What exactly was going on here?
Just then, Brooks’s brother, Dunn, walked up with his best friend, Tucker Wright, the head of our local LGBTQ organization. Everyone in town knew our poor Doc Wright had been in love with his straight best friend forever, and it only seemed fair that if anyone was going to suddenly turn gay, it should have been Dunn Johnson.
Sadly, that wasn’t how the world worked.
“Hey, Dunn,” Ryder said, reaching out a hand to shake. “I saw you up at the lake the other morning. Anything biting?”
His tanned face lit up. “Hell yeah. Tuck, tell them about that redeye bass you got.”
I tuned out the talk of fishing. Ryder’s MC friends often came up to fish with him off our dock which, thankfully, got me out of having to learn to fish. When it was just the two of us, I’d bring a book out there or my sketchbook if I had a design to work on. Those quiet mornings with the sun rising over the water were special to me even though I didn’t fish. After bringing Sadie home, we made a point of spending time out there together as a family. Either I’d carry her in a sling, or we’d put her in a stationary exerciser thing.
Now that she was old enough to run around, we made sure she wore a life jacket near the water. We’d spent most of the summer taking her to swim lessons to make sure she’d be able to find her way out of the water if she ever found herself in it by accident. Since she was around Ryder so much while he fished, she’d fallen in love with it too, asking for her first rod from Santa and trooping outside Christmas morning to “catch crappies with Daddy.”
Every time she said it in front of Granny, I thought the poor woman was going to choke with laughter, but Sadie’s interest had been enough to get my Grandpa Irwin back out there. Now he, Ryder, and Sadie had a weekly fishing date. Granny usually tagged along to help me make a big breakfast spread for all of us to enjoy when they were finished.
We were building our family in Licking Thicket, and I couldn’t be happier about it. Since Ryder and I got together, we’d begun to connect with other couples in town. Maureen and Latonya were our closest couple friends since their daughter, Mollie, was almost old enough to start playing with Sadie. They’d asked us a ton of baby questions when Mollie was a newborn, and it had widened our circle to include several of their friends in town too. Now, wherever Ryder and I went, people stopped to talk to us, and it made us feel even more at home in the Thicket than we already were.
Ryder nudged me. “Baby, I think you’re falling asleep on your feet. Let’s get you home.”
I looked up at him, my heart full of love and light and hope for our future.
“I love you,” I said softly. “I don’t think I tell you often enough.”
“You tell me plenty.” His eyes shone in the summer sun as he traced a thumb over my cheekbones. “You’ve made all of my dreams come true, Col.”
“Then I guess we’ll need to dream up some new dreams together, huh?”
Ryder leaned down and kissed me gently, murmuring words of love and how lucky he was to have Sadie and me. We made our way back to the parking lot, passing Granny’s booth on the way and letting her shower Sadie with plenty of love and kisses. As we walked away, I heard her bragging to a friend that her boy “finally got out of his own danged way” and found happiness right under his nose. “I told Colin it was his year,” she crowed.
I rolled my eyes and grinned when Ryder bumped his shoulder into mine.
I glanced back toward Dunn and Tucker, who were still talking to each other excitedly about fishing as if all of us were still standing there with them. Dunn brushed a stray crumb off Tucker’s chest, his hand lingering there a beat too long, and Tuck smiled his thanks in a way that showed he was well aware of Dunn’s hand and didn’t mind it in the slightest. The air around them fairly pulsed with attraction, but both of them seemed as oblivious as when they’d first become friends years ago.
I shook my head. “Those two are the ones who need to get out of their own danged way,” I told my husband.
He peered over his shoulder. “Eh. It’s just not their year yet, as your Granny would say. They’ll figure it out. If we can, they will.”
My husband had a point. Sometimes you had to let everything else drop away and let your heart thaw enough to let love in. I hoped, for Dunn and Tucker’s sake, that their time was coming soon.
For me, I was glad it had happened at all.
I reached for Ryder’s hand, leaned over to press a kiss to Sadie’s cheek, and whispered three of the loveliest words I could think of. “Let’s go home.”
Want more Licking Thicket romance?
Check out Fakers (Brooks and Mal’s story) and Liars (Diesel and Parrish’s story), which are available now!
You can also preorder Fools, Licking Thicket Book 3 (Dunn and Tucker), which releases 2/28/21.
Letter from Lucy & May
Dear Reader,
Thank you so much for reading Flakes! If this is your first book by one of us and you’d like to read more, we suggest you start with Fakers, book one in the Licking Thicket series, or Lucy’s Borrowing Blue and May’s The Date.
We would love it if you would take a few minutes to review Flakes on Amazon (after January 12), GoodReads, or BookBub. Reader reviews really do make a difference and we appreciate every single one of them.
We’ve been friends and fans of each other’s work for a couple of years, so we weren’t surprised when writing our first collaboration went so smoothly. We were surprised, however, that it didn’t end up being a standalone novel like we planned. The town of Licking Thicket stole our hearts and now we’ve turned a standalone into a series! Check out the rest of the Licking Thicket series on Amazon.
Up next is the story of two guys who can’t get out of their own danged way. Fools goes live February 28, 2021. We can’t wait to share Dunn and Tucker’s best friends-to-lovers story with you! Thanks for enjoying our characters as much as we do.
Be sure to follow Lucy and May on Amazon to be notified of new releases, and look for us on Facebook for sneak peeks of upcoming stories.
Feel free to sign up for our newsletters, stop by www.LucyLennox.com, www.MayArcher.com, or visit Lucy’s Lair and Club May on Facebook to stay in touch.
To see fun inspiration photos for this book, check out the Pinterest page for Flakes.
Happy reading!
Lucy & May
Also by May Archer
Whispering Key Series
Off Plan (Whispering Key #1)
On the Run (Whispering Key #2)
Love in O’Leary Series
The Date (O’Leary #.5)
The Fall (O’Leary #1)
The Gift (O’Leary #2)
The Note (O’Leary 2.5)
The Secret (O’Leary #3)
The World (O’Leary #3.5)
The Fire (O’Leary #4)
The Night (O’Leary #5)
The Castle (O’Leary #5.5)
The Way Home Series
About May Archer