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I stared at him, too stunned to reply—was he calling me lazy?—and he hmphed as though he’d expected nothing less. Then he turned toward his truck, adding a smug little swagger to his step that made his butt look—
“And stop staring at my ass!” he called over his shoulder as he pulled open his door.
Caught, I gasped. “How did you…? I-I mean… you wish!” I yelled, forcing my eyes up. “I have no interest in your ass, Jackson. Like, zero. Less than zero! Negative interest. If I was stranded on a desert island, dying of starvation, and your ass was my only means of survival, I wouldn’t…uh…” I trailed off.
“Eat it?” Hunter turned toward me again, and the light from inside the truck showed that his eyes were bright with amusement. “You’re saying you’d rather starve than eat my ass? Now, that’s a choice. I’m not sure how I ended up on the island with you or why you think I’d be the one getting eaten in this scenario, but it’s good to know you wouldn’t compromise your standards.”
“Fuck off.” It was harder than it should have been not to remember I was angry when I wanted to grin back at him, to share in his amusement, to let myself enjoy the kind of teasing banter we’d shared when we were kids.
But it had always been this way with him, really. Being around him made me feel like I was on a roller coaster—and not one of the ones that had been through any kind of safety inspection in the past fifty years. A rickety old wooden one, the kind that forced you to take your life into your own hands just to experience the wobbly dips and swoops on rusted rails.
Just as I lost the battle and felt my face crack into a smile, the teasing light in Hunter’s eyes went out.
“You’re a turkeynapper,” he accused, like he was reminding us both of this fact. “A thief.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. I am not.” I rolled my eyes. “It’s been fifteen years—”
“I haven’t forgotten,” he said grimly. “And I haven’t forgiven.”
“Forgiven? Are you serious? I wasn’t stealing your turkey. I was trying to… Ugh. Never mind. Just… get a life, Hunter. Jesus.”
“I have a life, Junior. It’s here in the Thicket, and you’re not part of it. We’re not friends, and the only thing I want from you is hard labor. Tomorrow morning, don’t be late.”
With that, he hopped in the truck, slammed the door, and revved the engine before pulling out onto the street.
I stared after him.
“Charlton,” I muttered under my breath. “My name is Charlton.”
I turned back to the community center and wondered whether I had the guts to go back inside and face all the questions. The sheer number of people who wanted to refer to me as Junior made me want to punch something… and the thing I wanted to punch the most had just driven away.
Instead, I wandered over to my cousin’s SUV and let myself in before pulling out my phone and dialing my best friend back in the city.
“Charlie, you haven’t even lasted a full twenty-four hours,” Seamus said in lieu of a greeting. “No, you can’t catch an early flight home, or your mother is going to wind up living in the Waldorf’s spa permanently, and it’ll bankrupt you.”
“It’s not that,” I said, even though the thought of inventing a work emergency and fleeing the state had definitely crossed my mind. “You’re never going to believe what just happened.”
I gave him a quick rundown of the small-town shenanigans—pausing for a long, eye-rolling moment while he laughed his head off at the very idea of the Biddin’—and the unexpected, obscenely large single bid from an unexpected player.
“Wait… Hunter Jackson? As in the Hunter? The guy you told me about that night back in college when you were drunk and listening to Adele? The one with the turk—”
“Yes,” I interrupted before he could remind me of the depths of my patheticness. “Him.”
“Ooooh. We loves Hunter.”
“No. We hates him.”
Seamus made a noise of disagreement in his throat. “Eh. I’ve always thought that was one of those cases of Shakespearean denial. Protesting too much because you actually want his dick.”
“Pfft. I do not want his dick.”
My tone wasn’t convincing, even to me, and the lie sat between us like a dick-shaped fib of epic proportions.
Seamus whistled slowly. “Wow. I was right. In fact, you’re mentally lubing that puppy right now. Tell me I’m lying.”
I groaned and shifted in my seat. There was no way I was going to (admit to) fantasize(ing) about Hunter Jackson’s cock.
I swallowed thickly. “Can we refocus, please? What do I do now? Hunter’s definitely not interested in me. For God’s sake, the man insinuated that I’m lazy and that I think I’m too good for my own family.” My pulse of frustrated anger at this was nearly enough to kill off my lust. “He could be the love child of Chris Hemsworth and Timothée Chalamet with a dick like John Holmes, and I still wouldn’t be prepared to show up there and… and… refinish his floors.”
