Billionaires Dollar Series

I pretend to shiver. “Anything.”

She opens her mouth, but we’re cut off by a child’s exclamation. “Uncle Liam! Maddie!”

Haven and Evie dance toward us, leaving a staggering toddler behind on the lawn. Skye holds on to Isaac’s hands, the small boy following my nieces intently with his gaze.

“Hi, you two,” Skye says. “Glad you could make it.”

“Sorry we’re late,” Maddie says. “We were looking at a space in town for a new restaurant.”

“Oh, how exciting!”

I leave them to chitchat-or more rightly, they leave me, seeing as I’m inundated with questions from two small girls about whether or not I’d brought them candy. It was something I’d started a few weeks back but been forced to stop when Ethan accused me of bribing them.

Hey, I’m a man who uses any means I can.

Scooping Evie up, I grab Haven’s hand. “Where are your parents?”

“They’re over here,” Haven says, pulling me along. “Come, I’ll show you.”

Cole and Nick are standing by the grill, Ethan sitting on the patio chair beyond. Both Bella and Blair are there too, one dark and one blonde.

“Hey, man.” Ethan nods at me, lifting Evie from my arms. She immediately scrambles off him.

“Where’s Lucas?” she asks.

“He’s sleeping,” Bella responds, a hand on the baby carrier next to her.

“Still?”

“Babies sleep a lot.”

“One day you’ll wish he slept more,” I tell Evie, reaching out to muss her honey-colored curls. “He’ll never stop bothering you.”

Her eyes widen, like this is a new concept. But then her mouth stretches into a wide, front-tooth-less grin. “Like me with Haven.”

“Exactly.”

She dances away from us, running across the grass to share this new revelation with her big sister-proving my very point. One of the dogs rises from his sprawl to follow her.

Ethan looks from me to Maddie, still with Skye and Lucas in the distance. “Everything all right?”

I nod. “We looked at a potential space for the restaurant. I asked what engagement ring she likes. The usual, you know.”

My brother grins and hands me a beer. “Getting ready to ask her?”

Taking a sip, I shake my head. “Not yet. We’ll take things slow, but… soon enough.”

“You couldn’t have chosen someone better, you know,” he says. “There’s something about marrying your neighbor that just works.”

I roll my eyes. “Our situations aren’t remotely similar.”

“In that regard, they are.” Ethan puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes, his grin widening. “Great job on the recent investment, by the way. We were just discussing the numbers.”

Cole drops down into the chair next to mine, a beer dangling from his fingers. “The energy company? Unreal. How did you know they’d double in value?”

“I ran the numbers.”

He shakes his head, grinning. “I was right about hiring you. I’ve told you it was my idea, haven’t I?”

Ethan groans next to me. “Is there anything you won’t try to claim credit for?”

Cole considers for a moment. “The big things are off-limits, I suppose. Gravity. Sunlight. Inventing antibiotics.”

“You have no shame.” Nick sits down next to his wife, throwing an arm along the back of the bench. Blair settles more firmly into his side.

“Still a lie, brother,” she points out. “You once tried to convince me you were responsible for the full moon.”

“How?”

Blair rolls her eyes. “He had a calendar with the lunar cycle, but he didn’t share that little secret with me.”

Cole’s grin is shameless. Skye comes up behind him, their wriggling toddler in her arms. “What have you now done?” she asks her husband. “And can you do it while entertaining your son?”

Isaac settles in his father’s lap, his hands instantly seeking out his dad’s gold watch. Cole indulges him, unsnapping it and putting it into small, grabby hands.

“He has good taste in toys,” he comments.

My eyes stray to Maddie as she makes her way into the circle. She sits down next to me, her hair falling like a dark waterfall around her face.

How did I get so lucky?

“Hi guys,” she says to everyone and no one, crossing her legs. “What are we talking about?”

“I have a topic,” Cole says.

Nick rolls his eyes. “Of course you do.”

Bouncing his son on his knee, he looks from me to Maddie and back again. “I spoke to the old Mr. Walker the other day.”

Maddie’s hand tightens around mine. I know she hadn’t expected a reply to the letter she sent months ago, but she’d wanted one, regardless.

“Oh?” I ask. “What did he say?”

“Well, here’s the thing. I mentioned that the two of you are together now.”

Cole grins. “He was very pleased with that. Hell, I even told him to go ahead and claim all the credit for it. He got a real kick out of that.”

For a moment, I just blink at him. “Wow. Just when you think nothing can surprise you anymore.”

Cole’s eyes settle on Maddie. “He told me to say congratulations on your fellowship, and that he looks forward to dining in your own restaurant one day.”

“Oh,” Maddie murmurs, turning to look at me. There’s relief and joy in her eyes, and I know she can let go of the last of her guilt. “That’s amazing.”

“It is,” I agree, squeezing her hand with mine. “He can be one of the opening night guests.”

She opens her mouth to respond, but her words are drowned out by a loud shriek as Haven and Evie barrel into the gathering, Strike on their heels.

Evie throws herself across my lap, while Haven rocks on her heels, looking at Maddie. “We’ve been thinking,” she declares.

“Oh no. What have you come up with now?”

My nieces share a glance that can only be described as conspiratorial. “It’s a question,” Evie adds.Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“Okay, shoot.”

Haven narrows her eyes. “Now that you have a girlfriend, Uncle Liam, are we finally getting cousins?”

The others laugh, but I just groan and throw my head back against the headrest. They’ll never stop this nagging. Maddie’s hand squeezes mine, but it’s her answering words that make my heart constrict in my chest.

“You might be,” she says, “but not yet. You’ll have to be patient.”

I squeeze her fingers in return, and for the first time, the prospect of starting a family of my own appeals to me. Maddie was my first friend, my first crush, the one I could always trust to have my back. Years later, nothing has changed on that front. There’s no one I’d rather go on the adventure called life with.