Specifically, the morning after being within a hundred yards of Whitney Lancaster.

Cam’s ex. The woman who’d broken his heart. The woman he’d never gotten over. And, inevitably, every fucking time Cam was in Appleby, no matter how hard he tried not to, he ended up running into her.

He really did try like hell not to see her or have to talk to her. But every damned time, something happened—he’d stop for a tank of gas or to pick something up at the hardware store for his father or he’d just be walking down the damned street—and suddenly she was there in front of him.

This time he’d nearly run her over in a crosswalk on Main Street.

Dax stopped whistling. “Did you know that it’s a commonly held belief that you can only kiss one girl under the mistletoe on any given night?” he asked. “It’s not like New Year’s Eve where you can go around kissing everyone while the clock strikes.”

Cam groaned, propping his elbows on the table and resting his head in his hands. His huge biceps bulged, making the tattoo that ran from shoulder to wrist jump.

“That right?” Aiden asked, amused in spite of himself.

“Guess so,” Dax said. “At least that’s what the four girls at the Christmas party told me.”

“You kissed four different girls under the same mistletoe at the same party?” Aiden asked.

“Yeah. But one at a time. It wasn’t like a mistletoe orgy or anything,” Dax said.

“But they thought mistletoe should be a monogamous thing?” Aiden asked.

Dax shrugged. “Yep. Ridiculous, right?”

“I’ve honestly never given mistletoe etiquette a lot of thought,” Aiden told him.

“Well, now you know.”

He hadn’t made a lot of use of mistletoe at all actually, but he wouldn’t mind getting Zoe there. She’d have to kiss him again then, right? He had a feeling he was going to need all the help he could get. He didn’t know all the mistletoe rules, but he knew that the basic one was you had to kiss whoever was under there with you.

“But being under Mistletoe later ended up being completely worth having to apologize about the other three girls,” Dax said.

Aiden lifted a brow. “One of them was named Mistletoe?”

Dax grinned. “That’s what she told me it was. She was in a tiny green dress with little white ‘berries’ dangling from it.”

“Was this a costume party?” Aiden asked.

“Nope.”

Aiden shook his head. That kind of stuff happened to Dax all the time.

The conference room door opened again and Oliver and Grant, their other two partners, entered followed by their executive assistant, Piper.

She set a bottle of water and two ibuprofen tablets next to Cam. She rubbed his shoulder. “I’m ordering burgers and fries for an early lunch,” she told him. “It will soak up some of that shit in your system.”

He nodded but didn’t look up.

She smiled at Aiden. “You want anything?”

“Same,” he told her with a grateful smile. He wasn’t as hungover as Cam, but he was damned tired and feeling like a jerk.

He wasn’t sure a burger would actually fix how he was feeling, but he was positive a salad wouldn’t.

Piper laid papers next to Ollie and Dax, picked up Dax’s empty coffee mug—and would likely refill it—and handed over Grant’s glasses, which he must have left somewhere.

She was always taking care of all of them. Grant had hired her as Ollie’s assistant, because Lord knew Ollie needed the most babysitting. The visionary of the group, Ollie had a hard time with things like schedules and deadlines. He was always thinking five steps ahead of the rest of them. But he wasn’t at all detail oriented. He came up with the big ideas and then trusted Dax, Aiden, Cam, and Grant to make them actually happen.

He was brilliant. But he couldn’t be counted on to show up for a dinner reservation—or to even remember to eat at all—without Piper.

“I want something for lunch too,” Ollie told her.

“I know,” she replied, heading back for the doorway.

“Do you want to know what I want?” he asked.

“A teriyaki burger with pineapple and no onions.” She did not put a question mark after onions.

Ollie frowned. “Yeah.”

She simply nodded and swept out of the room, the air behind her smelling like spicy candy. Aiden had yet to place the scent exactly—and she wouldn’t tell him, always giving him a mysterious smile when he asked—but it was delicious.

“She’s a know-it-all,” Ollie said to no one in particular.

The rest of the guys didn’t reply. Because she was. Thank God.

“You gonna live?” Grant asked Cam.

“Unfortunately, I think so,” Cam told him, tossing the ibuprofen tablets into his mouth. He swallowed a mouthful of water, then said, “It’s going to be a long fucking day though.”

“Why do you do that to yourself?” Grant asked.

“He almost killed Whitney this time,” Aiden said. He much preferred talking about Cam and Whitney to thinking about Zoe and how badly he’d messed things up with her.

She couldn’t go without speaking to him forever. Her family was his family. They would see each other again. They’d sit across from one another at her mom’s dining room table. They’d lounge on the sofa in the living room and watch movies with Henry, her little brother. They’d sit around the firepit on the back patio and drink spiked lemonade with Cam and Josie and Jane.

She couldn’t avoid him.

And the next time he saw her, he was going to fix everything. Somehow.

“You almost killed her?” Dax asked. “What’s that mean?”

“I did not.” Cam shot Aiden a scowl.

“That’s not the story I heard,” Aiden said, unable to resist needling Cam.

They’d been best friends since kindergarten. Cam had done a lot of stupid things over the years and Aiden knew about every one of them.

“I was turning the corner onto Main and she stepped out into the crosswalk. It was totally her fault,” Cam said with a scowl.

“But you did almost hit her,” Aiden said.

“Holy shit,” Dax said, his eyes wide.

“I. Did. Not.” Cam sighed. “I saw her immediately and slammed on the brakes. She was startled and dropped the bag she was carrying which made it look a lot worse than it was.”

“What was in the bag?” Ollie asked.

“Uh.” Cam clearly didn’t want to say.

But Aiden really had heard the whole story. It had happened on Main Street in Appleby, Iowa. It was a tiny town and everyone heard every “whole story”. And then some. The stories got embellished, of course, but this one was pretty good even without the extras.

“Panties and frosted cookies,” Aiden said.

Dax thought about that. Then he nodded. “Two of my favorite things.”

Aiden grinned at Cam’s pained expression.

“Apparently she’d just been shopping at the boutique and had stocked up on panties,” Aiden supplied helpfully. “She also had a box of frosted cookies. So the crosswalk was strewn with panties in various colors that were covered in frosting and pieces of cookie.”