Small Town Romance
Prologue - Aiden
(Thirteen Years Ago)
M GMT’s "Time to Pretend" blasted through the speakers of Aiden Wescott’s family's hunting cabin, which was overflowing with Gresham High’s recently graduated senior class. Smiling faces and dancing bodies bounced on the lawn. Several of Aiden's buddies were doing cannonballs off the end of the dock, trying to splash the girls sitting on the edge with their feet dangling in the water. The girls shrieked in protest through their giggles.
The sense of communal freedom was palpable.
“Aiden, get your ass out here!” his buddy Jake called from the water.
“Nah, bro, I’m good,” he yelled back, grinning .
Out past the pond toward the gravel road, dozens of cars were parked half in the ditch, half on the road. The party would probably get busted. If it did, his dad would be pissed, but Aiden was headed to college in less than a month. Who knew when he’d see these friends and classmates again?
Worth it.
He walked over to the keg perched on the edge of a retaining wall, not far from the impromptu dance floor, and pumped the keg’s handle. Cheap beer someone’s older brother had scored for them poured from the tap. He tipped the lip of his red cup against the spigot, letting the liquid in slowly at an angle to avoid any heady foam.
Out of the corner of his eye, Aiden saw red hair whipping around and did a double take. Olivia Olsen was dancing with her best friend, Maddy. His smile broadened. Seemingly overnight, Olivia had gone from a quiet girl who had doodled her way through class to a free spirit with few inhibitions.
Cold liquid ran over Aiden’s hand.
“Shit,” he muttered.
He’d gotten distracted by her legs. He let go of the tap, transferred the cup into his dry hand, and tried to shake the beer off his free one, wiping the rest on his khaki shorts before looking back up at Olivia. She was singing along to the music, beaming. Even in the limited light from the cabin, her hazel eyes looked vibrant and full of something akin to anticipation.
This was the third party in a row where Aiden had spotted Olivia floating around like a hummingbird, laughing and dancing with a drink in her hand. Where had this version of her been hiding for the past twelve years? He’d never seen her party before graduation .
Their class had fewer than two hundred students. Everyone knew everyone’s story, even if they weren’t friends.
Olivia was in the National Honors Society and mostly hung out with the theater kids. Her friend, Maddy, starred in every production while Olivia walked around with paint on her jeans from her work behind the scenes. If she was called on to speak in class, her cheeks would turn an adorable shade of pink. As soon as she was done, she’d look down at her desk, and her soft, shiny red hair would fall forward, hiding her away.
Aiden took a drink of his beer, recalling the time she'd kissed him behind the puppet stage during Kindergarten Sunday School. He grinned and considered what it would be like to kiss her pretty red lips now.
Olivia still hadn’t noticed him watching. As she danced, the pale skin of her long limbs glowed softly in the moonlight. When she raised her arms with the rhythm of the music, her yellow tank top lifted, and he got a glimpse of her lean midriff. To his utter surprise, a little diamond hung over her navel.
Holy shit, Olivia Olsen has a belly button piercing?
Aiden’s universe shifted. He would have bet a hundred bucks against Olivia Olsen being the type of girl to pierce her belly button.
He lifted his Twins baseball cap off his head and finger-combed his hair back. Then he flipped the cap around so the bill was facing backward before adjusting it back into place. He was going in.