Cactus Heart (Whynot #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Avery

My face was stained blue.

“Oh. My. God.”

I’d really done it this time.

I snatched a wad of makeup wipes out of the package and furiously scrubbed my cheeks and forehead until my skin looked like a cooked lobster.

Oh god. It’s not coming off.

“Fuck me.”

My jaw dropped at the horror of my appearance.

It was my fault for attempting to color my own hair. My chestnut waves were a frizzy pain in the ass half of the time, so after a bad week, I thought it would be fun to attempt to turn them—what did the package say?—anime blue.

I was a painter after all, right? Couldn’t be that hard to apply some hair dye.

Wrong. Now my hair was still the same shade of Whynot family brown, and I looked like I’d fucked a Smurf.

A string of curses flowed from my mouth in an unladylike manner that would have had my mother choking on her iced sweet tea.

Although after twenty-six years of fighting me tooth and nail, she’d partially given up on turning me into the perfect daughter.

I took too much after Dad, and since he passed, she’d stopped hating me so much.

Small comforts. It was too bad it took him dying for her to love me.

Oof. That thought stung a little too much and so I tossed it away like a dirty pair of jeans. I planted my hands on my hips and stared at myself in the mirror.

What the hell was I going to do?

Panic was setting in. I wouldn’t be blue forever, right? The dye had to come off somehow.

The good news was that I owned an art studio, so I was always covered in acrylic splatters of color. No one would notice . . . probably.

I picked my phone up and frantically searched how to get hair dye off my skin. I fanned myself with the flattened box of anime blue as sweat pooled in my pits.

“Shit.”

My gaze flicked back to the mirror and I turned my head, checking the Bob Ross clock hanging in the kitchen down the hall. Bob was always twenty minutes early, and I’d never bothered to fix him.

But that meant I was late.

There was no time to do everything Reddit was telling me to do.

Every Wednesday morning, I had to be at Whynot Paint before 9 a.m. or face the wrath of the small town’s elderly students for being late.

Ms. Carlson, in particular, was a pain in my ass.

Listening to a retired math teacher lecture me on tardiness was the last thing I needed this morning.

I grabbed a scrunchie off my vanity and swept my hair back into a messy bun. Five more makeup wipes in the trash, and I was only slightly less cartoonish.

As long as I avoided my brothers and mother and friends while in town, I’d avoid hearing about this little incident for the rest of my life.

My final final final warning phone alarm screeched. I winced, turned it off, and rushed to my bedroom.

This is what I got for wanting to make a change in my life. Everything had always been the same since I’d moved back to Whynot. The little Far West Texas town was slower than molasses, and the people here were nuttier than Evie’s famous pecan pie.

The last census showed that there were 2800 people in Whynot, and since I was raised here, I could name almost every single one of them. My four-year escape to the University of Texas in Austin for my fine arts degree would forever be referred to as my glory days from here on out.

Well, aside from the time spent dating a piece of shit who made me doubt everything about myself. But that was besides the point.

The only thing we had going for us here in Whynot was that it’d become a tourist destination over the last few years. Artists, photographers, and travel gurus alike flocked here throughout the summer. They came for the aesthetic, then left to escape the heat.

Since my dad passed away, my brothers and I did our best to carry on his legacy in the town. With the Whynot name, we were at the center of everything we could do to help this place.

I owned his old art studio and worked with the community to bring art to our schools and anyone else that was interested. I was also on the Whynot planning committee for the annual fall festival and an ear for everyone’s complaints.

Basically, I had three jobs, was bluer than a Texas summer sky, and had no romantic life because my two older brothers were menaces to anyone who batted an eye at me.

I had a love-hate relationship with those two.

Of course, I loved them. But I was sick of my love life being treated like something they could swoop in a ruin any time they wanted.

It was funny when I was a teenager, but now I was creeping toward thirty and could count on one hand how many people I’d dated.

The problem was, the last person I dated not only had been Dallas and Austin’s friend, he’d turned out to be manipulative.

Mean. Abusive. I was still angry at myself about dating him for so long.

I ended my relationship with Kevin the moment he left bruises on my arm in an argument, and then two days later, my dad unexpectedly passed away.

Needless to say, my brothers had their reasons for being overprotective. Even if they drove me nuts.

Dallas was a mechanic. Four years older than me, liked to keep to himself—which was unfortunate for him, because being a Whynot in Whynot, Texas meant you never had a moment of peace.

Between him and our oldest brother, Austin (another city name, because my parents embraced their Texas pride a little too much), Dallas was the least annoying of the two assholes.

Austin was the worst. Everything had to be a certain way in his world. The pressure he put on himself to be perfect spiraled out to everyone around him which made him completely insufferable at times.

My “messy” aesthetic? It drove him insane.

But, I had to hand it to him, Austin did his best. He also had too much on his plate, by his own fault, between running Whynot Stay, the library, and being head of the city council. He was thirty-five, and I was certain that with his stress levels, he’d be dead before forty.

But what the fuck did I know? I was the youngest of us three, and those dicks never listened to me.

I was probably going to grow old and die alone in my cute little house with a thousand vibrators and an addiction to one of those ridiculous dating shows Evie and June loved so much.

I threw on my favorite gray T-shirt, slipped into a faded paint-stained set of overalls, and rushed through the house snatching up everything I needed to get out the door.

My bag was tossed over my little green velvet sofa, my sunglasses on the sunflower-tiled kitchen counter, my boots kicked apart in the entryway.

June and Evie were going to lose it if they saw me today. I should have asked June to do my hair to begin with, but my ego had gotten in the way.

Speaking of my two favorite devils, my phone buzzed.

June: Have you seen your new neighbor yet?

Evie: Oh yeah, I’ve been waiting for an update. What’s he like?

June: Hey, we don’t know for sure if the neighbor is a guy. We just heard that from the grapevine. Could be a sexy woman

Evie: or a hot enby

June: All nonbinary people are hot

Evie: So so true. Avery, we need updates

I shook my head. It was too early in the day for this level of ridiculousness, but I was used to it.

Supposedly, the house across the street from me had been rented by a mystery man a couple days ago. No one had seen him yet, so I had no idea what he looked like or if he was even real.

I stepped out the front door and regretted it. It was summer and the heat was a sweltering, looming pressure on my body. The sun wasn’t even blazing yet, but sweat sprouted on my skin like a damn sprinkler.

My little house sat on a quiet street that was a four-block walk to the studio. Normally, I’d take that walk, but today I was opting for my ‘67 Ford truck that’d belonged to my grandfather instead.

I side eyed the house across the street as nonchalantly as I possibly could. There was no movement. No mysterious neighbor. Just a pretty sports car in the driveway that was nothing more than a pink ribbon on a pig.

Whoever my neighbor was, I knew one thing alone by seeing that car. They were annoying.

Haven’t seen him yet . . .

June: Are we sure he’s not dead?

Evie: You should barge in and find out

Y’all have lost your damn minds, absolutely not

June: Oh come on. Stir up a little trouble for once, Avery

Evie: You deserve some fun with a hot stranger blowing through town.

June: Get your freak on. We know you are one. And it’s been too long

This is what I got for telling those two everything. They knew I was kinky, and liked to remind me of that anytime someone interesting (meaning not from here) visited Whynot.

As if I’d ever sleep with my temporary neighbor, let alone let them spank me or pull my hair. Those sort of acts with someone required trust. They required connection.

I shook my head as I climbed into the truck. As messy as I was at times, I still was a rule follower through and through. It was annoying, honestly, because I wished I could be the girl that would go knock on a strange man’s door.

But nope, not me. I was a good girl who minded her business.

Most of the time.