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Gavin shrugs. “Hell if I know, but it’s refreshing when I get a random afternoon off, and I enjoy it.”

“Why doesn’t Grace do it?”

“If any of us knows the answer to this, it should be you. Her fiancé.”

He lets the last word hang in the air.

“She’s just as much a workaholic as I am,” I state the obvious, and Gavin snorts.

“You’re not wrong about that. Have you and Grace set a night to have dinner with Dutton?”

“Shit,” I hiss. Hudson points at my drink and silently asks if I want another. I nod. “I forgot about that. I need to fly back to LA tomorrow for a charity event this weekend.”

“You’re leaving already?” Gavin asks. His stunned expression screams that he’s confused.

“I still have to work.”

“Is Grace going with you?”

“No. She has work here. We know we have things to iron out, but we both take our work seriously.”

Gavin eyes me for another moment. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“Why didn’t you ever say anything about you and my sister?”

I blow out a breath.

“I knew I needed to grow up for her, and I didn’t want to ruin any chance I had with her by telling you and Dutton. You’d have wrung my neck if I did anything wrong.”

He chuckles. “Good call.”

I thank Hudson for my drink and take a big gulp as I think over my lie.

It’s not entirely false.

The summer after my seventeenth birthday, my mom, dad, sister, and I arrived at the lodge, and while my dad was checking in, I’d spotted Grace across the lobby. She was sitting in a corner reading a book. Her hair was down and curled, flowing over her shoulders like an angel. Or so I thought at that time. She was wearing a light yellow summer dress that made her creamy skin look flawless, and her smile kept growing as she read, her eyes never leaving the pages.

I watched her for far too long in that moment. Just existing, alone, and enjoying every moment of it. She didn’t need anyone to entertain her. She didn’t need anyone’s attention. She just needed that book.

I was jealous of that book.

Then, some loser kid from her school called her name, and she jumped up to hug him. I took in the way her body had changed over the last year and how damn pretty she was.

My heart had beaten a little faster that day and all the days of that summer when I found myself around her.

But I was the last person on earth she’d pay attention to, so I kept my summer crush on her a secret that year.

And while I’d accepted my fate with Grace, I can admit that a part of me has always wondered what it would be like to have her full attention the way that book did, and whether I could ever put a smile on her face the way it did.

“Hello, earth to Preston.” Gavin snaps his fingers in my face and I jerk back.

“Sorry. I was thinking of the summer when my sister broke her arm after she thought she could do a backflip into the water.”

Yes, that really did happen the same summer I developed my crush on Grace.

“Oh yeah.” Gavin’s face lights up. “That summer was great. We snuck out and went to that bonfire by the marina that year.”