Flirting with the Frenemy (Bro Code #1)(55)

“Good one, Dad!” I call.

“Safety,” he replies pointedly as he turns to help Mom defend Tucker against two more local pirates and the random goats.

Everyone’s laughing.

Wyatt’s dodging goats and tourists, not breaking a sweat, not even breathing hard as he carries me down behind Jason, who’s running with Monica tossed over his shoulder. They’re both laughing in glee, and I wonder if they’ll still go straight to The Grog for the reception, or if they’ll be fashionably late to their own party.

Probably late.

I take advantage of the fact that Wyatt’s supposed to be my boyfriend to bury my face in his neck.

It’s pretend, universe. Don’t strike us with lightning, I plead.

Fuck, he smells good.

“Thank you for being my hero,” I whisper against his hot skin.

“Thank you for letting me.” His voice is thick, and he knows.

He feels it too.

The inevitable.

Destiny.

The reason he moved in on our street when we were little.

The reason we’ve always irritated each other.

The reason he was just out of reach when I finally noticed him.

Because it’s been building up to this moment.

This exact moment here.

When he can be my hero.

And I can finally let him.

“Ellie?” he says thickly.

“Mm?”

“I don’t want to let you go.”

My heart swells three sizes and glows, radiating every ounce of affection I’ve ever denied having for this stubborn, strong, dependable man. “Your arms will eventually fall off,” I whisper. “But you’ll still be my hero even if they do.”

“I’m going to miss you.”

While Jason hustles Monica toward the Shipwreck Inn, Wyatt turns us down a side street and into a small public garden. He yanks on the wrought iron gate, and it shuts us inside with a clink.

“Are you kidnapping me?” I ask breathlessly.

“I’m seizing the moment.”

The Shipwreck Gardens are small—it’s more like garden, singular, surrounded with an ivy-covered wall, a fountain featuring a statue of Thorny Rock and his pirate treasure chest standing proudly in the center.

Wyatt sets me gently on a bench with my back to the shops on Blackbeard Avenue, so I can see the roofs of the town’s cozy houses beyond, and the gently sloped, blue haze-covered mountain peaks around us, and he squats on one knee in front of me.

My eyes bulge.

At least, until he ducks his head and laughs. “God, Ellie, it’s so easy.”

“You—you—” I sputter, but then I’m laughing with him.

Laughing and cradling his head as he laughs right there in my lap, over the crazy colonist dress I wore for Monica because I would’ve gone to her wedding dressed as a half-naked mermaid if she’d asked me to.

“How’s your leg?” Wyatt asks as we both regain control.

“Oh, it aches like a mother,” I reply cheerfully.

“Overdid it?”

“Times ten.”

He rubs his hand softly over my thigh through the fabric. “What do you need?”

“Warm bath, Motrin, and rum.” My fingers rest on his shoulders, just enough contact to make me feel grounded. “And maybe more of that.”

“This?” He tests the pressure on my muscle, and I sigh and nod.

“Is it supposed to still ache?”

“Muscle and nerve damage on top of newly healed bone. Eventually it’ll probably only be bad with weather changes, but apparently broken hips and femurs like to take their sweet time to heal.”

“No crutches?”

“I graduated crutches early, thank you.”

His lips twitch while he watches me with those intense gray eyes. “You’re a fighter.”

“I’m tired of fighting,” I whisper.

His gaze searches mine like he’s asking if I’m tired of fighting the pain, or tired of fighting him. “That’s just because you know you’ll never have a cooler wedding,” he whispers back.

My jaw drops a split second before the laughter overtakes me. “You are such a—such a—” I gasp out, searching for the right name to call him.

“Stud,” he supplies with an eyebrow wiggle, and it’s so un-Wyatt-like that I double over in laughter.

Except doubling over puts my face right next to his, and he’s smiling, his eyes alive and happy and twinkling with utter mischief, and this is everything.

He’s everything.

Everything I never knew I wanted, wrapped up in one Wyatt-shaped package.

I don’t know who starts the kiss, but once his lips are on mine, I know I won’t be the one to break it. He’s still massaging my leg while he loops his free hand behind my neck. I cling to his polo shirt, and almost laugh into the kiss thinking how crazy the two of us must look.

Him dressed like he’s a tourist from this century, me decked out like some kind of island colonist from the 1700s, a baby goat bleating beside us…

It’s the goat that breaks us apart.

Mostly because I can’t laugh and kiss him at the same time.

I need more practice.

More time.

“Ellie?” he says softly through a chuckle.