Nash Brothers Box Set - Carrie Aarons Page 0,276

plant when they move into a new place. It’s supposed to bring luck to your life in that dwelling. So I hope this one works.”

I take the gift from her. “I hope it does, too. Thank you for bringing this.”

The gesture is small, but the meaning is big.

Over the next two hours, we move the rest of the furniture in, get a majority of the boxes unpacked, and my apartment starts to resemble something lived in and semi-homey. Part of me can’t wait until they all leave, so I can spend my first night alone in the first place I’ve ever owned, well technically it’s rented, on my own.

“Fletch, why do you have hundreds and hundreds of DVDs?” Penelope asks, looking through one of the crates I’d brought with me.

Forrest cackles. “He used to be obsessed with collecting them. Would use any spare dollar he could to go to Best Buy in Lancaster and pick out the cheapest DVDs. They’re not even good movies.”

“Dumb & Dumber? American Pie 2? Major League? These are all idiotic teenage boy movies. My kids would love these, though they’re filthy.” My sister-in-law laughs.

“Ew, DVDs, Mom? Yeah, right. Those things are ancient. You couldn’t get twenty-five cents for those on eBay,” Travis tells his mother.

“Well, if that doesn’t make you feel like an old geezer …” Keaton laughs, and all the adults nod in agreement.

“I think you saying geezer makes you older,” I tell him, shrugging my shoulders.

After we’re done, everyone heads downstairs for the free pizza I promised them. When I come back out into the living room, Ryan is the only one left, and she’s sitting at my desk. Her fingers fly across the keyboard, and by the adorable way she’s chewing her lip, I think she’s probably jailbroken my laptop, gotten me access to restricted sites, and whatever else it is that brilliant hackers do.

“You should have a website,” Ryan says as she surfs around my measly laptop.

I really hope I cleared the browser history. Nothing like the girl you’re crushing on finding porn in your Google search.

“Why?” I say.

She looks at me as if it’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever said. “Um, because you run a business.”

Ryan referring to my art and furniture as a business is the first time I’ve even thought of what I do as … well, a business.

“If you got online, built a website, maybe opened an Etsy store … it could probably double or triple your revenue. I can set up both for you at no cost. The friend discount.”

She’s right, I should have set up some kind of branding months ago. Make it official, make it searchable. No business made it without an Internet presence these days, and even if I wanted to be a solitary island out there in my barn, it was stupid not to establish at least minimal brand association.

Though my mind sticks on her words. The friend discount.

“The friend discount, huh?” I put down my keys on the hall table my mom brought in and walk over to where she sits at the desk in the corner.

Ryan’s eyes slowly blink up at me, the color an intoxicating amber. “Yeah. For free. Also, I have nothing better to do right now, and it’ll take me a day. You should thank me, you’ll get a five-thousand-dollar website for chump change. All you have to do is buy me a slice downstairs.”

I’m getting closer to her, without even realizing I’m doing it. One second, I’m halfway across the room, then standing in front of the desk, and now I’m almost brushing my leg against the chair she sits in. But damn, when she said friend discount, and with her sitting here, alone in my apartment …

I like it. I like her, in my space … no one else around.

For the last five years, I’ve fought every urge. I’ve swum in the opposite direction of my instincts, and the upstream stroke has robbed me of so many things. I can’t do what feels natural, I had to give up partying and drinking in order to save my soul.

But this? Wanting Ryan Shea? That’s something I just can’t battle anymore. I don’t want to. The pure animal attraction, with something deeper running through the center of it that I’m not ready to acknowledge … that is one thing I can lose myself in without fear of losing myself.

Stepping fully into her space, I put out my hand, hoping she’ll take it. Ryan looks nervous but lays