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The sound of unzipping follows and I pull the top of my costume off, my face welcoming the cool air of the autumn night after so much time covered.
She takes hers off too.
And what I see?
Well, uh...
As common a name as Nicole is, it still should have set off alarms in me.
I stare at her. Those light blonde locks of hair dangling around her face, those soft blue eyes. She’s beautiful.
But she’s also Nicole McCormick.
Of the Burly McCormick family. The ones who run the farm next to the Rowdys.
The ones who one hundred years ago had a massive shootout that resulted in the death of a Rowdy. “Do... do you think you could put the avocado costume back on?”
Her eyes narrow at me. “You first.”
2
NICOLE
The Rowdys are as redneck as they come. They give rural people a bad name. They marry their cousins and creepily play banjos alongside the river. They have improper relations with their cows, and that’s why we go out of our way to buy all our meat in the city.
I heard these stories endlessly growing up. It all seems overblown, but my father fully believes it. He’s not the type to be lured in by something that’s a blatant lie, so I always thought there has to be something to the stories. That the Rowdys just have to be bad people.
I lack firsthand knowledge, though. My father is very rich, our farm claiming a good quarter of Burly County land. I went to a private boarding school, never meeting the Rowdy boys in the classroom, despite being about the same age as a lot of them. I saw them around town growing up, but my mother always diverted me away from them, saying she was afraid they’d start something.
They seemed like normal enough kids to my young eyes. Nelson? The one who stood in front of me right now? I thought he was kind of cute even back in the day, but I didn’t let myself go down that path. Just because you think someone’s cute doesn’t mean you ignore everything else about them.
Like the rumors about what they do to their cows and their family being more inbred than the Hapsburg Dynasty.
Supposedly the Rowdys have said awful things about us too. That we’re greedy assholes, we think we’re too good for Burly, and we want to be worshiped like kings and queens ruling the county. That perhaps we’re the ones with the Hapsburg tendencies, with something about keeping our wealth in the family and the bloodline pure.
It’s all absurd though, right?
“So,” I say, swallowing nervously. “Nelson Rowdy.”
He nods. “Nicole McCormick.”
It feels weird. Super weird. That the man I’ve spent the last hour and half laughing and enjoying my time with, the man I was feeling things for despite never seeing his face, is a man that I’m supposed to unconditionally hate. For some reason.
Trying to figure out a way to ignore the stupid feud, I decide to ask for help and maybe get some truth instead of just nasty rumors. “Uh... pardon me for not doing my homework, but why am I supposed to hate you again?”
“You’re asking me?”
“I figure you’d know. Even if it’s colored by whatever nonsense your parents fed you.”
“Nonsense might be more right than you know.” He scratches his head. “I don’t know. Something about some gunfight back in the day. Like, way back in the day. Civil War-era or something like that.”
“Over what? Why’d they start shooting at one another?”
“I think it was because one of the Rowdy cows ate part of the McCormick lettuce crop? I dunno. I think it was really over land. Our properties have bordered one another all these years.”
“We’re fighting over land? Or fought over it? My family has more land than it knows what to do with.”
“And the Rowdys have more than enough for their herds.”
