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These sneaky little boys are going to be the death of me. Their antics are almost enough to make me forget how sexy Madison was when she walked out of here ten minutes ago.
Chapter 18
Madison
“Umm, what’s that about?” Adalynn asks, waving her hand at me when I drop down into the passenger seat of her car.
“What?” I ask, looking over my shoulder to the grand front porch of the house, expecting to see a delivery I missed earlier.
“Your face,” she clarifies. She puts the car in drive and begins to pull down the driveway as I pull on my seatbelt.
I press a hand to my face. “What?”
“The blushing.”
“I’m not blushing,” I argue, turning my head as if the dusky color of the sky is the most interesting thing in the world. It really is pretty. “That cloud looks like a baby pig.”
She scoffs, telling me that I’m not fooling her. That’s what I get for spending all my time with two four-year-old boys. They’re curious, but they’re also gullible and easily distracted. It seems the same tactics don’t work on my friend.
“Even though you haven’t asked yet, I think you should act on it.”
I keep my eyes locked outside the vehicle. “It’s hot outside. If my cheeks are pink, it’s because of the heat.”
“You weren’t in the heat,” she argues. “And before you open your mouth to tell me a lie that the A/C is broken in that big house, don’t bother wasting the energy. You didn’t ask, but I’m going to tell you anyway. I think a fiery hot night with a sexy hockey player would be exactly what you need to finally close the door on that piece of poo Sam. There. I said it. Now we can change the subject.”
The sound of her blinker as she pulls out of the driveway is absolutely ridiculous. There are no other houses out here, and with the flatness of the land, you’d be able to spot another vehicle a mile away. But that’s just Adalynn, always following the rules. Thedon’t date your male best friend rulehas governed her life for the last fifteen years, and I have no doubt will continue to control her actions for manymore to come.
“He doesn’t play hockey anymore.”
“Former hockey player then,” she amends.
“I can’t believe you’d be the one to tell me the way to get over someone is to get under someone else.”
“I’d never say anything so crude,” she says on a gasp that would rival the Sisters of Liberty if they were told someone witnessed a man letting a door close in a woman’s face on the town square right after church.
“For someone who is in love with—”
“Enough of that,” she says. “I love him. I’m not in love with him. I love him the same way I love you.”
“Ooh la-la.”
She swats at my hand before I can run it up her leg.
“I never knew, Adalynn Tate.”
Her laughter is contagious as she drives across town.
Pulling into the parking lot is different tonight than it was the last time we came.
“Walker is trying out something new. He’s hired a band from the college to perform tonight. He thinks it will bring in more patrons.”
“The college band?”
“A band from the college,” she clarifies. “Like a group of the students that formed a band. Austin is leaking in this direction.”
Her tone isn’t exactly happy. Adalynn is one of the lifers. A lot like Cash is. They’ll never leave, and they’ll always be wary of anyone that would want to come to town and change anything.
I realize more whispers of the changes Sam tried to make in me are bouncing around in my head. I never had a problem with Lindell until Sam came into my life. He tried to upset everything I ever thought, and I know now it wasn’t because I was wrong in my thinking. It was so he could control me more. If I went home less, I had less outside influence. He might not have hit or raised his voice, but I’m starting to think his indifferent tone and the way he made me salivate for the littlest attention from him, was just as abusive.
