Free The First Time is the Hardest: An Austin Brothers Novella (Austin Brothers Series Book 1) by L A Cotton

and with each step he took, my heart beat faster.
    “We’re not doing anything wrong, Mila. Just be honest with him.” He brushed my hair over my shoulder, cupped my face, and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. We both froze; the realization of what he’d just done hitting us.
    “I-” Ryan stepped back, his eyes glazed with confusion. “Shit,” he mumbled, and a sinking feeling rolled through me.
    “I’d better go.”
    Alarm washed over Ryan’s face, and I didn’t know if it was shock from his intimate gesture or the fact I was about to leave.
    I didn’t hang around to find out.
    I held his gaze for a few more seconds before grabbing my purse and slipping out of the motel room.
    For the second time.

Chapter 10
     
    “MILA, I-”
    “Don’t Tanner, just drive.” I propped my elbow against the window, resting my head on the cool glass. The anger I’d felt when Tanner had called was still there, simmering underneath the surface, but I couldn’t forget the look on Ryan’s face after he kissed me so softly, so intimately.
    Something changed at that moment.
    I’d felt it.
    He’d felt it.
    Before, we were using our grief as a crutch for whatever it was we were doing, but in that second, as his lips touched my forehead, it was no longer about Lucas—it was about us. Two people brought together in painful circumstances, finding solace in one another, realizing that maybe, just maybe, there was more than losing someone they loved between them.
    And I’d left him … again.
    “Hey, what is it?” Tanner spoke softly, and I realized I’d obviously sighed a little too heavily.
    “I-” How did I explain this to him? He wouldn’t understand.
    None of them would.
    “Jeanie, whatever it is, you can tell me. Even if it’s about him. Listen, I lost my cool, okay. I dropped by Mom’s, and she told me you’d text last night saying you were staying out, and I knew, just knew, you’d be there with him. I don’t understand it, Jeanie, but I’m your brother, and I’m here.”
    Rolling my head in his direction, I sighed again. “Didn’t you ever like someone you weren’t supposed to, Tan?”
    My brother smiled, and I saw a twinkle in his eye. The same one he had when we were kids and he was up to no good.
    “And just who might you be thinking about?” I coaxed.
    “That’s for me to know and you to find out.” He tapped his nose and winked, and I playfully nudged his arm with my fist. “And here’s me assuming you were thinking of Beth.” My eyebrow shot up in a challenge.
    “Don’t go there.”
    “Why not? She is, after all, your fiancée, isn’t she?”
    He visibly shuddered, and it was my turn to laugh. “Tanner, if she doesn’t make you happy, then why stay with her?”
    “I’m happy. I am. I just wasn’t prepared for all the engagement stuff. Did you know engagements lead to weddings?”
    “They do?” I fake gasped, rolling my eyes dramatically.
    It was no secret that my brother and his girlfriend, Beth, had an interesting relationship. She was what Chase and I referred to as Texas royalty. Her family was rich—the filthy rich kind—and whatever Bethany Crosswell wanted, Daddy handed to her on a silver platter, including my lucky brother.
    “Ahh, don’t look at me like that, Mila Jean. I love her, I really do, but sometimes, her family is …” Tanner paused, but I was all too happy to fill in the blank. “Spoiled. Rich. Egotistical. Texas royalty?”
    “Stop, please stop.” He scrubbed a hand over his jaw, and a shot of guilt bolted through me for giving him a hard time. He had enough of that at the hands of Beth. “This is supposed to be about you, not me. So you and Gennery, huh? I gotta say it, Jeanie. I never saw this coming. Not in a million years.”
    “Neither did I, Tan, neither did I.” I turned my head over to the window again and watched the town roll by. When I’d returned to Radeno, I hadn’t even thought about Ryan—not once. Now, he was imprinted in my