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“As if you aren’t terrified of school loans.”
It was true. My mom had heard so many horror stories during her time at Demere, she’d made me and Grace promise never to go into debt for college if we could help it. It was why I’d worked so hard to make sure we could go to Grace’s top choice without plunging us into debt…
Even if our methods had been a little unorthodox.
“Okay, but I’d get loans for you,” I told him. “You know that. And I’d get them for Grace if she needed them, too.”
Bett crawled back into my lap until he was straddling me, his muscular thighs warm on either side of my legs. “Going into debt together seems like a commitment, Elliot,” he teased with a smile.
I wasn’t fooled—I saw the blush on his cheeks. He was flattered and happy, knowing I’d cross one of my little lines for him.
If only he knew I’d cross all my fucking lines for him.
If only he knew I already had.
“You’re a good bet, McNeely,” I confessed in a low voice. “The best.”
He leaned in and pressed a soft kiss against my lips. “Hm. My boyfriend doesn’t like gambling,” he murmured against my lips.
I ran my hands up his warm back again and back down to cup his ass. “That right? I seem to recall him placing a bet on you a few weeks ago. He won big, too.”
He moved his lips next to my ear in a way that shot all the little hairs on my body straight up. “Think he might agree to take his prize home early tonight?”
I glanced past him at the election results, slowly ticking Corbett McNeely II’s name into obscurity. Then I looked back at the brave, beautiful man in my arms.
“Let’s go home, babygirl.”
EPILOGUE I
BETT - FOUR YEARS LATER
“Hey, McNeely,” Mo Dialo called out across the locker room. The music was blasting, and spirits were high since we’d just crushed the Raiders in their own house. “You think you can get me in with your man for a custom bike?”
Before I could respond, Sammy Esper slapped him on the shoulder. “Bro. Keep dreaming. I had to wait eighteen months for mine, and that was before he was on that thing with the Throttle and Thread guys last year. Now his waitlist’s probably a fuckin’ decade.”
“Give him a call, Mo,” I said. “Vaughn’ll hook you up. Might not be for eighteen months, though. Sammy’s right. Things have been nuts at the shop.”
“All that sweet, sweet country music money in Franklin,” Mo scoffed, like it was a bad thing. “It’s fucking up my schedule, man. Tell Taylor Swift or whatever to wait her turn. Daddy needs a sweet ride.”
I laughed, and as they always did when I thought about Vaughn, my thoughts flew back to our big spread in the wealthy little tourist town outside Nashville.
To Vaughn’s custom shop, our sprawling single-story house with plenty of room for visitors, and the crystal clear pool out back.
To the hot tub that had seen things that would make TMZ blush.
To the newly constructed guesthouse, custom-designed so Arden’s daughter, Linney, could have her very own room at Uncle Bett and Uncle Elliot’s place, with the built-in bunk beds she’d always wanted and a dog door for Dalton’s sweet old rescue mix.
To the cozy comfort of our bedroom with its enormous bed, cavernous shower, and the old plastic whiteboard on the wall, now framed and preserved under glass, that would forever read:
VAUGHN: all of them
BABYGIRL: forever
Vaughn had high hopes of our place becoming a family compound, which was why he’d already built a tiny house on the property for Grace, who had graduated from Georgetown Law and was currently clerking at the US District Court in Nashville.
He’d also begged Dalton and Arden to consider building on our land and relocating Vaughn Automotive or just going in with him on Vaughn Restorations. There was more work than he could manage on his own, and his dream was to have a business partner he could truly trust.
As always when I was on a road trip, all I could think about was getting home to him and the privacy of our home. I couldn’t wait to spend Monday morning watching him tinker in the shop while he hummed to the music playing over his speakers or asked one of his guys to consult on a design choice.
