Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
Iven
Wading through profiles took what felt like a century as I sat at my dining table during my lunch break and half-heartedly stuffed my face.
The cookie on my plate taunted me, but I ignored it in favor of my very important mission.
So many tiny faces, I swear to god, my eyes felt as though they were liable to bleed.
Everyone looked nice. Smiling. Grinning.
But after a certain point, everything seemed to simply blur.
He might not even be on the app, I told myself.
This whole thing could’ve been for nothing.
Just when I’d almost decided to give up, the angry wind in my sails depleted, I hit the metaphorical jackpot.
Presto bingo.
And there he was.
Well, more accurately, there his arm was.
I’d recognize that tattoo anywhere.
Only one guy in our small mountain town looked like a beefcake-ified version of Santa and had a pride flag tattooed on his ropey left forearm. A pride flag surrounded by a bunch of squiggles that were as cool-looking as they were incomprehensible.
Maybe wind?
Or something else manly-beefy-manly-manly.
When I scrolled through the rest of the photos on his profile, my suspicions were only confirmed.
His account was simply captioned with his business email.
Which was odd, admittedly, but not alarming.
At the very end of the slideshow of pictures was a full-body pic that sent my heart pounding.
Because revenge, obviously. No other reason.
Maddox Fuller stood dressed in a giant coat and a red flannel beside the ice sculpture he’d made last year.
He wasn’t smiling, not like the men in the other profiles had been.
In fact, in all the time I’d been aware of him, I didn’t think I’d seen him smile.
Not once. In all his white-haired, grisly faced, macho-man glory, he was a sight to behold.
Hard lines, dark brows, and an edge to him that screamed intensity.
I was his antithesis in many ways. Tall and reed thin, sporting a well-maintained but clipped mustache, straighter than a thermometer, not a throbbing vein or tattoo in sight.
I zoomed in to look at his shoulders more closely and whistled.
“Well, he’s gorgeous,” I mumbled to myself before taking another bite of my steadily cooling lunch. I adjusted my glasses a moment later, giving the photo a more appreciative look. “How have I never noticed that?”
Maddox Fuller and I were certainly opposites. But that didn’t stop me from hitting the button that would send me right into his direct messages. Nor did it stop the little manic fizzle of hope that flickered in my belly as I began to type our first-ever correspondence.
“Get this right,” I murmured to myself, hunched over my dining room table. I pulled my knees up, tucking them beneath me like a horrifying pretzel, in battle-mode. “Cheeky but not too cheeky.”
No, no. That wasn’t it.
I deleted what I’d written and tried again.
“Be enticing, Iven,” I muttered. “You want the man to help, don’t you?”
I often spoke aloud when I was thinking. It was something my ex had abhorred. A “bad habit,” according to her. I found peace in it, though. Now that I was blissfully single, I could talk to myself as much as I wanted—and I did so with great glee.
“Ah.” A new idea struck. “Yes. You’re a genius, Iven.” I paused with a laugh. “Why thank you, Iven. You’re welcome, Iven.” Silly, yes, but cathartic.
And then I hit send.
Me: How do you feel about pettiness?
Me: And/or revenge?
Me: Also, hi.
I waited. Waited some more. Finished my lunch and headed downstairs to the shop to continue my waiting on the clock.
I stocked a new shelf of books—monster romance, a customer’s recommendation.
Waited another century. Chugged nearly a gallon of iced coffee (that iced coffee machine had been a genius idea—thank you, Penelope the part-timer).
I checked my ex’s status on Netbook, got angry all over again, and ultimately decided I’d had enough caffeine to last till closing. Why? Because being hyped up made me ragey in a way I normally wasn’t.
Strangling my phone till it was sweaty and threatening to break wasn’t doing anyone—least of all me—any good.
Janis, my ex, was a serial social media poster.
She posted about what sorts of things she liked on her bagels.
She posted about the weather—snowing—as per usual, thank you for nothing, Janis.
When she found a good deal on something online, that had a post too.
When she didn’t know what to wear, that meant she needed the entire town to weigh in. And weigh in they did, nosy bastards.
If my personal flaw was thinking out loud, Janis’s flaw was making everything in her life public.
The current post? The one that had incited my ire and caused me to cold-message a muscle-man was nothing but innocuous. It was posted this morning at six o’clock—as though the first thing she’d done the second her eyes popped open was pull Netbook up.
Today’s post said, “I can’t wait to join this year’s competition!” She’d shared a graphic the Parks and Recreation Department had whipped together in Microsoft Paint to announce the dates.
This year’s competition, as in, the ice carving contest our tiny town hosted mid-winter. The very same ice carving contest that Janis had roped me into attending with her—as it was a couples-specific event—only to lose each year like clockwork.
It wasn’t fun.
Whacking at the ice was cold and uncomfortable, and everything I created looked like it belonged in a Raddit thread titled: “What not to do.” Janis was no better.
She’d never been any better. We’d smile at the end, at our hideous lumps of nothing, and get coffee afterward.
Something hot and piping for her, and something sugary and iced for me.
Always iced.
Even in winter.
Truthfully, after we’d broken up—mostly…
amicably—I’d been relieved to never have to participate in the damn competition again.
I was ready to be single. So ready. Ready to talk to myself all I wanted, to throw my dirty socks all over the apartment, to not have someone else relying on me all the time for every little thing.
And sex? Ha! When I was interested in it, my right hand was genuinely more fun than being on the hook for someone else’s pleasure, as selfish as that sounded.
Privately, I’d always thought Janis got the better end of the deal. I was the one who put 90% into our relationship after all. The only thing she had to do was show up, and I’d wine and dine her, catering to her needs like she was the queen of our tiny town.
And yet…she’d found me boring, evidently.
That was fine.
I’d found her boring too.
Our small town was nestled so deep in the mountains, I swear to god, all it took was one stiff breeze to turn me into a block of ice.
I’d moved here a decade ago to get away from the bustle of the city, and boy, had I succeeded.
We had traditions here. A loyal but gossipy community.
Activities that the whole town became invested in, at the drop of a hat.
Spending hours outdoors hacking away at a chunk of ice was not, and had never been, my idea of a good time.
I couldn’t wait to skip this year. Couldn’t wait to watch the droves flock to the town square through my foggy window, sipping coffee upstairs where my heater could blast and I wouldn’t have to get down and dirty with a chisel ever again.
However…
That feeling had very quickly changed.
Why? You might ask.
Because Janis’s brother, Brian, had commented on her status update. Brian, who was an A-class dick-face and deserved all his meals to be criminally under-salted for the rest of his life. Brian…who had responded in Janis’s comments, like a total freaking jackass by saying—
Maybe now that the beanpole’s out of the picture, you’ll actually win.
I feel like, given the above evidence, my rage-fueled response was frighteningly justified.
Hunting down Maddox—the man who’d won the competition the last ten years in a row—and soliciting him for help.
All because I swore to god if Janis got a better score without me—and if Brian of all people was proven correct—I was going to eat my left shoe.
Everyone knew Maddox was going to win again. However, there were second- and third-place prizes, too. A fact that haunted me. I didn’t want to be the reason Janis had always sat at the bottom rung of the proverbial competition ladder.
I didn’t want to be a loser. I’d spent enough time feeling like I was one during my childhood.
Maddox’s text came some time after dinner.
After I’d locked up the shop and sent the part-timers home.
After I’d taken a shower and reheated a plate of cheesy chicken and broccoli.
After I’d folded myself onto the couch and begun binge-watching my favorite drama for the fiftieth time in a row since the breakup—simply because there was no one around to tell me I couldn’t watch the same thing over and over again if I wanted to.
“I love this episode,” I said to no one in particular as I cracked open a beer and put my sock-covered feet on the coffee table.
Dressed in boxers, my sweater, and my sock garters—because again, cold as fuck, no way in hell was I letting those bad boys slide down while frigid—I was both caught off guard and elated when I saw that Maddox had finally replied.
Maddox: Who is this?
I blinked down at my phone, confused for a moment, before I realized in my haste earlier I’d forgotten to actually set up my profile on the Heart2Heart app. Which meant I’d messaged Maddox without a profile picture, or description—and oh. Oops.
Me: Iven Broomhaur.
Maddox’s next reply came quicker than the first had, thank god.
Maddox: Who?
Me: The guy who owns the bookstore.
Maddox: Describe yourself.
Me: Brown hair. Blue eyes. Glasses.