Almost Just Friends (Wildstone #4)(40)

So did Gavin, who seemed hugely relieved. “Oh, good. Someone not related to me, and you’ve got chocolate.” He turned to Piper. “Before you kill me, you should know that I’ve been hired by Cam to handle the marina books. So if you kill me, you’ll screw over Cam and Emmitt.”

So much for flying under the radar.





Chapter 13


“Wanting to kill each other is sort of the definition of being siblings.”

Piper was reeling. She was aware of Cam standing there, and that a part of her recognized him as both someone to be careful with and an ally, but she didn’t take her eyes off Gavin. Couldn’t. “What did you just say?”

“That Cam hired me.”

“Before that,” she said tightly. “What did you say before that?”

Gavin lost the smile and let out a long breath. “Please don’t ask me to say it again. It was hard enough the first time.”

“But . . .” She shook her head. “Rehab? For what?”

“Remember when I broke my wrist a few years ago? They gave me a bunch of pain meds.”

“Yes,” she said slowly, her mind doing the opposite and going a hundred fifty miles per hour. “The same ones Winnie had been given the year before for her appendectomy. And me for my sprained ankle.”

“I know. I stole Winnie’s leftovers because I couldn’t find any more and I needed them.”

Sadness and worry joined her fear and panic. “Oh, Gavin,” she whispered. “Two years ago? You’ve been taking pills that long?”

“Actually, three years, and yes.”

Winnie, who hadn’t said anything during this exchange, and who knew the whole story but only since he got out of rehab, suddenly burst into tears. Huge, gulping, loud sobs.

Before Piper could do anything, Gavin pulled Winnie into his arms. “Like old times,” he murmured, stroking her hair. “You always used to cry every time we’d fight.”

Winnie buried her head in his chest and kept crying.

Piper felt the urge to do the same. But she was the oldest, the one in charge, a failure apparently, and to make it all worse, Cam was a witness to all of it, all of their crazy, messy life.

“It’s going to be okay,” Gavin told Winnie. “Don’t make yourself sick.”

“It’s not going to be okay!” Winnie hiccupped through her tears and pushed away to point at him. “You’re not okay, and I don’t know how to make you okay! And I need you to be okay, Gavin!”

“Win,” he said quietly, but with utter conviction, “I got ahold of the demons, I promise you.”

Piper could hear her heart pounding in her ears, because she hadn’t even known he had demons. What kind of sister didn’t know this about her own baby brother, the same sweet boy who’d been through hell before they’d landed back in Wildstone? Such hell that she hadn’t been sure she’d ever be able to reach him. Her biggest fear had always been that she’d fail, and she had. She reached for his hand. “Gavin—”

“I really am so sorry I didn’t tell you the truth,” he said quietly. “That I hurt you.”

He looked anxious and . . . nervous, and she realized what he needed. “It’s in the past,” she said just as quietly. “You’re forgiven.”

“You don’t have to let me off the hook that easily. I hurt you.”

“You hurt yourself more.” She squeezed his hand. “But now you’re not alone.”

Winnie swiped at her eyes, which made her mascara run. “This is all so scary,” she whispered soggily. “Everything’s so scary.”

And that was another thing. Piper hadn’t known they were scared. How had she not known?

“What’s scary is your face right now,” Gavin told Winnie. “You look like a raccoon.”

On the stove was the pot of mac and cheese she’d made, along with a plate of sliced-up hot dogs, ready to be stirred into the mac and cheese. Winnie picked up a little round and flung it at Gavin.

It bounced off his chin, and he stared at her in shock before scooping a spoonful of mac and cheese and flinging it at her.

It hit her square in the forehead.

The next one hit the wall because Winnie ducked. “This is why we can’t have nice things!” she screeched, and picked the piece of macaroni from her forehead and ate it. “Good stuff, though.”

“Are you kidding me?” Piper said. “Stop.”

They didn’t. And it was like trying to hold back the tide. They’d lost their minds.

“Seriously,” she yelled, refusing to look over at Cam, because she could only imagine what he must think. “Stop!”

Winnie, who’d caught a spoonful of flying mac and cheese with her cheek, pointed at Gavin. “You’re so dead.”

In the next beat, the skirmish was full-on war. Piper opened her mouth to yell again and got hit in the face and chest with mac and cheese.

Sweet Cheeks was cleaning up the floor, chirping in happiness as utter chaos reigned. Until a piercing whistle stopped them in their tracks, and they all turned in unison toward the source.

Cam. He shook his head in shock. “I’ve been in battles that were less harrowing. What the actual hell?”