On the Rocks (Becker Brothers, #1)

by Kandi Steiner

my heart was trained to love whiskey long before it ever learned how to love a woman.

She laughed the way the wind blew — softly, and then all at once, without an ounce of shame for how that sound might permanently shift the atmosphere around it.

“Anyone can lead an ordinary life, child,” she’d said to me one lazy afternoon. “But the best adventures are reserved for the ones brave enough to be extraordinary.”

“Every experience is an opportunity, no matter how trivial it may seem. Some of my best ideas and most memorable achievements began from a seemingly ordinary day.”

“If you were mine, Ruby Grace, your dreams wouldn’t come second to anything.”

He was a lightning storm, fun to watch from afar but dangerous to dance with.

And I just sat there, hands on the steering wheel, eyes on my passenger seat, and heart somewhere down the road with a girl who didn’t even realize she had it.

You’re not meant to be a puppet in some man’s sideshow, Ruby Grace. You’re meant to be his entire world.”

“No, you see me with your soul.” She swallowed, eyes flicking up to mine before they fell back to my mouth. “And I feel you with mine.”

If he was a dream, I would sleep, just so I could keep him a little longer. I’d sleep, and maybe — just maybe — I’d wake on a day where I got to keep him forever.

“Whatcha thinking about, Noah Becker?” “Just you, Ruby Grace,” I mused, meeting her gaze again. “Always you.”

“Selfish. What a silly word. Should you give to the ones you love? Absolutely. But should you lose yourself in order to better their lives at the expense of your own? Never.”