“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 forpicking. 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.
