“Sadie—”
“I said I’m good.”
“I’m not asking. Get in the truck. You’ve been skipping too many dinners. Dad’s not stupid. He keeps prodding me and Emmett about what happened.”
“Sounds like ayouproblem,” I mutter, stopping to stretch my calves, willing the fire in my stomach to die down.
“Get. In. The. Truck.”
I ignore him, feeling the weight of his gaze on me. I can almost hear the muscles tightening in his jaw, the way his fingers drum impatiently against the leather steering wheel.
Every instinct tells me to run. To take off through the fields so he can’t follow me. I hate that he still gets under my skin. I hate that I want to listen and get into the truck, soaking in as much of him as I can.
“Get in the fucking truck, Sadie.”
My head snaps toward him and my lip quivers—not from fear, but from the ache of every unsaid word between us.
I’m done running. I’m done dancing around this. Giving up, I climb in, arms crossed, trying to bury the thrum of want beneath the raging anger.
He doesn’t look away. His voice drops, softer now, pleading. “I just…I need to understand.Please.Tell me what I can do—how to fix—”
“It’s over, Wesley,” I say quietly. “Don’t make this harder than it already is.”
We don’t speak again, and still I can feel him beside me. The weight of him presses into every nerve. I hate that I’m so aware of his presence. I hate that being this close to him reminds me of the way his warm hands felt against me, the brush of his fingers, the way he made me feel pulled apart and stitched together all in the same breath.
But most of all, I hate that even as I try to shut him out, my heart remembers exactly what it wants.
Him.
I’mnumb.
Not entirely, but enough to not care anymore. Nothing can soothe the scorched tissue of my heart, that wound is too deep.
But tonight, I’m doing what I do best. Pretending.
I’m four tequila doubles in, hips rolling to the beat with some cowboy pressed against my back. I can’t remember if he told me his name, but it doesn’t really matter what his name is.
If you’d told me a few months ago this is where I’d be—drunk, dancing in a small mountain-town bar with a stranger—I would’ve thought you were out of your mind. But here I am, letting Mr. Cowboy slide his hands dangerously low on my waist with zero plans on stopping him.
He’s tall, smells like an Abercrombie store, and lucky for him, I’m not feeling picky tonight.
When I close my eyes, I canalmostforget.
Forget the way it felt to have Wesley’s hands on me in the same places. Forget the way he’d drop his forehead to mine and whisper sweet nothings while he pressed himself into me.
But these aren’t Wesley’s hands, and they never will be again.
Emmett’s partly to blame for my current state. Since Landon and Lydia bailed on joining us, he’s been playing the devil on my shoulder, sliding shot after shot across the table until the edges blur. I’m not complaining. The warmth flowing through my veins is the closest I’ll get to numbing the sting every time I look across the room and see Wesley.
Almost.
The music shifts, and the slow, sensual sway is cut off by a pounding, upbeat song. The floor erupts, boots stomping, arms swinging as the crowd rushes into a line dance.
“There’s a line dance to Ed Sheeran?” I say with a laugh, but the words barely leave my mouth before I’m hoisted over a broad shoulder like it’s nothing.
“Emmett!” I squeal, pounding at his back. “Oh my God, put me down.”
He doesn’t.
