My cousin Laramie was busy hanging out with her best friend elsewhere tonight, so I was on my own until I found someone I wanted to join around the fire. Or there was always the off chance that my sister, Bonnie, would show. She was two years older than me, but everyone knew her and loved her. The bonfires hosted a wide range of Abby’s acquaintances. He was a popular guy, so you never knew who was going to show up.
I spied an open camp chair on the opposite side of the massive blaze and changed direction to try to nab it before anyone else.
Most of our graduating class got along pretty well—with a few exceptions. There’d been Lara Dillion, head cheerleader and colossal bitch, but she’d gotten married in college and moved away and never came back. I’d dated Connor Pritchard in eleventh grade and was definitely not a fan. And Floyd Ellerby had turned out to be kind of a dick. Although he still lived in Kirby Falls, he rarely came around. The last time I’d seen Floyd at a bonfire was a few years back, and he and Brady Judd had gotten into it about something. I’d never seen Brady soworked up. The guy was annoyingly friendly and unflappable—unless I was the one doing the flapping.
A devious smile had the corners of my lips twisting upward as I rounded the corner. Yes, irritating Brady was one of my talents. Like Beethoven and his symphonies. Leonardo da Vinci and his masterpieces. Some people played an instrument or could sing real good. There’d been a girl in our graduating class who’d become a famous dancer and performed all over the world. And much like Mandy Jessup, I’d found my calling. Unfortunately, it wasn’t anything as lucrative or notable as being a principal ballerina. I was Brady Judd’s nemesis, and no one could get his goat like I could.
The vacant camp chair I’d been eyeing came into view, and my boots halted as I pulled up short. A body attached to a pair of long, jean-clad legs slid onto the dark green nylon just ahead of me.
Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.
Unfortunately, the nemesis thing seemed to work both ways. As much as it pained me to admit it, Brady was just as gifted at getting under my skin. He was a tick on my backside and had been for as long as I’d known him. Growing up, we’d practically been neighbors. His family ran the apple orchard across the street. And even now, I had to see his stupid face nearly every day when we closed our respective businesses.
I’d petitioned my family to close the farm thirty minutes earlier or later so I could drag the chain across the driveway without having to interact with Brady, but they hadn’t gone for it. As it stood, most evenings, I was forced to walk down the path from Grandpappy’s parking lot to the main entrance and watch as Brady did the same from directly across the two-lane highway.
Judd’s Family Orchard had a billboard advertising the entrance to their property with a giant photo of eight-year-old Brady holding a basket of apples. The image had faded over the years, but I was still inundated regularly by his gap-toothed grin and the dimple in his right cheek. The cheerful script across the bottom advised motorists to “turn here for wholesome family fun.”
Whenever I saw that sign, I was reminded of the boy who’d snipped off the end of my pigtail in the first grade. Or the time he swapped out my banana pudding for mayonnaise at a church picnic.
As classmates since preschool, we’d been gleefully torturing each other for decades at this point. Back in high school, I’d played on the girls’ soccer team, and Brady had played on the boys’ team. Our paths had crossed a lot as a result. Our weird torture competition probably (definitely) wasn’t healthy, but grudges were seldom rational. And while most of our childhood and adolescent battles had been good-natured teasing interspersed with occasional hell-raising, the spring after I’d turned seventeen, I’d sworn I’d never forgive him.
Maybe it was juvenile to keep a promise I’d made to myself eleven years ago, but no one had ever accused me of being the most mature.
Now, from his place in the camp chair, Brady glanced up. A smirk was already formed on his surprisingly full lips. The orange glow from the fire cast his features in harsh relief, making him look demonic, possibly rabid. His smirk widened into a grin as he watched me stand there frozen, two feet away. The asshat had probably stolen the chair on purpose.
“Hi, Mac Attack. I didn’t see you there.” His voice was delighted, the good-ole-boy Southern accent dialed up to ten.
Sure, I lived in the mountains of Western North Carolina too, but Brady exaggerated his twangy drawl and sounded more like an inbred yokel than anyone else I knew. One time, in second grade, he’d missedwashduring the spelling bee. He’d spelled out “w-o-r-s-h” because that was literally how he said it. There was country and then there was Brady Judd: shameless flirt, unrepentant annoyance, and backwoods-sounding hillbilly.
“Ibetyou didn’t,” I challenged.
Brady’s grin went full-blown megawatt. His even white teeth appeared to glow in the firelight like some sort of deranged maniac.
I eyed his smooth jaw and styled hair. The brown strands were longer on top and artfully arranged. I imagined if I ran my fingers through them and gave a good yank, my hand would come away sticky with product. Beneath the scent of crackling flames and woodsmoke, I got a good whiff of cologne—probably Axe body spray.
“What?” Brady asked when I’d clearly been staring too long.
I sniffed and crossed my arms. “Nothing. I just don’t see why you feel the need to get all gussied up?—”
“Thank you,” he interrupted like I’d complimented him.
“It’s just a bonfire at Abby’s. Same one you probably came to last Friday and the Friday before that.”
“If this lowly bonfire is so beneath you,” he replied, unoffended, “why do you keep showing up? You must not mind hanging out with all us peasants when you have such an engaging social calendar, Your Majesty.”
I scowled in response, not bothering to explain myself to him.
I just meant thatIdidn’t feel the need to curl my hair and put on a bunch of makeup to impress the same people I saw all the time. Most of them knew me back when I had a mouth full of braces or that obsession with One Direction in the fifth grade.
And now I was just Mac, the smart-mouthed Clark who did the bare minimum to get by. Twenty-eight. No children. No boyfriend. Hell, no prospects. I was basically a Jane Austen heroine in flannel.
My gaze shifted to the chair Brady occupied, and I sighed. No fireside seat was worth this.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did you want this here chair?” He wiggled his butt a little like I didn’t know which folding camp chair he was referring to. Then he spread his thighs wide to get comfortable, and I swallowed and looked away.
My eye roll was instinctual at this point—a conditioned response to this idiot. I might as well have been Pavlov’s dog ... but with better hair.
“There’s a seat right here,” Brady said, patting his thigh.
