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Ryder went directly to the woman who was sitting farthest away and facing us and slung an arm around her shoulder. He jostled her a little, making her cheek smoosh into his side.
“I have someone I want you all to meet.” He gestured with his chin in my direction. “Everyone, this is mine and Ezra’s much older cousin, Caleb Greyson. He just moved into town. Caleb, this is Dakota, Cody’s little sister, and this is Beth and Chloe.”
He indicated each as he moved around the table. “And of course, you already know my Paisley-Cakes.”
Irritation burned through Paisley, her shoulders rigid, though she still didn’t offer me a glance.
Her friend Dakota did.
She looked like she wanted to dive over the table and claw at my face.
She wasn’t the only one.
Anger radiated from the table, lifting and curling like coils of cigarette smoke.
I fought the urge to bolt.
This was uncomfortable as fuck and completely unnecessary. I never should have agreed to come here.
Dakota peeled herself from Ryder, and she cocked her head to the side, her brown eyes narrowing as she looked at me loitering to the side of their table. “So you’re Caleb Greyson.”
I stuffed my hands into my pockets. “I am.”
Paisley finally shifted to look at me. Eyes the color of the fields glared back, a toil of grassy greens and burnt earth, flecked with glinty emeralds that always made her gaze look like it sparked.
She suddenly hopped off her stool, wearing another pair of those cut-off shorts, frayed threads hanging around her thick, toned thighs.
My teeth ground.
“Oops. Looks like I need another drink. Anyone else?” she said, dramatically waving a copper mug in the air while completely shunning my presence.
“That’s my cue.” Dakota slipped off her stool, and she hooked her elbow with Paisley’s in a show of solidarity.
“Us, too.” Beth and Chloe joined them.
“I’ll wrangle up another table so we can all sit together for when you get back. It is Ezra’s birthday. We need to celebrate our favorite Sheriff. It’s party time, baby.” Ryder grinned, the smug bastard, and he did it looking directly at me.
They disappeared into the fray heading in the direction of the bar.
The second they were out of sight, Ryder’s expression tightened. “What the fuck did you do?”
This was brutal.
Like he’d promised, Ryder had found another table and dragged it up to the first. I’d settled on the farthest side in an attempt to fade into the shadows, doing my best to ignore Paisley who had moved as far away from me as she could get.
Ignoring me, too, acting like I didn’t exist, though she was tossing back drinks like they could douse the fire that had burned between us earlier today.
Their friend Beth had left, needing to work early, and Ezra had also bailed. Even though the kids were spending the night at his mom’s, I knew he wanted to check on them.
And somehow…somehow I was still sitting there, a masochist chained to the stool.
Hours had passed, and Paisley still hadn’t offered me so much as a word. Not that she owed me anything. She’d made it perfectly clear what she thought of me. Part of me wanted to blame her. Take it out on her. But when it came down to it, I was just a dick.
I felt irrationally angry when she was in my space, irritated energy rushing over my flesh in shockwaves and hitting me with urges that I could barely contain.
I wanted to reach out and take her by the shoulders and shake her.
Maybe kiss her wild into submission.
Fuck it out of her.
Because she provoked something inside me that I couldn’t afford to feel.
She laughed loud, her voice becoming slurred, no care as she kept tossing back drinks.
A song began to play, one Paisley and her friends apparently loved with the way they squealed and clapped when the obnoxious twang of it vibrated over the wood floors and grated through the dense, dark air.
Paisley catapulted off the stool and ran with Dakota and Chloe onto the dance floor. That drape of white hair swished around her like the toiling of the sea. The three sidled up to each other in a line along with half the bar.
Oh, I’d heard of this nonsense before, and I couldn’t help the way my face twisted into something that had to resemble a snarl as I sat back nursing a bourbon and watching the ridiculous display.
The way her hips moved with the beat as she strutted around, her feet quick to glide through the intricate steps, adding her own flare as she kicked her boots, spinning, sliding, and stomping, moving the opposite direction, the girl a white flame in the middle of this mess.
Her smile was freed and chaotic, the lights strobing over the soft angles of her face in a manic fashion. My guts fisted, and I tried to cool whatever it was that kept rising from the depths, a windstorm that couldn’t be contained.
