PROLOGUE

PAYTON

As I walked down the aisle, I should’ve been looking at Grant but the only person I could see was Karson. With those light green eyes that had always reminded me of summer, he looked at me like he was a man who’d been in the desert for days and I was a tall glass of ice-cold water.

Tingles ran through me, and even if I’d wanted to, I wouldn’t have been able to stop them. It’d been four long years since I’d last seen him in the flesh, and tonight, I was hoping to see him in nothing but the flesh.

The beautiful sounds of the rock version of Canon in D filled the air as I made my slow progression down the aisle, unable to stop staring at my childhood crush just as much as he seemed to be unable to stop staring at me.

I didn’t believe in love, but the closest I’d ever come to feeling the emotion had been with him. Well, maybe not with him, but for him.

The Neidums had moved in next door when I’d been so young that I didn’t remember the time before they’d become our neighbors. My brother, Grant, and Karson Neidum had become best friends almost instantly and they’d stayed that way for all this time.

As for me, I’d never really become friends with him but there had been a time when I wished I could be. I’d wanted the kind of relationship with him that my brother had, but they were four years older than me, and as kids, that gap had just been too big.

Maverick, Karson’s brother, was two years older than them, and therefore, it hadn’t been an option for me to befriend him, either. So I’d been left on the outside looking in, the little sister to the three boys who turned into men right before her eyes.

When that had happened and I’d started growing up as well, I’d suddenly realized that I didn’t want the same relationship with him that my brother had always had with him. What I wanted from him was something else entirely.

Secretly, it still was. I’d been crushing on him forever and now he was finally back from college just in time for it to be my turn to go. The fall semester started next week, and since I wanted to get settled on campus before classes kicked off, I was leaving sooner than I wanted to think about right now.

What it all came down to, however, was that I only had tonight with Karson. After he’d been away for four years and I was about to go for the next three, I had to work with the time we had.

As I reached the front of the aisle and turned to wait for the bride, my gaze remained on his. Those green eyes had always reminded me of new leaves and freshly mowed grass, of baby plants breaking through the ground after a long winter, and of the brighter moss growing on the rocks by a riverbed. With his tanned skin and the warmth in those eyes, looking at him was like seeing the very embodiment of all the best parts of summer—and that included all the fun to be had over the break.

With shaggy black hair, he stood about six foot five and he was built like a lumberjack. All bulging muscles and broad shoulders under his fitted black suit. I wouldn’t have believed it to be possible, but he’d only gotten more handsome during the time he’d been gone.

The music changed to the wedding march and my brother’s future wife appeared in the doorway, but I only gave his bride a quick glance before my eyes were back on Karson’s—and his were back on mine.

All through the ceremony and even during the chaos of the wedding photos, I struggled to keep my gaze off him for longer than a few seconds at a time. And every time I looked at him, he was already looking back at me with a playful smirk on his face and a dangerously flirty glint in those summery eyes.

The formalities of the evening passed in a blur of helping Emily, my brand-new sister-in-law, with whatever she needed like the good little bridesmaid I wanted to be for her. As the best man, Karson was always in motion, too.

We hadn’t had the chance to say a single word to each other so far and yet, it was like I could feel his presence even when he was on the other side of the room. I felt his eyes on me and the heat of them made my very blood sing with desire.

I watched from a distance as he held court with some of the guys at the bar, his arm slung around my brother as they raised tiny glasses of what I assumed to be tequila. Everyone around him was always roaring with laughter, even my aunts who’d been pissy ever since they’d found out my brother had invited our father to his wedding.

As my mother’s sisters, they’d taken her side in the nasty divorce—No, Payton. You’re not thinking about any of that right now.

The important part was he obviously hadn’t lost any of that natural charisma he’d developed as a teenager. In fact, it only seemed to have grown and blossomed into something that was so beautiful and interesting to watch that my mouth was practically hanging open.

Until I noticed him walking up to me carrying a bottle of champagne by the neck in one hand and two flutes in the other. I deliberately touched my mouth to make sure I wasn’t gaping, then dabbed at the corners just in case I’d been drooling a little.

As he approached me, our eyes met close-up for the first time in ages and my panties nearly melted at the way his were sparkling like precious gemstones.

“Where did you get that?” I inclined my head at the bottle. “Aren’t guests supposed to wait for the servers to come around?”

A playful spark lit in his eyes as he shrugged. “I snagged it from the bar.”

“So you’re not supposed to have it,” I mused, my eyes never leaving his.

“No, so we should probably drink it somewhere out of sight.” The hand with the glasses in it motioned toward a hallway outside of the bar area where the drinks were being served. “I’m sure we’ll find a place out there.”

My insides went to war, torn between going with him and insisting that he return the bottle to where it should be. I wasn’t a rebel. I believed in rules and I played by them, but this was my brother’s wedding and I knew they’d seen to it that the bar was overstocked.

Just this once, I decided to go with the flow and enjoy the moment. I’d pledged to myself to enjoy tonight with him if I got the chance to do it, and this was it. So instead of following my natural instinct to reprimand him and take the bottle back to the bar myself, I nodded and let him lead the way.

“It’s good to see you, Payton. You look beautiful tonight,” he said as he offered me his elbow. I took it, and his grin came easily when we left the room. “When did you get all grown up?”

I giggled—then I nearly smacked myself in the face for it. “You’ve been gone a long time. I took a year or two while you were at college to grow up. The rest of the time you were gone, I spent perfecting my adulting style.”

He laughed. “You’ll have to teach me how to adult. I haven’t quite taken the time to learn that skill myself yet. It’s good to see you’re still such a ball-breaker, though.”

His tone was teasing, but my cheeks flushed anyway. “I’m not a ball-breaker. If yours got busted just because my answer to what was, no offense, a very stupid question, then you’ve got problems.”

His head fell back as he laughed again. Then he glanced at me to waggle his eyebrows. “Nah, my balls are just fine. A lesser man, however, definitely would’ve tucked tail for fear of being reported to the principal about snagging the champagne.”

“Is Grant the principal in this scenario?”

He smirked. “Grant? No, he just pledged his life to his wife, which makes her the principal in this scenario. And his boss forevermore. Poor guy.”