Chapter 4
four
brADY
I was running late.
I hated running late.
Sticking to a schedule helped me focus. It kept me on track and prevented distractions. I knew that Abby—or anyone else, for that matter—wouldn’t notice or care that I was late for a Friday night bonfire. It had always been a casual event. But I could feel the shift and upset to my own inner timetable.
Candace had recently started adding local bands and food truck events to the calendar at Judd’s Orchard. They’d been popular so far, and tonight especially. She’d asked me to stay a little late to help wrangle the crowds. Since I was an accommodating and benevolent brother/co-worker, I’d said yes. Plus, I didn’t want her closing up alone.
But staying over at the orchard meant I was getting to Abby’s property at nearly ten o’clock. There were only a handful of vehicles left in the field beside the barn. I figured the early-October weather was scaring people off. This was the first really cold night we’d had this fall. But it was clear and beautiful. I spied an ocean of tiny stars scattered across the sky when I hopped out of my truck.
I breathed in the familiar scent of woodsmoke and made my way toward the bonfire to warm up, but before I turned the corner of the barn, I spotted MacKenzie Clark leaning against the side of the building. Her head was tipped back, resting on the rough wooden planks, and she was breathing deliberately—in through her nose and out through her mouth. Her breath created a plume of white with every exaggerated exhale. This looked very much like the exercise of a person trying very hard not to puke. I recognized it well from my years in undergrad.
“You okay over there, Macaroni Salad?” I asked as I slowly approached her.
Her eyes shot open, but she didn’t move away from the wall. “Please don’t talk about macaroni salad,” she slurred.
I grinned. “Did you overindulge? Are you regretting your life choices?”
“I’m regretting your life choice,” she grumbled and closed her eyes once more.
I chuckled. “Do you want me to go get someone for you so they can take you home? Is Larry here? Or Bonnie?”
Mac started to shake her head and then immediately halted. “No, don’t. I won rock, paper, scissors with Larry, so I got to drink, and she has to drive.”
I peeked around the edge of the old barn and saw Mac’s cousin in among the half dozen or so people who were still gathered around the fire.
“Well,” I said when I faced Mac again, “I think you nailed the drinking portion of the evening.”
“Don’t start.” But there was no heat behind her words, and those typically fiery gray eyes stayed firmly shut. “You know what it’s like.”
I frowned. “I know what what’s like?”
Mac took a steady inhale through her nose before releasing another cloud of warmth into the air around her. I noticed her eye makeup was a little smudged, and her patented red lipstick had worn off.
“Dealing with the leafers,” she finally replied. “I just needed a break.”
Grandpappy’s was open to the public seven days a week during apple season. Mac undoubtedly saw her fair share of tourists. I could understand where she was coming from. The leafers could definitely try your patience. There were always feral children running wild while parents didn’t pay them a bit of attention. We had folks wandering the fields well beyond the rows labeled ripe for picking. And at least once or twice a year, I caught someone back by the pressing equipment “just trying to get a closer look.”
So, if Mac wanted to blow off a little steam on a Friday night, I couldn’t fault her for it. Especially when, in all likelihood, she’d be right back at it tomorrow, selling apples, answering questions, and wrangling chaos.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I get it.”
Mac nodded, and the movement had her suddenly unsteady. She wobbled like a foal on the deck of a pirate ship, and I darted forward to catch her before she listed perilously to one side and her face met the ground.
“Whoa, there.”
“I’m not a horse,” she groused as she attempted to right herself and get away from me all at the same time.
I rolled my eyes but was inwardly amused that she’d read my mind. “Why don’t you sit? Here. Let me—” With a hand around her upper arm, I guided her down toward the dead grass beneath our feet. She was so squirmy and unstable that I ended up going down with her and landing hard on my ass.
We were side by side, and she was breathing purposefully again. I wondered if I was about to get puked on.
Mac closed her eyes and pulled her long, dark hair out of the collar of her puffy jacket and swept it off to one side. Her skin was pale—paler than normal. I stayed quiet while she attempted to get her nausea under control.
I could have hopped up and wished her good luck with the vomiting. I could have joined my friends around the bonfire and told her cousin where to find her drunk ass. But this was maybe the longest, most civil conversation we’d had in recent memory. I still thought she was a delinquent vandal who needed anger management classes. But I also liked the idea that she’d needed my help—just a little bit—a moment ago. I could probably hold it over her head at a later date. Oh, I could even blackmail her with video footage of her getting sloppy drunk on a random Friday. I’d still hold her hair back if she did get sick. I was a gentleman, after all. I had two hands. I could use one to hold her hair and the other to steady my phone and film the destruction.
Maybe in her present state, she’d admit to paintballing the Apple House .
There were lots of diabolical reasons for me to stay right here with her warm thigh pressed against mine and her bony elbow poking into my side. At least, that’s what I told myself.
My gaze drifted over her face—watching for signs of impending upchuck. Her plump lips parted with every exhale, and her face was relaxed, dark brows neutral when they were typically drawn together in irritation or lowered in scrutiny.
Mac looked so different than normal. Ninety-eight percent of the time, she was firmly in charge of her faculties. She was quick on the uptake and always ready with a comeback—usually an impressively wicked zinger. Defensive was her default with me. Always had been.
Mac was a wrecking ball and a ballbuster. Basically, she would wreck your balls.
But right now, she looked softer and, despite the threat of vomit, approachable in a way I rarely ever witnessed.
She had this divot in her chin—just a slight dip, really. I was pretty sure I’d started the nickname “butt chin” that had clung to her during grades two through six.
Anyway, when we argued, sometimes I daydreamed about shocking the daylights out of her and grabbing her chin. I’d always thought that little divot would be the perfect spot to rest my thumb. But I’d never actually done it. See the aforementioned ball-busting.
“You don’t have to stay,” Mac slurred suddenly.
I jumped in surprise, jerking my eyes away from her profile.
“I know,” I said, waiting for my heart rate to slow from being startled. But it didn’t. For some reason, the muscle in my chest kept pounding out a frantic rhythm. Maybe it was used to all the battles with Mac over the years, and fight or flight seemed safest where she was concerned.
“Why don’t you want me to go get Larry?” I wondered aloud.
Mac groaned, and my muscles tensed, preparing to dive out of the splash zone should the need arise. But she only admitted, “Because she watched every time I grabbed a new bottle and told me to slow down at least three times with a handful of knowing looks and one very telling eye roll thrown in for good measure.”
I nodded even though Mac couldn’t see it. “Gotcha. Trying to avoid the familial ‘I told you so.’”
“Exactly,” she agreed and then forced another slow breath through faded red lips. “I don’t want her to know I fucked up and she was right about it. That’s probably why I drank so damn much in the first place.”
“To prove her wrong?”
Mac swallowed with a concerted effort. “Yeah.”
Quiet settled around us, and I was surprised at how comfortable it was. Mac was warm against my side. I hardly noticed the cold anymore. There was only the scent of woodsmoke and about a million stars overhead. No witnesses to whatever unexpected peace was happening between us.
“I’m tired of making decisions—the wrong fucking decisions—because I’m always overreacting or overcorrecting based on someone else.” Mac’s voice didn’t disrupt the night so much as part it neatly around us, creating a bubble of honesty—an alternate dimension where we shared truths with one another instead of spite. “But at least then I can blame things on them and not myself.”
For once in my loudmouthed existence, I had no idea what to say. Part of me worried that if I spoke or even breathed too loudly, she’d remember I was here and stop talking altogether. I’d never heard Mac sound so open or vulnerable. I didn’t know she was capable of it.
Mac continued unprompted, “Drinking too much because Larry warned me off. Half-assing everything at the farm because Will doesn’t expect any better from me. Living with my grandparents because that’s what’s easy.”
My heart had picked up again with each confession. I knew it was the alcohol talking. She was so far gone that she likely wouldn’t remember this conversation tomorrow. I should make myself get up and leave. Give her privacy for whatever she was going through.
But then Mac said, “Dating all these guys because Brady Judd gives me shit over them,” and I knew I wasn’t going anywhere .
Truthfully, I didn’t think I could move. I felt rooted to the ground, a painful spike of realization holding my limbs hostage. “What?” I choked out. In contrast, my own voice sounded rough and unpracticed. It destroyed the illusion of peace and cut through the quiet night like a rusty blade.
Head tipped back and eyes still closed, Mac snorted, and a twisted sort of amusement lit her features. “Remember last month at the farmers’ market? David came to pick me up.”
I rifled through my memories of working the Judd’s booth on Main Street back in September and came up with the image of a generic man in his early thirties with brown hair, khaki pants, and zero personality. The guy—David, apparently—had been meeting Mac to take her on a daytime date, of all things. I’d been nosy and taken the opportunity to rile Mac up over this guy who’d been so obviously wrong for her. I’d introduced myself and made some crack about him being her new boyfriend and how he shouldn’t feed her after midnight. Mac had gotten steamed, and we’d traded insults before she’d stormed off with a very dazed-looking David in tow.
Confused, I asked, “The dentist?”
“Yeah,” she confirmed. “The dentist. That was our first and only date, did you know that?”
I couldn’t remember seeing them together after that day, but that wasn’t unusual for Mac. She dated randomly in fits and starts. The guys never lasted long. I had a theory that she got bored with them—that they never measured up. None of these generic Davids or Toms or Noahs could hold her attention for long.
Before I could answer, the sardonic smile fell off her face, and she admitted woodenly, “I went home with him. And when I snuck out of his house later that night, I hated myself because I knew I didn’t even like the guy that much. When he called me to ask me out again, I lied and told him we were in different places. I said I wasn’t ready for anything serious instead of telling him the truth ... that I fucked him to prove a point, one that didn’t even matter.”
I felt the color drain from my face and a hollow open up in my stomach. Suddenly, I was the one in danger of being sick. I thought—I thought?—
“You know,” Mac said sleepily, “I’m tired of making mistakes for everybody else. It’s time I fucked up for myself for once. ”
The combination of shock and self-loathing and jealousy I didn’t have any business feeling left me weak.
That day ... we’d been bickering like always. Maybe I’d been feeling a spike of something at seeing her with another guy. I never imagined that my teasing would prompt such a reaction from Mac. If I had known?—
“I’m sorry, MacKenzie,” I whispered, aching to reach for her, to make her open her eyes to really see me and hear me. “I didn’t mean it. I never?—”
I cut myself off, unsure how to put it into words, ones that justified the pain I’d caused. I thought we were on the same page. You gave as good as you got. I wanted you to notice me. I wanted to make sure you couldn’t forget about me like you forget about the rest of them.
Things between us had clearly gone too far. I had taken them too far. I’d hurt her, caused her to react the way she hated—in direct opposition to someone else. And in all that knowledge, I realized ... I had the power to hurt her in the first place.
Before I could put any part of that into words or figure out a way to apologize again, Mac’s mouth dropped open, and a broken snore filled the quiet. Her head drooped over and rested heavily against my shoulder. I stiffened, but she didn’t wake. Mac had fallen asleep on me—trusting and unaware—and I hated myself a little more.
My mind wandered back through years of arguments and mocking. I didn’t know how long I sat there with Mac’s soft snore in my ear and her confession churning a maelstrom in my middle. But I blinked back into awareness sometime later when a pair of black combat boots came into my field of vision.
I glanced up to see Mac’s cousin standing in front of us, eyes wide with obvious shock.
“Holy shit,” Larry breathed in reverent amusement. “This is the best day of my life.”
The pint-sized goth-pixie hurried to extract her phone from her jacket pocket and proceeded to snap photo after photo from multiple angles.
“Judd, I know she’s my cousin, but would you like me to send you a copy of these? For posterity ... or blackmail or whatever.”
“No,” I managed .
Larry paused, expression morphing to frowny confusion. “What? Why? I told her ass not to drink so much, but did she listen to me? No, siree.”
I glanced down at Mac’s sleeping face. Larry’s gloating statement had me feeling suddenly protective, and I curved my body closer to the woman at my side.
I knew Larry didn’t mean any harm, but the statement rubbed me wrong just the same. The two women had been close their whole lives, best friends as well as family. But what Larry had just said reinforced what Mac had admitted. Sleeping Beauty here had practically called it earlier. Larry had warned her she was going too hard and too fast, and, as a result, Mac had doubled down out of spite or rebellion or whatever you wanted to call it. An overreaction, an overcorrection, she’d said.
Staring at her now, passed out and dead to the world, I felt empathy for the woman who was always trying to prove people wrong.
And like a bucket of cold water to the face, I stiffened at the thought of my own role in Mac’s decision-making.
Clearing my throat quietly, I looked back to Laramie. “Nah, I don’t need a picture. She’ll be in enough pain in the morning when she wakes up. Better not add insult to injury.”
Larry looked at me like I was an idiot, but then she shrugged.
I wiggled my toes to try to get some feeling back. “Why don’t you go start your car? I’ll bring her over.”
“Sure thing.” With a jangle of keys, Larry and her combat boots drifted away, lit by the automatic floodlights on the side of the barn.
I made sure Mac wouldn’t tip over onto the ground and got to my feet. Then I leaned down and carefully lifted her, one arm beneath her knees and the other cradling her back. I straightened and froze. Mac had slung her free arm over my shoulder and buried her freezing nose in my neck.
I waited a moment, but she didn’t wake. So it was with cautious steps that I made my way to the little hatchback at the far end of the field. Larry opened the passenger door as I approached. But when I crouched low to place Mac on the seat, she clung to me and snuggled closer, mumbling, “Smells good,” into the skin just below my ear .
Ignoring my burning cheeks and the recent memory of Mac calling me “Axe Body Spray,” I forced my reluctant muscles to unlock and gently deposited my drunken charge onto the seat. With patience I absolutely didn’t feel, I reached in and drew the seat belt across her, clicking it into place and then straightening out of the cramped vehicle, back to my full height.
I closed the door softly, willing Mac to stay asleep. I was not ready to deal with ... whatever that had been. I didn’t want to think about the way her body felt in my arms or the little moan that had vibrated against my neck when she’d said I smelled good. These were all things that I was not willing to unpack right this moment. After the earlier revelation that Mac had gone home with a guy she didn’t even like because I’d given her shit over him, I literally could not process everything that was happening in my overactive brain. It was going a million miles an hour, and if Mac opened her eyes and looked up at me, I would probably panic and crawl under the car.
Fortunately, she didn’t wake. But when I turned around, her nosy cousin was standing there with one perfectly manicured eyebrow raised and a shit-eating grin on her face.
I ignored all of that, too. “You’ll stay with her? Make sure she’s okay?”
A second dark brow rose to join the first. “Of course.”
I swallowed uneasily and said, “Just tell her Abby carried her out here.”
It would be better for everyone if Mac never remembered tonight—the things she’d said, her brutal, terrible honesty, the vulnerabilities she’d revealed. She’d hate it. And she’d hate me for it in an entirely different way. Mac would think I had something on her—that I’d use it against her.
Larry watched me for a long, uncomfortable moment, then nodded. “Like adding insult to injury, right?”
I took a step back, needing to put some distance between me and ... everything. “Right,” I finally agreed.
Then I made my way to my truck without going anywhere near the bonfire and took my dumb ass and my wayward thoughts home.
One week had passed and I hadn’t seen Mac.
That in and of itself wasn’t unusual. It wasn’t like we texted or grabbed lunch between pranks and arguments. But, for some reason, her absence felt more intentional. Or maybe I was just noticing it more.
As I parked my truck in the field beside Abby’s barn, a sense of small-town déjà vu hit me like a wrecking ball. I felt my heart speed up at the thought of running into her tonight. She didn’t usually come out to the bonfire two weeks in a row, but maybe?—
As I walked through the grass, my eyes passed over the corner of the building where we’d sat for over an hour last week. Thoughts burst rapid-fire in my mind, and I forced myself to take a deep breath and keep going.
I’d had all week to sift through what had happened last Friday, and I still didn’t know what to do about it. I felt jittery and more distractible than normal—which was saying something for the ADHD kid who used to get detention because he couldn’t just sit still.
My fingers fidgeted with the key chain in my vest pocket as my eyes scanned those assembled. I spotted Abby and Jase by the fire, both of them on their phones. There was a decent crowd tonight. My gaze snagged on Connor Pritchard. I hadn’t seen the guy in a few years. His dad had been my assistant principal back in high school, and Connor had acted like he owned the place as a result. He’d played football and basketball and been pretty popular. He’d also dated Mac very briefly in eleventh grade before spreading a bunch of rumors about her and how she wouldn’t put out.
My hand tightened around the cool metal of my key chain, and I forced my attention elsewhere.
After a thorough once-over of my surroundings, I didn’t see Mac anywhere.
I felt equal parts relieved and disappointed. No, that was a lie. One emotion had a clear lead, and I didn’t want to examine that too closely.
I made my way over to the coolers and grabbed an IPA. I popped the top on the side of the picnic table, and when I looked up, I nearly dropped the bottle in my hand. Mac was standing there in a low-cut green sweater dress over black tights, rooting through the cooler across from me. I stared in surprise, unsure how I’d missed her when I’d been looking so hard earlier .
She straightened with a bottle of water, and I wondered at her selection. Was she taking it easy because she’d gotten so drunk last week?
And why was she all dressed up? Mac’s typical bonfire attire was casual—jeans and a flannel. I swallowed hard as I fought the instinct to check out her hemline, but she’d obviously made an extra effort tonight. Her hair looked soft and so did that dress. I couldn’t help but wonder who she was trying to impress. Not that it was any of my business. And yet?—
“What?” she said, after I’d been staring too long.
“Nothing,” I practically barked before making my voice nice and even. You know, like a normal person. “How are you?”
I was waiting for her to say something about the other night. Maybe for her to issue a threat to keep my mouth shut about what she’d said—how much she’d revealed about her frustrations and her fears and her family. But it never came. She just kept watching me.
Eventually, she murmured, “I’m fine.”
Mac’s jacket was open over her dress, and my eyes dipped briefly to her cleavage before meeting her still-suspicious gaze.
An awkward silence descended while I made a conscious effort not to look at her in case my gaze drifted to her chest again because—holy shit—that dress looked really good on her. Of course, I’d noticed her breasts before. I was a heterosexual male. Mac was hot, but she was also a pain. I didn’t want her to stab me for checking her out, so I typically kept my eyes to myself ... for the most part.
“What’s going on with you?” she asked warily. “You’re being all squirrelly.”
I forced myself to stare at her face and only her face. “Nothing. No, I’m not.”
God, this was a disaster. Clearly she did not remember our conversation last week. She would have brought it up by now. I could just be normal. No, not normal. Normal led to teasing and then fighting. I didn’t want things to devolve, and I didn’t want to hurt Mac anymore.
“Did you share another wanted poster? Maybe take out an ad in the Kirby Falls Chronicle ?” she accused .
I thought about the illustration still up on my fridge and cleared my throat. “No—no, I didn’t. I wouldn’t.”
I could do this. I was determined to be nice to her, not rile her up or make her react. I didn’t want that on my conscience. Even if I sounded like a stammering fool, I wouldn’t be mean. I would be playful and funny. Laid-back and nice. Nothing hurtful. I would not tease her about dressing up for all us lowly peasants. I would not suggest she take an available seat on my lap. Jesus, I was a dick.
Her stormy gray eyes narrowed. “Did you let the air out of my tires?”
“No, that was you, senior year,” I snapped, already ruining my attempt at nice. Shit .
I took a deep inhale to center myself, and that reminded me of the way Mac had been breathing last Friday.
“I did not prank, accost, demean, or defile you in any way,” I clarified, and then mentally backtracked to noticing her nipples in that sweater dress and winced.
“I’m keeping my eye on you, Judd.”
I grinned and saluted, aiming for charming and missing by a football field.
Mac raised a haughty brow and took her bottle of water back over to the bonfire to join her cousin.
I practically sagged against the cooler.
This was only weird and uncomfortable because we had so much history. Decades of learned behavior.
But I could change. I would.
Just treat her like you would anyone in town , I practically yelled at my racing mind.
She’s not like everyone else , it whispered back.
It took two beers and about an hour for me to get my shit together and to start acting like a normal human. Eventually, I stopped being constantly aware of Mac in my periphery, waiting for the moment when she might approach and I’d have to ignore all my programming and figure out how to just be around her.
But it never happened. Mac didn’t come over to chat because why would she? We were rivals. Enemies. The thorns in each other’s sides. She never sought me out unless it was in retribution.
Abby and Jase asked what was up with me no less than six times, but I waved them off, saying I was just in a weird mood and it would wear off. And it did. By the time nine o’clock rolled around, I was laughing and joking and being my typical charming self.
But then my good mood took a nosedive when Connor Pritchard came over and slapped me on the back.
“Brady Judd. Good to see you, man.”
Is it? I wanted to say. Instead, I pasted on a good-ole-boy grin and an aw-shucks attitude and said, “Connor Pritchard. How the hell are you?”
Abby shot me a look. He knew how I felt about the guy. Best friends with long memories were pesky like that.
But I was playing nice tonight, all around. I could shoot the shit with a former classmate. Even if that former classmate was a huge prick. But whatever, I wouldn’t cause problems for Abby. Not again.
I’d picked a fight at a bonfire one similar night a few years back. Floyd Ellerby had shown up and gotten drunk and mouthy and called the cops. At one time, Floyd had been a teammate and good friend of mine. But things had gone downhill at the tail end of eleventh grade.
Thinking back to that time, my eyes drifted over to Mac across the bonfire. She was chatting with Emily Bates and Larry and looked like she was having a good time.
It was strange how so many of my experiences and memories led back to MacKenzie Clark. If you’d asked me two months ago if she was a big part of my daily existence, I would have said, No, not really . Mac was a constant, though, a regular in the story of my life.
But she was more than just a background player, hovering on the fringes. We’d crossed paths and come to blows more times than I could count. I had a memory of Mac at every age—from preschool to Bible study to soccer practice to this very field one week ago and a hundred times before.
Now, though, all those moments and realizations were stacking up in front of me, forming a wall I could hardly see over.
My interaction with Mac last Friday was the reason I could barely think straight tonight. Mac was why I thought Connor Pritchard was a dick and why I was biting my tongue at this very moment to keep from telling him so. And it was due to Mac that my friendship with Floyd ended junior year.
He’d randomly hooked up with her out at her family’s farm. I’d been an asshole at the time and tried to talk him out of pursing anything with her. I’d had my reasons. Sure, they had been immature and selfish and stupid, but that was what had driven my seventeen-year-old self to keep Floyd away from her. I’d been an idiot and too cowardly to admit the actual motive behind my actions had been jealousy and attraction.
But Floyd hadn’t listened. He screwed around with her in secret, too chickenshit to date her openly. And when she called him on it, he spread hateful rumors about how easy she was. Abby, Jase, and I had separated ourselves from Floyd after that. He’d quit the soccer team and avoided us too, taking up with guys like Connor and his lackeys. He’d lost his closest friends but gained the sort of drama-seeking bros who devalued and disrespected women for a chance at hot gossip and rising popularity.
Now Floyd worked down at Begley Auto with some other assholes.
When he’d shown up at the bonfire a few years after graduation, he tried to act like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t tried to ruin a young girl’s reputation. Like we were all still good friends. I’d set him straight on that and caused a big scene in the process. I didn’t regret it, but I knew how Abby felt about that sort of attention.
He was a respected business owner in town, and the last thing I wanted to do was make him regret our friendship. He put up with a lot from me. I was flaky and unreliable, loudmouthed and easily distracted. Abby had been the most constant presence in my life outside of my family. We’d been friends since kindergarten and roommates in college, and he was my brother in every way but blood .
So when Connor smiled his smarmy grin and bragged about the car dealership he managed over in Charlotte, I promised myself I would behave myself tonight.
And it worked for a little while.
Twenty minutes into reminiscing about his glory days, Connor nodded subtly over in Mac’s direction and said, “Man, I wished I’d waited until senior year to get with Clark over there. Didn’t realize she’d hit a growth spurt and have such nice tits. Back then, they didn’t even fill up my palms.”
His laughter died abruptly when I stood up and grabbed his expensive fleece jacket by the collar, dragging him with me. Dark spots clouded my vision as fury pulsed with every beat of my raging heart. All my wayward, misguided thoughts focused on the asshole in front of me and what I’d do to him for saying?—
I clenched my free hand into a fist and opened my mouth, but Abby pushed between us in a hurry. “Brady, go calm down. Connor, you better watch your fucking mouth or you can get the hell out right now. Mac’s a good friend, and you aren’t a teenage idiot anymore. You’ve got no right saying shit like that about a woman—any woman.”
Connor held up his hands in surrender and said obligingly, “Okay. You’re right. My fault.” His words were for Abby, but he was staring straight at me. “I take it back.” Then he laughed lightly. “Didn’t realize Kirby Falls had feminists all the way up in the mountains.”
“Hell, we even got a Walmart now,” I said amiably before making my voice hard with contempt. “We have all sorts of things you seem to have forgotten since moving away, Pritchard. Common decency and respect for women being chief among them.”
I felt Jase rise from his seat to stand shoulder to shoulder with me. He had three younger sisters and had been raised by a single mom. We were on the same page here.
Connor laughed again, but it sounded strained this time. “I’m going to head out. Good night, gentlemen.”
I watched him glance around nervously as he walked away.
It was quiet, the only sound was wood hissing and popping in the fire. I took in my surroundings, realizing conversation had halted as a result of the altercation. People—friends, former classmates, acquaintances—were all staring at me.
Against my will, my eyes found Mac. She was still across the way with Larry and Emily, but she was standing and looking between Connor and me.
My hand found the key ring in my pocket, and I swallowed uncomfortably at what she might have overheard.
I forced myself to take a steadying breath and face my friend. “Abby, I’m sorry for the trouble. I’m going to get out of your hair.”
He sighed. “You don’t have to leave, Brady. He was out of line. He deserved it. I was just trying to keep you out of jail. You know that asshat would have pressed charges.”
I nodded. “And I was definitely going to punch him in the face.”
My gaze flitted to Mac, who was still watching me.
“I’m taking off,” I said abruptly and slapped Abby and Jase on the back. “I’ll see y’all later.”
Then, I ignored the way Mac started walking around the perimeter of the fire, and I bolted for my truck.
To avoid that dipshit Connor, I cut through the knee-high grass and took the long way around the barn. The whole way there, I replayed what had happened and why I’d reacted so violently. That led me back to the incident with Floyd years ago. We’d gotten in a little more back-and-forth shoving before Abby had stepped in that time. The reason was nebulous, floating in the ether, just waiting for me to reach for it.
Instead, I flung open the driver’s-side door and threw myself into my truck, breathing hard and clutching the steering wheel in a death grip. I turned the ignition and cranked the heat up and stared unseeingly at the trees outside my window.
There had to be a logical explanation for why every single time I’d nearly come to blows with someone had been over the woman I couldn’t even have a civil conversation with. Yes, Mac and I brought out the worst in each other. I liked getting a rise out of her. She got off on it, too .
But then my mind drifted again to last Friday, hearing her confession, feeling the weight of her in my arms, the way she’d burrowed against me and held on tight.
Of course, I was attracted to Mac. That was just ... biological. She was beautiful. And, sure, back in high school, I’d wanted something different—something more. But I’d been too immature and stupid to make it happen. Maybe that was why I’d teased her so much. I’d wanted her attention, but I didn’t know how to go about getting it in a healthy way—too afraid she’d laugh in my face.
And then the thing happened with Floyd junior year. It had been shitty, but it had taken the possibility of Mac hooking up with my friend to get me to open my eyes and try being nice to her. To understand that I, maybe, wanted her for myself. But it hadn’t worked out, or it had been too little, too late. We’d devolved back into bickering and pranks, and from that point on, she seemed to hate me more than ever. I became the villain in a story that had gotten away from me. Where the character had overthrown the plot.
But that had been so long ago—over a decade. Sure, there had been times over the years when I’d gotten Mac good and riled and wondered what would happen if I kissed the hell out of her. I didn’t usually let myself venture too far down that path, assuming it would end in a praying mantis-style mating ritual and I’d end up headless. I didn’t have a head to spare—either one of them.
As my hands continued to tighten reflexively on the steering wheel of the truck, I pictured Mac’s maniacal glee over a well-timed zinger, the way her gray eyes flashed when I hit the mark in return. I remembered her cold nose pressing into my neck and the throaty sound of her voice telling me how good I smelled.
A hazy, imprecise realization was taking shape, like the Ghost of Christmas Past becoming corporeal so he could smack down some knowledge on my ignorant self. I shook my head, unwilling and firmly in denial.
“No,” I said out loud into the darkness.
But other images flashed behind my eyes. Mac cackling in the stands after she stole my soccer uniform freshman year, and I’d had to play the first half in a pair of her short shorts she’d shoved into my sports bag instead.
Or that time at senior prom when she’d brought a college sophomore with her. I’d caught up with them at the punch bowl and told her there’d been no need to pay a long-lost cousin to pose as her date. That had gotten her good and mad. Later, I’d watched from the sidelines as she’d danced in a very nonfamilial way with the mystery guy. My own date had gotten so pissed at being ignored that she gathered up her friends and took off with the limo I’d saved up all spring to rent.
It was Mac, over and over again. I couldn’t stop the rush of information or the knowledge landing like a sledgehammer over my head.
The way her eyes lit up and her energy crackled when we sparred. How my stomach flipped over itself when she slid into the market booth next to me on a Saturday morning. Anticipation, bright and addictive. The craving for her attention, for any kernel of acknowledgement, a single glance, a vicious grin. And the absolute satisfaction I felt anytime I could make her crack and get a laugh out of her.
My eyes shot open and I panted into the quiet, “Oh shit. Oh fuck .”
I dropped my head to the top of the steering wheel and practically wheezed, “I think I’ve been in love with MacKenzie Clark my whole life.”