Page 4 of Business Casual
I never thought I’d see him like this. Soft. Content.
Happy.
Evelyn grins down at my brother and combs her fingers through his hair. He hums and tips his forehead against her jaw.
“Do you need your headphones?” she asks in a low whisper. He shakes his head and tightens his grip on her.
“Told you,” he mutters as I try not to listen. “S’quiet when I’m around you.”
Something in my chest pulls tight. Beckett has always struggled with sound and people. I’m glad he’s found someone who loves that bit of him as much as the rest. Someone who makes it easier for him to be exactly who he is.
“Layla’s still mad about the cake,” Evie tells him, voice louder. “She spent all morning while we were getting our hair done talking about how we need to have a real wedding with a real cake.”
“We did have a real wedding,” Beckett grumbles. Evelyn drops a kiss to the crown of his head and hums her agreement. “Plus, I don’t think the fields can withstand another party.” He leans back in his chair to stare critically at one of his branch babies. “Charlie almost took out three spruce trees trying to start a conga line.”
He nods toward the dance floor. The music is something heavy and quick now that Luka and Stella have left the dance floor for the carnage of the cake table. There’s a small crowd forming at the very center of the layered rugs and in the middle, of course, is Charlie Milford.
Stella’s half brother. Party boy. Serial charmer. I don’t think there’s a good time that Charlie hasn’t organized, signed up for, or crashed without explanation. The last time I saw him was at the summersolstice festival, where he was bare-chested for the peach pie eating contest, letting the little old biddies in town put dollar bills in his waistband. Before that, it was Layla and Caleb’s housewarming. He brought strawberry shortcake Jell-O shots. I think he consumed the entire tray himself.
“It’s funny you think he needs a wedding for that sort of behavior.”
I watch as Charlie swings one of Luka’s aunts around the dance floor. His broad frame towers over everyone else, the sleeves of his white dress shirt rolled to his forearms. His normally perfectly styled hair is slightly mussed in the back, likely from his attempt at some early nineties dance moves. He points at Dane and demands he join them. He is either trying to organize a complicated line dance or a revolt against the DJ. It’s not clear.
“He really took his duties seriously today,” Evie adds conversationally, leaning across Beckett for Harper’s abandoned cake. I notice that Harper doesn’t smack her hand away. “He brought Stella something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue. All four. I think they both cried for forty-five minutes.”
Charlie walked Stella down the aisle during the ceremony, then slapped a flower crown on his head and stood as her maid of honor. He kept wiping his thumb beneath his left eye, pretending he wasn’t crying during the vows.
And now he’s doing the macarena in the middle of the dance floor, flower crown crooked on his dark head of hair, his jacket abandoned in one of the pine trees. He is…very fluid with his hips.
Midnight blue eyes travel the edges of the dance floor as he spins and bobs and weaves, likely looking for his next victim. I reach for the wine bottle just as his eyes lock on mine. His smile dive-bombs into a grin, laugh lines digging deep into his cheeks.
“NOVAAA,” he bellows across the field. “COME DANCE WITH ME.”
I bite my bottom lip. Charlie Milford is the biggest goddamn flirton the planet. He is made up of equal parts charm, charisma, and misplaced confidence. The first couple of times I talked to him, I couldn’t figure him out.
But now I know that’s just how he is. He’s happiest when he’s making the people around him happy too. Or, in my case, blushing furiously and scowling at his big dumb face.
I have no idea why. He is not my type. He’s probably the furthest thing from my type. He works for some sort of wealth investment firm in New York and has an affinity for three-piece suits. Wristwatches that cost the same as the rent for my tiny studio. Color coded spreadsheets and terms likeideal fiscal environment. He buys truffle oil. He has pocket squares.
If there was ever a man to be more my opposite, it would be him.
But we’re friends. Sort of. We float in and out of each other’s lives at barbecues, parties, and trivia nights. My friends are his family and my family are his friends. It’s hard to separate the two in a town as tiny as ours, and he visits Stella at least twice a month. More and more often, now that I think about it. For someone that doesn’t actually live in Inglewild, he does seem to be here a lot.
He’s been helpful with my business stuff too. He walked me through the ten thousand pieces of licensing paperwork. He is the creator and originator of all the spreadsheets I’m using for my expenses. He answers every single text question I lob at him in the middle of the night, and then sends me a string of flirty, innuendo-laced messages in return.
He says he wants a tattoo in payment for all his consulting. A scorpion on his ass or a Pikachu on his bicep. He says he’s torn.
I spent way too long thinking about his ass after that. Specifically, his ass in those perfectly tailored Burberry pants he always seems to be wearing.
Beckett’s mouth tugs down in a fierce frown. “Why is Charlie screaming at you?”
Because he’s a ridiculous human being who would flirt with a wall if he could. Because he loves trying to get a reaction out of me. Because that’s what he does.
I watch as he knocks into someone while trying to throw an imaginary lasso in my direction. He ducks immediately to make sure they’re okay, distracted when a little girl in a bright pink dress tears through the dance floor. She bounces at his feet, and he drops his flower crown on her head, those damn lines by his eyes deepening with his smile when she squeals in glee and runs back to her parents.
His eyes flick up and hold mine. He lifts his hand and crooks two fingers, beckoning me forward.
“I think he wants to dance with me.”
