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“Caleb called.” My neck practically snaps; any harder, it would have flown off my body, as I glance at my sister. “He wants to talk.”

I sigh into her snow cone.

My little sister broke up with him about a month ago because she caught him talking to two other girls from the city.

And I guess the texts held more than enough for my sister to dump him.

“And?”

It’s the only word I can get out, but Everly doesn’t need any more.

“And he ain’t gonna get it. He can go talk to Rhonda and Shalene or whatever their names were.”

I frown because I know she’s heartbroken about it, but she refuses to let it show. “Are you okay? Do you want me to⁠—”

She waves a dismissive hand in the air. “I’m fine. I don’t need him anyway.”

Right.

She’s right.

However, Everly is so good that she deserves the world. And I hate to see her going through a breakup because a boy didn’t see her potential and worth.

“You wanna come over and bake cookies?” Everly looks over at me with a blank expression. “What?”

“Not a drink or a night out?”

I roll my eyes because she’s twenty-two and it doesn’t register that she is in my head. I still see her as my sweet little shadow who used to follow me everywhere.

Now, she’s a grown woman who can legally drink her sorrows away.

“I don’t know how I feel about takin’ my sister out to get drunk,” I reply honestly. “And how Dad will appreciate that.”

Everly shrugs and peels her arm out of mine. “Speakin’ of drinks, I’m gonna go grab a whiskey sour from the cocktail truck.”

“Everly,” I grind out. “Johnny makes them too strong.”

She beams at me. “Exactly.”

Then she takes off while Pickles wants to run after her.

Oh boy.

“Ya better stop suckin’ on that snow cone like that, AK, or men are gonna get idiots ’round here.”

My gaze slices to my left, locating Dodger in a tan shirt and blue jeans, muscles outlining the fabric, and my tongue doesn’t feel so hot anymore.

Everything else in me does.

“Afternoon, Dodger,” I greet, going right back to sucking on Everly’s saving grace.

His eyes narrow, and he steps dangerously close, petting Pickles on the head, before getting to me. “Thought you said you weren’t gonna be out here until the evenin’.”

“Everly wanted to get outta the house.”

“She alright with that breakup?”

“I dunno. She’s tryin’ to be.”