9. Nathan

Easton

Hey. I’m not feeling great today. Can you cover for me at the butcher shop?

Istared at the message from my brother on Saturday morning as I stood in the horse stables, brushing Lightning, my favorite animal on the farm. I’d heard a little flu was going around the farm, and I was doing my best to avoid getting it. The last thing I needed was to be down for a few days when there was so much work to do.

Nathan

I got you covered.

Easton

Thanks. I’ll remember this as I lay on my deathbed.

If Easton would be one thing, it would be dramatic. Each of us guys dealt with being sick very differently. The younger twins were pretty much the type to disappear into their rooms until they emerged well. I kept to myself, too, and tried every home remedy to get rid of the virus as soon as possible. I didn’t normally have time to be sick. Too much life needed to be tended to, especially now that I was coaching baseball. Evan became an even bigger grump than he’d already been, but he hardly ever got sick. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen him under the weather. He had the immune system of a god. And our Easton became the biggest crybaby in the entire world.

One sniffle and he was convinced he had the deadliest of diseases.

Nathan

Don’t be so dramatic.

Easton

Are you sure you want those to be your last words to me?

Nathan

No. You’re right. I meant to say don’t be so dramatic, you little shit.

Easton

Love you, too, big brother. Bring me home some bone broth from the shop. Mom said she’d make me homemade soup.

Spoiled brat.

Then again, if Mom was making him soup, I’d get some, too. Hopefully with her homemade sourdough bread. The perks of living a few doors down from my mother. She always had something delicious cooking.

I liked taking over the front of the house at the butcher shop. I was better at dealing with the customers than with the pressure of cutting the meat in the back of the house. That was all Evan’s territory, though, and that guy never took a day off. He not only had a perfect high school attendance record but the same was also true at Pierce Butcher Shop. He would only consider taking off if my niece, Priya, needed him for something. He put being a father above everything else in his life.

Now that Priya was sixteen, though, she was in the shop as much as her father, helping as a cashier up front.

“Hey, Uncle Nate,” she said as I walked into the butcher shop. She had a big smile on her face as she finished counting the money in the drawer. We had about fifteen minutes before we opened, and she was already at work with that big ole smile.

Not to be biased, but I had the most beautiful niece in the goddamn world. Priya was the definition of stunning. She looked equal parts like my brother and like her mother, a beautiful Indian woman who she was named after, Priya Patel. My niece’s mother was not in her life at all and signed over full parental rights to Priya when she was born. She said having a child at that age was too much, and she didn’t want anything to do with her.

Evan was able to choose the name for his daughter, and he chose to name her after her own mother because he wanted her to have a piece of the woman he loved, even if it was only by them sharing the same first name.

I felt bad for Priya’s biological mother because she not only missed out on a beautiful daughter but she also let go of Evan, who I was more than certain would’ve loved her forever if given the chance. Then again, they were young, both only eighteen when Priya was born. I tried my best not to judge both parents’ choices. I couldn’t imagine how hard it was to leave and also how hard it was to stay.

Both sides of the coin came with struggles.

Evan just so happened to end up with the greatest gift, too.

“Hey, Squirt,” I said as I walked over to her and wrapped her in a hug. I kissed her forehead. “How goes it?”

“Good. I’m a bit annoyed with you, though,” she warned as she pulled away from me and sassily placed her hands against her hips.

“What did I do this time?” I asked as I checked the display window with all the items we were selling that day.

“Well, you’ve been hanging around the high school a lot more since you started coaching the baseball team.”

“And that’s an issue?”

“Yes,” she said, tossing her hands up in irritation. “A huge issue. I was at lunch the other day when you came in through the cafeteria from the parking lot.”

“And…?”

“And my friends saw you!” she remarked.

My brows knitted together. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know I was supposed to be invisible when I entered the school.”

“Well, you should figure out how to be invisible because they called you hot!” She shivered as if the idea of me being good-looking was the most disturbing thing she’d ever heard of in her life. “They kept going on about how they’d love for you to coach them in different…ways. I even overheard teachers talking about how handsome you are.”

I laughed. “It’s not that serious.”

“It is. It’s so gross. So if you can just not look so much like you, that would be great.”

I smirked and flexed my arms. “I can’t help it that I’m so ridiculously handsome, Squirt. It’s a gift, it’s a curse.”

She rolled her eyes. “If only they knew how corny you are.”

I flexed my arms behind me. “Too bad they’ll never know because they are so wrapped up in my hotness.”

“It’s like you want to make me physically ill like Uncle Easton,” she complained.

I laughed. “Is he texting you that he’s on his deathbed, too?”

“Yes. He’s asking me to make my famous chocolate chip cookies as a farewell gift.”

“Don’t you dare make him those cookies.” I brushed my hand over my chin. “Unless you make me a dozen, too.”

“Uncle River said the same thing. You guys really need to look into your cookie addiction. I’m surprised you don’t all weigh a million pounds.”

I flexed one more time. “What can I say? It’s genetics.”

She made more gagging sounds before we got to work. After a while, I flipped the “open” sign on the door. A few customers already waited outside for us to open, which wasn’t surprising. The shop always buzzed with business. Evan and Easton truly created a remarkable place. I wondered what our father would’ve thought of their success. He always wanted to open that shop before he passed away, but he never saw it come to fruition. That wasn’t due to anyone’s doing but his own, seeing how he gambled away the funds to make it come to life.

Still, sometimes I wondered if he would’ve been proud of them.

Then again, it wasn’t very characteristic for that man to have pride in anything other than himself.

A woman walked into the shop, laughing like a freaking hyena. Falling closely, very closely behind her was Wesley, Avery’s fiancé. He had an ice cream cone in his hands, and the woman turned to face him and slapped her hand against his chest. Wesley caught her hand in his grip. Oh shit. They were holding hands. At least for a split second. The woman leaned forward and licked the ice cream from the cone in Wesley’s hand.

She licked his ice cream.

“You’re so ridiculous, Wes!” she sang, shaking her head in laughter as she wiped dripping ice cream from her chin. “There’s no way you thought that.”

“I one hundred percent thought that,” he said with a smug look on his face as he licked the ice cream.

They both licked from the same ice cream cone. They could’ve been having sex in public, as far as I was concerned. Not to be dramatic, but if I found out my fiancée was licking another man’s cone in public, that would be enough to call off a wedding.

Perhaps a part of me wanted to find any reason for Avery to call off her wedding.

Still… It felt inappropriate.

I stood behind the cash register with my arms crossed, annoyed by their mere existence. I’d never interacted with the guy in town, though I’d seen him around enough because he was with Avery and her family most of the time. Other than knowing he was about to marry Avery in a few weeks, I knew nothing about the man. Yet seeing how he was with a woman who wasn’t Avery made a newfound rage bubble up within me.

It only took me two seconds to notice something extremely inappropriate going on between the two individuals. I may not have known them personally, but I knew body language. And theirs was loud and clear.

Wesley looked up toward me and smiled as if he didn’t realize I hated his guts by him allowing that woman to put her hands on him in such a flirtatious way.

Avery deserved better.

He then turned toward the woman and said, “Drew, help me out here.”

Drew.

What a stupid, ugly name.

Stupid and ugly.

Drew walked over to the display window and slammed her hands against it, leaving her grimy fingerprints on it. Now, I’d have to clean off her prints after they left.

“Hey! Aren’t you like…that famous baseball guy?” she asked, gesturing toward me. “I came into town and heard people talking about you.”

“That’s me,” I mumbled.

“Nathan, right?” she asked. “Nathan Pierce?”

I nodded.

Wesley looked at me, and his smile somewhat faded. “Avery’s assistant coach?”

“Yup,” I dryly replied.

He held a hand out for a shake. “Oh, hey, man. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

I shook his hand even though I didn’t want to. “I would say hopefully good things, but if they came from Avery, probably not.”

He laughed and retracted his hand. “So you know my lady’s personality well.”

I ignored his comment. “What can I get you?”

He glanced at the display as Drew kept hanging all over it. He raked his hand through his messy red hair and pointed. “We’ll take some of the pork belly.”

“Just what this guy needs,” Drew said, poking Wesley in his gut. My eyes fell to the gesture, and when I moved back to Wesley’s eyes, he must’ve noticed the daggers I was shooting his way because he took a step away from Drew.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “About five pounds of it. I’m making a special dinner for Avery. A little treat-before-marriage type of meal. She’s been a bit overwhelmed, and I want to make sure she feels loved,” he told me.

“I’m sure what you’re doing will make her feel that way,” I taunted.

“Yeah, and I’m just working as his sous chef,” Drew chimed in. “I’ll have to make sure he doesn’t cut off a finger, seeing how he hardly knows how to cook,” she said, playfully swatting his chest.

I took notes of the hits again.

Wesley took note of me noting said hits.

“Chill out, Drew,” he said with a forced laugh.

She leaned in and licked his ice cream again. It appeared she had no chill-out mode.

“Do you need anything else?” I asked curtly, still annoyed.

“Just two ribeyes, and we’ll be ready to go,” Wesley said, sensing the uncomfortable energy in the space.

Priya began collecting the order. When she finished, I rang them up and checked Wesley out. He thanked me for the order. I didn’t say anything back. They left, but before I knew it, Wesley walked back inside.

“Hey, man. I know you and Avery have practice later today. Do you think you can keep the whole dinner and our interaction here to yourself? I want it to be a surprise.”

“You want me to keep Drew licking your fucking cone to myself, too?” I bit.

His face flushed a little as he rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s not what it looks like. She’s just?—”

“Better get those oxtails home, Wesley.”

“Come on, man. Don’t be like that. From one guy to another, you know how Avery can be. If she found out, she’d make it something it’s not. She’s a bit of a drama queen with a temper regarding this friendship between Drew and me.”

“Hey, Wesley?” I said.

“Yeah?”

“Come closer.”

He took two steps toward me.

I leaned over the display and whispered, “Say one more bad thing about Avery, and I’ll slam your fucking face into this glass display.”

That drained the color from his cheeks before he turned and left.

The second he was gone, Priya turned to me with a look of concern.

“I thought that guy was engaged to Ms. Kingsley?” Priya asked after Wesley left the shop.

“He is,” I said, feeling a pit of doubt sitting heavily in my stomach.

“Wow,” Priya said as she restocked the pork belly in the display window. “Ms. Kingsley is a better woman than me. I would never be okay with my fiancé being all over another person like that.”

I couldn’t help but wonder if Avery knew about Wesley and Drew. I doubt she would’ve been fine with how close the two of them seemed within our shop.

The urge to kick Wesley’s ass was a strong one, but instead, I debated if it was my place to inform Avery of what I’d seen. Then again, if it were me, I’d want to know.

Even if it hurt.