Karson wasn’t sure about that, but he shrugged. “I hope you’re right.”

“I am,” Grady said with a grin, cupping his shoulder. “I’m glad we cleared the air.”

“Yeah, for sure, man,” he agreed just as Rachel came out the door.

“Grady, can you come to bed with us? The boys are restless.”

He nodded as Karson asked her, “Do you need anything?”

She shook her head though. “Nope, they just need their daddy.”

“All right, baby, I’m coming,” he said before turning to Karson. Shaking his hand, he said, “Good talk.”

“For sure.”

With a nod, he called out to the group, “I’ll see everyone in the morning.”

Everyone said goodnight as the couple disappeared to their boys, and Karson walked to where his wife sat. Sitting beside her, he wrapped his arms around her as JT continued with the story he was telling.

“So then, Karson is drunk as shit, I mean, like, falling over the place, crying and snorting everywhere.”

“What the hell?” Karson demanded. “What are you talking about?”

“About how much you love me,” Lacey supplied before looking back at JT. “Go on.”

“This is going to be bad,” he muttered and Lacey giggled beside him.

“So then he’s like ‘Why did I leave? How could I do this? Oh my God, I love her, but she won’t take me back!’ Lacey, I shit you not, it was fucking depressing. I had known the guy, no joke, like maybe eight hours, and he was sobbing on me like we had known each other our whole lives. That was the first time I heard your name. ‘Lacey, my Lacey,’” he said, mimicking Karson.

“Aw, how sweet,” she said, batting her eyes at him, but he couldn’t even look at her.

“I hate your ass,” Karson seethed but JT just laughed.

“No, I can top that,” Kacey said as she slowly crossed her bare legs. It was damn near forty degrees out and she was wearing booty shorts. What in the hell? But that didn’t matter. If she was about to tell the story he thought she was about to tell, he was going to throw her in the fire.

“Don’t you dare, Kacey! I’ll throw you in the fire,” he warned but Lacey waved him off.

“I’ll hose you off, Kacey. Keep going,” she urged while Karson rolled his eyes.

“So anyway, we come home from school before he goes into the draft, and he is a mess. I mean, like totally dead inside. It’s kind of sad and depressing, and for the longest time I was convinced he was going to kill himself,” she laughed and Karson glared.

“Because me offing myself is funny,” he deadpanned, but even Lacey was giggling beside him.

“No, never, but it’s funny that you are so big and scary, yet cry like a child,” JT supplied, but again, Karson didn’t find any of this amusing.

“So to cheer him up, me and a bunch of our guy friends went to this bar, hoping to get him out of his funk. So I’m sitting there, drinking my underage drink since I got picked as DD, and I hear someone singing. Badly. I look up and Karson is on the stage singing ‘End of the Road’ by Boys II Men, and I’m telling you, it was horrible!” she said but had to pause because she started to laugh though Karson was glaring. “He comes off the stage and no one claps, and then I’m like ‘Karson, tuck your crazy back in, buddy. You’re letting it show.’ So then he goes, ‘What? I am singing and I want to fucking sing this song, and you can’t do anything about it. You don’t know what I am going through,’ or something like that. He fell off the deep end. And now, it’s freaking hilarious, but then, I called my mom from the bar and told her to commit him.”

Lacey smiled up at him and held his gaze. “How sweet.”

“It was pathetic.”

“But we were pathetic,” she answered, still grinning. “I cried in the shower for six months straight.”

Karson nodded. “I did the same thing.”

“And I would look at pictures of us and I never took your shirt off. Even when I wore dresses.”

“I kept your underwear under my pillow for a year.”

“’Cause that’s not creepy at all,” JT muttered and Lacey smirked.

“Yeah, I can’t top that,” she admitted, and he grinned before pressing his lips to hers. “Is it sadistic that we are sitting here talking about how miserable we were?”

Karson shrugged. “Maybe, but I think it just reiterates how much we love each other.”

“I like that better,” she agreed before snuggling into his neck.

“Me too,” he said as JT made a big show of yawning. It was obnoxious and totally JT, but he couldn’t pay him any attention. Not when his beautiful wife was locked in his sights.

“Okay, I’m heading to bed. I have a full day of eating tomorrow,” JT then said, but still Karson couldn’t tear his gaze from Lacey’s.

“I’ll help you to bed,” Kacey said, but Karson was lost in Lacey’s beautiful eyes. He loved this girl something insane and couldn’t believe how happy he was. Those years of crying and moping around without her really didn’t matter now. All that mattered was her.

“Maybe into it too?” JT said and that did it.

Whipping his head to where his sister was helping JT up, he said, “What the fuck? No. I’ll help him.”

“Shut up and ogle your wife. He’s joking. I’m not having sex with him,” Kacey said with a shake of her head. “I mean, I have standards, and lumberjacks are not up to my standards.”