Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Holly

Someone should really invent a system for ranking awkward silences. Like a Richter scale, but for measuring the seismic waves of discomfort radiating between two people trapped in a truck after one catches the other fondling her underwear.

Twenty minutes from the lodge, and my brain won't stop replaying the image of Chance in nothing but a towel as he studied my manifestation panties like they held nuclear launch codes.

I’ve seen him in less, sure, but not with all of my systems activated. My girl zone is arcing like a live wire so hard, I’m shocked he can’t hear the snap, crackle, and pop.

Heat crawls up my neck as I remember the way his eyes darkened, how his fingers traced the cursive script with something close to reverence. Or maybe that was just my hormones reimagining things.

His powerful body is a mouthwatering roadmap of corded muscle with intriguing dips and valleys. I’ve seen him in less over the years when our families hit the lake for a weekend or over Fourth of July when our mothers set records for the most Americana one could vomit over the east side of the lake. Then there were the whole two years after he went from skinny runt to buff jock preening with more gusto than Tom Brady blinged out with his ten Super Bowl rings.

Told you. GI Jackass. It’s not just a nickname. It’s foreshadowing fifteen years in the making.

I can’t seem to stop myself from stealing glances at his profile between frantic taps on my phone, searching for any update on my wayward luggage. The sharp angles of his face catch the morning light, all barely contained intensity as he navigates the winding mountain roads. His jaw ticks - that telltale flex that says he's wrestling with something bigger than road conditions. Every twitch of that muscle sends an answering pulse between my thighs.

Jesus, when did that start happening? My body's sudden betrayal is definitely not part of the master plan. Neither is the way my inner hussy sits up and begs every time he shifts gears

"We need to talk." My words burst out all champagne cork like, explosive urgency and zero chill—unless of course, the champagne was, in fact, chilled.

Oof, I will forever be grateful I didn’t let that turd of a joke slip from between my lips. God.

His fingers still on the wheel. "About this morning?—"

"No!" Heat floods my cheeks. Anything but this morning.

Or last night.

Or the fact that I have no idea what any of this means because not only was he nice to me, and not in the way I would expect if he were following my brother’s orders.

He was actually charming and sweet and awkward and concerned and still so very much the brother’s best friend energy that every teenage girl fantasizes about—well most. Not me. I totally managed to rise above that basic bitch energy. I mean, there might have been a moment after those big boy muscles came in that I…

Oh, s hut up. Don’t judge me.

“Uh… about the lodge. My father."

The muscle in his cheek jumps like it's training for the new best jaw flex event in the Olympics. "What about him?"