Out of the Wild (Sweetbriar Hollow #1)

CHAPTER 1

Maddie

Please let this go better than last time.

It’s not even nine yet, and Jake has already graduated from beer to whiskey.

A twisted knot lodges in the pit of my stomach whenever he drinks this much. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, all the evil-eyed glances pointed my way unravel what’s left of my already fragile nerves.

Unfortunately, their not-so-subtle scorn isn’t entirely unwarranted. They know Jake and his infamous antics. But in my defense, they know me too, which means they should know I have no control over him—especially when his brain is literally floating in a pool of liquid stupid.

Still, somehow, it’s my responsibility to prevent my intoxicated manchild of a boyfriend from doing something completely unforgivable, like pissing on Sarah’s houseplants.

Yeah, he did that at Sarah’s last party.

And yes, several people recorded the whole thing, dangling dick and all.

I think everyone in town has seen the video. Lucky me.

Sarah and her fiancé love to entertain. Parties like this are their way of testing the menu they hope will be a big hit at the new restaurant they’re planning to open.

Sarah makes the best comfort foods, like potato salad, grilled mac and cheese, and don’t even get me started on her to-die-for barbecue sauce that takes Mark’s killer brisket to a whole new level.

Sarah is a perfectionist, which means she puts a lot into planning these events and everyone knows she’s been planning this one for months. It’s a small town, and while everyone was looking forward to it, I was hoping beyond hope that we’d be disinvited. But the universe hates me.

After what happened last time, and how Sarah threatened to, “saw off his little Vienna sausage of a pecker with a dull butter knife,” I couldn’t imagine ever being invited back. And that was right before she turned her white-hot rage on me yelling, “Get your sorry excuse for a man out of my house!”

In retrospect, even I couldn’t blame her.

I’d never been more embarrassed. And that should have been the end of it, but not with my Jake.

He wasn’t the least bit embarrassed. If anything, he was proud of his little stunt, like watering Sarah’s Ficus Audrey tree with his bladder was some kind of bad-boy rebel move you’d expect to see in a cheesy ‘80s movie. Sometimes I have no idea how his brain works… or if it’s working at all.

Part of it can be blamed on the alcohol.

Jake has been known to succumb to illusions of grandeur when he’s drunk.

Everyone knows that, yet somehow, he talked Mark into giving him a second chance and, as usual, I was completely left in the dark.

I found out purely by accident when I ran into Sarah on Main Street.

I had just purchased a muffin and coffee at Drury Lane Bakery and when I turned around, there she was with her perfect blonde hair, perfect boobs with cleavage a porn star would be jealous of, glaring at me in her size zero mini sun dress and heels.

Before I could even say hi, she had a perfectly manicured pointy acrylic nail pointing at my chest with a glare so fierce I almost dropped my coffee. Then it got worse.

In a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, she made me promise nothing would happen at her party this year.

While everyone stared at me with my heated cheeks, I halfheartedly whimpered the reassurances she required knowing they were empty words.

Like everyone who knows Jake, which is pretty much all of Sweetbriar Hollow, she had to realize no one has any control over my erratic boyfriend.

If I did, if I had even the tiniest amount of sway with him, I’d have a ring on my finger, and clearly, I don’t.

Like Sarah, everyone I graduated with is either engaged or married.

That’s what’s supposed to happen when you’re twenty-eight and have been with the same guy for as long as Jake and I have been together.

Isn’t four years enough time to decide if you want to spend the rest of your life with someone? Apparently not for my man.

Then again, he has been acting differently today.

At first, I thought he was just looking forward to this evening.

But he’s never acted this way over something as ordinary as going to a party.

It seemed like something else was happening, but what?

What reason could he have had for being all lovey-dovey when he came over this afternoon?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining.

It reminded me of what he was like when we first started dating, a side of him I haven’t seen in a long, long time. But the sudden change has me curious.

Sarah’s guests, most of whom I went to high school with, are milling around her pristine backyard, and as expected, they’ve separated into their usual condescending cliques.

I don’t have to eavesdrop to hear any of them.

With how loud they are, clearly they want everyone to know about the businesses they’ve started or the land deals they’ve made or the big, impressive job promotions they’ve been so deservedly bestowed with.

Those don’t bother me, but I’m a little envious of the ones talking about recent purchases of things I could only dream about.

Apparently, Shelly just got a new Toyota RAV4.

What I’d give for reliable transportation.

But the one that hurts the most is how Olivia keeps droning on about the new Oeuf baby crib she just ordered for the nursery she’s spending a fortune on.

She’s due in two months, and I can’t help feeling a tinge of jealousy—and by “tinge” I mean a green monster that makes the Hulk look like a newborn puppy.

I let out an involuntary sigh at the mere thought of having what she has, the perfect husband who just graduated from medical school while she’s seven months pregnant with a baby girl who will undoubtedly be the cutest baby ever with her parents’ flawless genes.

While all that is going on I’m standing here, alone, watching Sarah and Mark clean up like it’s the most interesting thing I’ve ever seen.

In other words, I’m standing here awkwardly, wondering where Jake disappeared to.

He said he needed to use the bathroom, but that was thirty minutes ago. Where is he?

I’m momentarily distracted when I see Mark spooning the leftover Brussels sprouts into a Tupperware container.

I loved everything he and Sarah made, even the glazed sprouts that Jake spit out with an exaggerated gag like he nearly choked on them.

What grown man spits out food in front of everyone?

Seriously, would it have killed him to just swallow them?

The glare Sarah gave me was so heated I’m surprised my hair didn’t burst into flames.

Thankfully, it’s Jake’s only embarrassing incident…

so far. If there’s a God, no one got a video of it.

To Jake’s credit, other than that moment of weakness, he’s been polite and on his best behavior, which is a relief, but also a little unusual for him.

Why is he being such a gentleman tonight?

The more I think about it, the more I can’t help wondering if he might be planning on asking me tonight.

Is that even possible? It sort of makes sense, like maybe it’s the reason he’s started in on the hard stuff so early—maybe he needs the liquid courage.

That’s so like him, relying on a good buzz to do something that makes him nervous.

I can’t hold back a smirk at the memory of the time he had way too many shots of tequila for breakfast on the day he was planning to demand, not ask, but demand his boss give him a raise.

I kept telling him it was a bad idea to show up wasted, but, as always, he wouldn’t listen to a word I said.

Instead, he got a DUI on the way to work.

And it just so happened that the female officer was Trish Mackleberry, who hated Jake for spilling cherry-red fruit punch—spiked with his own vodka, mind you—on her white prom dress our senior year.

I guess what they say is true, payback is a bitch.

From how Jake described it, she might have enjoyed cinching down the handcuffs a little too tight.

Can you blame her? I could only imagine the elated grin plastered on her face as she hauled my inebriated boyfriend to the county jail where he was held overnight.

That whole fiasco was bad enough, but then it got worse when he finally made it to work only to learn that he had been fired.

Yeah, maybe he should have listened to my suggestion about showing up to work sober. Crazy idea, right?

That was two years ago, and I’d like to think we’ve come a long way since then, but one thing hasn’t changed.

Jake still relies on his courage-in-a-bottle when he’s nervous about something, and that has my heart beating a little faster.

I know I shouldn’t get my hopes up, but I can’t help it.

I can already picture him on one knee in front of all these people. Could this really be the night?

For the past couple of years, things have been somewhat strained between us.

I miss the old days when we lived together.

Things weren’t perfect, but they were better.

Then Mom was diagnosed with stage-four breast cancer, so I moved back home to take care of her.

Well, not just her, but my dad and two older brothers, Josh and Keegan.

Three manbabies that seem to need more help than my poor, suffering mother. The whole thing is complicated.