Dream Chaser (Dream Team 2)

“Lunacy,” Anne-Marie murmured.

“But Maria tells me they’re the greatest thing in fridges,” Mom said. “I’m sure Ryn knows what she’s doing, putting one of these in here. People think they’re so amazing, she might just sell this house because of the fridge.”

“Well, I could see that. If it was a wine fridge,” Anne-Marie replied.

They both started cackling.

Boone, who had his arm around my shoulders and was holding me tucked with my front against his side (and that would be tucked close), tensed his arm to give me an affectionate squeeze.

I put my head on his shoulder and gave him one back with my arms that were around his waist.

Neither of us shared that fridge was not bought by me.

“Annie! New plan!” Porter shouted from somewhere deep in the house. “We’re not going to Savannah on vacation next month. We’re comin’ to Denver. Ryn needs an extra pair of hands.”

“Told you,” Boone muttered.

“Porter Sadler, we have our flights and all the tours booked!” Anne-Marie shouted back.

“Like I wanna look at a bunch of old houses!” he yelled.

“Well, I do!” she yelled back.

“The curse of an enlightened man!” he bellowed.

“Jesus,” Boone said under his breath.

I started silently laughing.

“He’s crazy. I’d love to go to Savannah,” Mom said.

“Well, it looks like I’m gonna have an extra ticket,” Anne-Marie replied.

They started cackling again.

Boone took us on the move, skirting them wide, to get me out the back door.

He then guided me to the middle of the backyard.

And there, he turned me to him and rested his forearms on my shoulders but dipped his face super close to mine.

“So this control issue you got, that extend to you holding your breath until you pass out so shit that’s fucking you up will stop coming at you?”

Here we go.

“Maybe,” I said.

“Baby, you were out. If I didn’t know you were holding your breath so I was primed to catch you, you could have hurt yourself.”

“That’s only happened once before,” I assured him.

“Let me guess, with your father.”

“Yeah.”

His mouth got tight.

Yeah.

There we went.

I dropped my forehead to his chest, and when I did, he wrapped his arms around my shoulders.

I wrapped mine around his middle.

“For my peace of mind, Rynnie, you gotta be mindful and stop doin’ that,” he murmured over my head.

“Your mom and dad know my brother has an alcohol problem.”

“Yeah.”

“And my mom met you, and them, going to the hospital to check on her son who was cuffed to a hospital bed.”

“And?”

I tipped my head back and caught his eyes.

“Boone, put yourself in my shoes.”

“Your mother would no sooner think badly of me because one of my brothers had an issue that was beyond my control than she’d poke out her own eye.”

Good point.

And this was true.

He kept going.

“And what my parents saw today was a sister who loves her brother so much, regardless of his problems, she was messed right the fuck up at the thought of him being hurt and in trouble. Messed up so bad, she could barely talk.”

Hmm.

“And they saw she had a mother who had it together and dropped everything to get to her boy.”

Well, that was a better way to look at it.

“And your mom saw you had a man and his family who are going to have your back.”

Another better way.

“In other words,” he kept at it, “would I rather those two met to giggle about expensive fridges and shit while my mom and dad shouted the house down? Maybe. But the way they met didn’t suck either.”

“Mr. Brightside,” I whispered, pressing into him.

“Rynnie, you can’t control the world. You can’t make everything okay for your niece and nephew because they got shit parents. They have shit parents, but they’re the parents they got and there’s nothin’ you can do about that. You can’t adjust the course of life to fit how you need it to be so everything will be just perfect for those you care about. Like you can’t hold your breath and make your brother stop talking so you won’t have to hear his ugly, and your man and your mom won’t hear it either. And babe,” he got closer, “heads up. You can’t make Hattie let Axl in and you can’t give Axl the tools to get in. That’s gotta happen how it happens, or not, if that’s the way it’s gonna be.”

We’d see about that last one.

“Jesus, Ryn, are you listening to me?” he asked.

He totally knew I was going to meddle with Hattie and Axl.

Still, this was serious, so I said, “Yes, Boone, and I hear you and you’re right.” Except about Hattie and Axl, but I wasn’t going to share that at that juncture, and not only because he already knew it. “And I’ll be mindful. And I’ll…I don’t know.”

“Find a way to let go.”

I grinned up at him. “Maybe I need more sex.”