’d hear all those names in the same sentence again. I’ve love to hear those stories sometime. I can’t believe it’s been so long since the last time I saw them.”

“Yeah, they’re definitely going to be surprised to hear your name too. I’m sure Mom will fill you in on all of it if you ask her to. She’s a well of embarrassing stories and she loves telling them.”

Silence fell between us again when the tension that had been there all week came washing back over us, and Rylee pulled her phone out of her purse. “I’ll definitely ask her about it, but I still want to have that chat with my family.”

“Of course.” I kept quiet while she put in her call, white-knuckling the steering wheel as frustration coursed through me.

I hated how things were with us now. It’d been so easy, so fucking natural, and now this.

Rylee yanked me out of the broody hole I seemed to live in now when she took the phone away from her ear and punched the button to put it on speaker. “Guess who’s here with me, Billy? It’s Carter.”

“Carter?” My friend sounded confused, but I couldn’t blame him. “Like, my Carter?”

“Yep,” she said in a sing-song voice I didn’t understand. “I’m not sure he was ever yours, though. Remember what we talked about at Thanksgiving?”

Billy coughed into the phone. “Ignore her, dude. You don’t want to know what we talked about. How are you? Why are you with my sister?”

Fuck. This is awkward. Billy and I had texted back and forth a few times since running into each other in Conroe, but I hadn’t said anything to him about Rylee.

“Yeah. I’m good. You? My firm got hired to do her security. What did you guys talk about?”

“Nothing.” Rylee chuckled, ignoring the questioning look I sent her way. “Carter’s my bodyguard now. Can you believe it?”

“Not really.” He made a groaning noise. “Did you track him down, Ryles? I’m so sorry my sister is a creeper.”

“I’m not a creeper,” she protested while trying to hold back laughter. “I swear I didn’t look him up. I didn’t even recognize him at first.”

Listening to the two of them banter with my parents in the car behind us and hers clamoring for the phone in the background, I suddenly had a flash of how it could really be between us. Up until now, I hadn’t let myself think too much about our families, our shared background, and what a future together might be like.

I was thinking about it now, though. It was everything I never even realized I wanted.

Chapter 22

RYLEE

Having Carter’s parents here was going to make me forgive him much faster than I wanted to. I’d been slowly but surely trying to get over it all week but now it seemed like I’d hopped on the express train.

The man was all I wanted in my life and I really didn’t want to let this one thing take it all away from both of us. His parents just cemented it for me. They treated me like I was already part of the family, and a secret part of me wished that I really was.

Carter’s Dad, Adam, was too cute for his own good, and his mother kept snapping pictures to