Chapter 3 #3
“It’s not what it looks like,” I protest weakly, even though the photo shows exactly what it looks like. Me, desperate and wanting, surrounded by McCoy men.
“No?” Wyatt holds the phone up so we can all get a good look at the photo, where Jesse and I look like we’re about to tear each other’s clothes off. “I could be wrong, but it looks like you’re about to kiss my brother.”
“You are wrong. I was not about to kiss anyone.” Even though I absolutely was thinking about it. Thinking about kissing all of them.
“The camera says otherwise.” His voice is rough, and when I look up at him, his eyes are dark with something that might be jealousy.
My phone pings again. And again. The notifications are coming so fast, I can’t keep up.
“Make it stop,” I groan, covering my face with my hands.
“Can’t stop the internet,” Boone says cheerfully. “Once it’s out there, it’s out there forever.”
Gee, thanks.
Mrs. Delaney is still snapping pictures, now focusing on Wyatt holding my phone, my obvious distress, and the way the three brothers have unconsciously moved closer to me, protective and possessive.
“This is even better,” she announces. “Love triangle! No wait, love quadrangle! The plot thickens!”
“There’s no love triangle!” I shout, loud enough that Rita startles and tries to bolt again.
“There’s no love anything!” Wyatt adds, his voice harsh, but his eyes are still burning into mine.
“Oh, honey,” Mrs. Delaney says with a knowing smile, looking at my wet clothes and the way all three men are positioned around me, “the photos don’t lie. Chemistry like that can’t be faked. And from the looks of things, you’re all feeling it.”
She climbs back into her golf cart and waves goodbye. “I’ll tag you in the next batch! This is going to be the most popular post in group history!”
As she drives away, still typing on her phone, I want to melt into the ground and disappear in shame. My body is on fire from all this McCoy proximity, I’m basically naked in wet clothes, and the entire town is about to see photos of me looking like I’m in heat.
“My dad’s gonna see this,” I say faintly.
“So’s ours,” Wyatt says grimly, his hand coming to rest on my shoulder.
“And the pastor,” Jesse adds, his fingers brushing my hip as he shifts closer.
“And everyone who shops at the grocery store,” Boone says.
“Thank you for the comprehensive list of my impending humiliation,” I snap, but my voice wavers because I’m surrounded by them, drowning in testosterone and heat.
Boone grins and waves at another car driving by, the driver clearly rubbernecking.
“Might as well give them a show,” he says, his hand squeezing my waist. “We’re already front-page news.”
“This isn’t funny,” I tell him, even as my body leans into his touch.
“It’s a little funny.”
“Not.”
My phone buzzes with a text.
Dad: Get home. Now.
The words are like cold water, breaking through my haze.
“Gotta go,” I say in a small voice.
“Probably a good idea,” Wyatt agrees.
But as I start to lead Rita away, Jesse falls into step beside me, his hand finding the small of my back.
“Hey,” he says quietly, his voice intimate. “It’ll blow over. Small-town gossip always does.”
“You don’t know Mrs. Delaney very well, do you?”
“I know she means well.”
“You sure about that?”
Jesse’s mouth quirks up in a half smile. “Maybe this isn’t such a bad thing.”
I look at him, this McCoy boy who’s managed to turn my quiet weekday into front-page gossip, who’s looking at me like he wants to devour me right here in front of everyone, and I can’t decide if I want to kiss him or strangle him.
Maybe both.
“It’s kind of bad. Maybe even really bad,” I mutter.
“Hey, don’t throw in the towel.” His voice drops, becomes suggestive. “It would be worse.”
“How?”
“I prefer to focus on the positive,” Jesse says. “How about how good you look in those wet—”
“Jesse,” Wyatt’s warning growl cuts him off.
“What? I’m making conversation.”
“You’re making trouble.” Wyatt’s moved closer too, and I’m caught between them again.
“I thought Callie was trouble,” Jesse says, his eyes on my mouth.
I am. I’m the kind of trouble that’s about to combust from sexual tension in the middle of a public space.
“I should really go,” I say again, but my body is screaming at me to stay, to see where this dangerous game leads.
“Yeah, I guess,” Jesse agrees. “You should.”
But neither of us moves. We stand there, the air crackling with unspoken want, with forbidden desire that everyone can see.
And judging by the heat between us, this is far from over.
The guys walk me to the property line. Jesse is at my side with his hand on my back, and his brothers follow like predators stalking prey. I’ve gotten seven more notifications, three missed calls from Dad, and a text from a cousin asking if it’s true that I’m “fraternizing with the enemy.”
“This is ridiculous,” I mutter, pulling Rita away from the weeds she’s starting to munch on. “It’s completely ridiculous.”
“Welcome to small-town life,” Jesse says, his voice low and intimate.
“I’ve lived here my entire life. It’s never been this ridiculous.”
“You’ve never been caught on McCoy property with wet… things before.” His eyes drop to my chest where my shirt is still clinging. “Wet everything, actually.”
The observation floods me with heat again.
“I’ve never been caught on McCoy property at all.”
“That we know of,” Boone adds with a grin that’s far too knowing. “Maybe you’ve been thinking about it. Maybe you’ve been wanting to cross that line for a while. Maybe you’ve been hanging out on our property all along and this is the first time we’ve caught you.”
“Look,” I say, trying to sound reasonable and mature and not at all like someone whose panties are soaked for reasons that have nothing to do with water. “We need to agree that nothing can happen between us.”
The words taste like ash in my mouth, fighting against every instinct to step closer, to see what would happen if I just gave in.
“Nothing,” I agree, forcing myself to look each of them in the eye even though Wyatt’s intense stare makes me want to drop to my knees, Jesse’s heated gaze makes me want to melt, and Boone’s surprising hunger makes me realize he’s not a boy anymore.
“No more... whatever this was. No more flirting, no more conversations. No more hair-fixing or hose-borrowing or goat-related emergencies.”
“That’s a lot of rules,” Jesse observes.
“They’re not rules, they’re survival tactics.”
“Same thing. But what if we don’t want to survive? What if we want to burn?”
My lips part involuntarily, and his eyes darken.
Wyatt crosses his arms, the movement making his biceps flex. “She’s right. About the rules.”
“Thank you,” I say, even though his agreement feels more like rejection than validation. Even though my body is screaming at the loss.
“We stay on our side, you stay on yours,” Wyatt continues, his eyes on my lips. “No contact. No emergencies. No exceptions.”
“No midnight visits,” Jesse adds, his voice dropping to a whisper. “No accidental meetings. No giving in to what we all clearly want.”
I nod, trying to ignore the way my stomach twists with disappointment, the way my body clenches with need. “Exactly. Complete separation.”
“Like the Berlin Wall,” Boone suggests as he moves closer too.
“The Berlin Wall came down decades ago, little bro,” Jesse says.
“Bad example, then.”
“Like the DMZ,” I say, my voice shaky. “Heavily guarded. Dangerous to cross.”
“Are you planning to install land mines?” Boone asks.
“If necessary.”
Jesse’s grin suggests he finds the idea of me installing land mines more amusing than threatening. “You’d never keep us out if we really wanted in.”
The promise in his words makes my knees weak.
“So we’re all in agreement,” Wyatt says, his voice flat but his eyes burning. “No contact.”
“No contact,” I repeat.
“None,” Jesse agrees, but he leans down so his mouth is near my ear. “Even though we all know you were wet before the water hit you. Even though we all saw how you responded to our touch.”
I gasp, heat flooding my face. And lower.
“What if Rita escapes again?” Boone asks, his fingers squeezing my hip.
“Rita’s not escaping again,” I say with a wavering voice. “I’m installing better locks. And possibly a tracking device.”
“What if there’s an emergency?”
“What kind of emergency?”
“The kind where you need three strong men to help you with something?”
“Isn’t that what 911 is for?”
Rita bleats loudly.
“Even your goat knows you’re not being honest,” Jesse says.
“Rita thinks everyone’s lying. It’s her default setting.”
“Smart goat.” Wyatt steps closer. “She knows this isn’t over.”
“It has to be over. It never even started.”
“Didn’t it?” he asks.
Jesse steps closer on my other side, and I’m trapped between them. “So this is it, then,” he says. “Back to being strangers.”
“We were never anything but strangers.”
“Strangers don’t look at each other the way you’re looking at us right now,” Boone says from behind me.
“How am I looking at you?”
“Like you’re imagining what we’d look like without our shirts,” Jesse says with a grin.
“Or without anything,” Wyatt adds, his voice rough.
“I am not—” But I am. God help me, I absolutely am.
“Distance means distance,” Wyatt says. “Physical distance. Emotional distance. Complete distance.”
“How much distance are we talking?” Boone asks, pressing closer to my back. “Like, feet? Miles? Different counties?”
“However much it takes,” I say breathlessly.
“That’s not very specific.”
“It doesn’t need to be specific. It just needs to be effective.”
“Effective at what?” Jesse asks. “Keeping us from doing this?” He leans down like he’s going to kiss me, stopping just inches from my mouth.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Or this?” Boone’s hand slides around my waist, pulling me back against him.
“Definitely that.”
Wyatt watches, occasionally looking down and shaking his head.
Rita bleats again, louder this time, breaking the spell. We turn to look at her. She’s staring at us, her head tilted like she’s watching a show.
“I think she’s calling us liars,” Boone says.
“Possibly. She may be right. Rita has a good bullshit detector,” I say. “She destroys property and causes pandemonium, but tell her to root out bullshit, and she’s on it.”
“So she thinks we’re full of shit,” Jesse says.
“Rita’s a goat,” Wyatt says finally. “She doesn’t think anything.”
“You’d be surprised. Rita’s got her own mind.”
“See you around, pretty girl,” Jesse calls as I start walking away.
“No,” I say firmly, even as my body screams at me to turn back. “You won’t.”
But even as I walk away, I feel all three of them watching me, standing in a line like some kind of cowboy farewell committee. I can feel the heat of their gazes on my still-damp clothes, on the sway of my hips that I can’t quite control.
And Rita lets out one final bleat that sounds suspiciously like laughter.
Like she knows something we don’t.
Like she knows this promise of distance and separation is about as likely to last as her commitment to staying in her pen.
Like she knows I’m already planning to break every rule I just made.