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Prologue: Billie
Every small town had its traditions.
The Hallmark Channel would have people thinking that those small town traditions are super cute, adorable, the kind that fill you with nostalgia. And sure, some of them are. The whole going door-to-door caroling thing the Sunday evening before Christmas. The lighting of the big Christmas tree in the town square. The annual production of A Christmas Carol that all of the young people viciously competed to star in.
But there were also other sorts of traditions.
In this instance, one of those traditions was the annual Christmas kegger out at the Milner Barn.
In case anyone was still wondering why I was thinking about Christmas traditions specifically, that was because it was the Christmas season and I was at that annual kegger.
It wasn’t really something that the older generation did. They had their own version, some other place they’d gone out to—Mom had mentioned it to me a few times with a wistful and amused smile on her face. But for my friends and me, it was the Milner Barn. It was a couple miles out of town, just far enough that we could really party without worrying about disturbing people. Mistakes were going to be made tonight. Crazy mistakes. Every year, at least one person did something insane—and that was nothing compared to the rumors about who had done what. Sorting through what had actually happened and what people thought might’ve happened was always a bit of a nightmare for weeks afterwards.
Tonight, for the first time, I was hoping to be one of the mistakes. In a manner of speaking.
I had borrowed a dress, the tightest, most revealing one I could get my hands on, since I hadn’t wanted someone to see me buying it. God forbid someone see and tell my mom, and in a town like this, news traveled faster than the speed of light. In fact, I had ended up making it myself. I’d always had a love of fashion even if I wasn’t going to pursue it as a career, something I knew a few people were disappointed by, and I’d made the costumes for all the school plays growing up. This dress was definitely my masterpiece. I’d snuck into the costume room at the high school—our town was small enough that we didn’t have a proper theatre, we all just used the high school theatre no matter whether it was the local ballet school’s annual recital or a town-wide assembly about tornado safety—after hours to work on it so that nobody would know what I was up to.
Of course, now people were going to see me at the dance and gossip about why I was wearing such a damn tight and revealing dress but hey, too late for anyone to do anything about it. They could make up whatever rumors they wanted. I had the element of surprise on everyone.
Especially Pike.
My dress was a dark red, the kind of daring color that went well with my dark hair and brought out the differing colors in my eyes. They were hazel but tended to look completely brown if I was wearing drab colors and I wanted to look my best in every way tonight. The dress hugged all of my curves, a layer of tulle covering the darker fabric to give it a sort of ethereal look and give the illusion of covering my limbs even though the rest of the dress pushed my breasts up and was bare, sleeveless, and short, so that you could actually see everything through the tulle.
Pike was the most popular guy in town, always had been, and I knew I’d have to pull out all the stops to get his attention. Especially considering the age difference.
Okay, so anyone older might not think four years was a lot, and maybe if one person was thirty and the other was thirty-four it wasn’t a huge age difference but when you were growing up? It might as well be decades. I’d had a crush on Pike since I was fourteen, but he’d been eighteen. A legal adult, about to head off for college, and totally out of my league maturity-wise. He had never once looked in my direction and I honestly couldn’t blame him (although my poor diary hidden under my mattress had plenty of tear-stained pages full of teen angst all about how I wished he would notice me). Why would he? Pike was popular, intelligent, oozed charm, and handsome as fuck. He could have any girl that he wanted. His best friend’s much younger little sister hardly made the cut.
I passed a mirror that someone had hung up, probably realizing that the girls—and some of the guys—would be thinking the way I was and want to double check their reflection in the mirror. My hair was done up in one of those artfully messy styles that had taken me hours of swearing and effort to get just right, and I was wearing more daring makeup than usual. Nothing against anyone else who wore makeup, but it wasn’t usually my thing. At least, not dramatic makeup like this.
