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.
