Mitch suddenly had a pang of homesickness. Which was strange. He hadn’t been gone that long. And Appleby was a great place. And Paige was here.

But the thoughts of Paige down on the bayou with him and his family and friends had sunk in deep and quick. He wanted to take her down there. To have her meet everyone. To see how she reacted to cruising along the bayou. To see how much she’d love the otters. Yes, otters.

The Boys of the Bayou’s main dock had been adopted by a river otter they’d named Gus. Gus had then gotten a girlfriend. And then they’d had a family. And those otters had moved into a more formal home outside of Leo’s old trailer, complete with a plastic swimming pool and slides and everything. Of course, they spent time with animal-crazy Tori and Mitch’s cousin Kennedy as well.

That was all temporary though. Mitch was in the process of building a bigger, better enclosure for them as a part of a new side business for the Boys of the Bayou.

Yeah, he wanted to see Paige playing with otters. Definitely. Maybe even more than he wanted to see her in short shorts. So that was… idiotic.

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I do have a problem,” he said to Chase.

“Does it involve your dick?”

“N…” Then he thought about that. It was perfectly fine to include talk of Paige and his dick in the same breath. “I mean… kind of.”

“The girl,” Chase said.

Mitch huffed out a breath. He shouldn’t have been surprised Chase figured that out. “Yeah. Paige.”

“You just got there, man.”

“Sounds familiar, right?” Mitch asked. He’d been shocked by how quickly Chase had been distracted and fascinated by Bailey.

Chase sighed. “Yeah.”

Mitch could hear the grin in his voice. He’d fallen fast and hard for Bailey. In spite of telling himself—and Mitch—over and over that it made no sense. Chase and Bailey were total opposites. Total. Opposites. And Bailey had been pretty unimpressed with Chase’s charm and good looks and money. All things that Chase was used to using to get his way with women. Well, with everyone.

Add into that the fact that Bailey and Chase hadn’t even been able to execute their first kiss without almost breaking a nose and some toes, and they seemed like a total mess.

But Mitch could tell that Chase was happier than he’d ever been.

“So you’re calling for love advice,” Chase said.

Oh shit. Chase had just raised his voice slightly. That meant someone, or more than one someone, was close by. Which meant that someone, or more than one someone, was about to chime in.

“No worries, I’m here!” Mitch heard Owen Landry, one of his cousins, say.

“Where are you and Owen?” Mitch asked, praying they’d snuck down to the dock with a couple of beers to escape the chaos that was every Landry family get-together.

“Ellie’s,” Chase said.

There was a rise in noise on Chase’s end of the phone, and Mitch realized that Chase had ducked into the back room or just outside to take the call initially. And now he was back in the main room of Ellie’s bar. Where everyone would be.

“You’re a bastard,” Mitch told him.

“This will just keep me from having to repeat everything later,” Chase said with a laugh.

No one had a big enough house for them all to really spread out and chat and eat. They’d gather together for gift opening, practically sitting on top of one another, but for meals and hanging out, they’d all move over to the bar.

The building was really just an extension of Ellie’s home in many ways. Most family meals were served there, and every member of the family stopped in at the bar at some point during the day. If Ellie and Cora, her best friend and business partner, didn’t see everyone at least once a day, they got worried and sent someone to hunt the missing person down. And drag them in for some grits. Because grits were good for everything—happy, hungry, feeling sick, feeling awesome, lonely, sad, or newly in love.

“So what do you need to know?” Owen asked.

Mitch realized he was now on speakerphone. Great.

“I just…” He blew out a breath. What the hell? Owen was also madly in love. With a sassy, smart, too-good-for-him woman named Maddie. Owen might actually have some advice. “I guess I’m thinkin’ about a long-distance relationship.”

“They suck, man,” Chase said.

“You don’t even know,” Mitch told him. “You just officially got together with Bailey.”

“And I already know it’s going to suck,” Chase told him.

“But you’re gonna do it anyway?”

“Well… yeah.” Chase sounded like that was a really stupid question.

Maybe it was.

“Why’s it gotta be long distance?” Owen asked.

“Because…” Well, fuck. Because it would be crazy for one of them to move to be with the other at this point.

“If you’re doin’ things right, she’s not gonna want to live without you,” Owen said. “So start doin’ things right.”

“If I remember correctly, Maddie was ready to move back to California even after you were doing things.”

Owen laughed. “’Cause I wasn’t doin’ things right.”

“I’m not sure I want details about what you were doing wrong,” Mitch said dryly.

“Oh, nothin’ like that,” Owen said, clearly catching his meaning. “Trust me.”

“So what?” Mitch asked, hoping he wasn’t making a mistake.

“I just had to figure out that living anywhere with her was better than living at all without her. It just works out.”

“So your advice is to move to Iowa to be with a woman I’ve known for like two days. Other than a few months of texting.”

“What’s the worst that can happen?” Owen asked. “It doesn’t work out and you move back here.”

“That’s…” He really should have finished that thought with crazy. Or ridiculous would have fit too. But Owen had a point. Didn’t he? Mitch could move to Iowa. He wasn’t in medical school. He didn’t own a business he couldn’t move. He had a huge family that he’d miss like hell, but was this thing with Paige at least worth giving some more time to?

“I’m good,” Owen said. “I know.”

“She hasn’t exactly asked me to stay,” Mitch said.

“Well, she can’t really keep you from moving somewhere. You’re a grown man. She can’t keep you out of Appleby,” Chase pointed out.

“That doesn’t seem a little stalkerish?”

“Why do you boys always make this all so difficult?”

There was now a new voice in the conversation. And Mitch would know that voice anywhere.

Ellie. His grandmother. The tough, no-bullshit matriarch of the Landry family.

“Tell her what you’re thinkin’, Mitchell,” Ellie said. “Don’t be weird about it. Just say, I think I’m crazy about you, and I want to find out if this can work out. For God’s sake.”

Mitch could picture her rolling her eyes at them all. He also knew she had her hands planted on her skinny hips.

“You all make this seem like some huge mysterious, magical thing. You don’t have to wait for planets to line up or for some big sign like your favorite song to play just as the full moon comes up over the hill when the scent of lilacs drifts through your window.”