Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87367 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87367 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
“These aren’t so naughty. You’re actually being very sweet.”
“Remember how you said you’re slow until you’re fast…yeah, I think I’m sweet…until I’m really not.”
I laughed.
“God, this makes me feel so bad,” he said, teasing in his tone.
“What?”
“That I’m going to use such a touching moment to beat your ass again.”
He sprang up and darted toward the drop-off.
“Oh, fuck no,” I said, hopping to my feet and racing right behind him.
I grabbed his arm and tugged him back, but only gained on him a little before he threw his arms around me so that we fell off the side together.
A tie.
And when it came to Cohen Mitchell, I could live with that.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Cohen
A week had passed since we went to the swimming hole, and two things were getting harder and harder to deny: I was going stir-crazy and needed a night out, and I was beginning to like Brody more than I should.
The first was easier to deal with than the second, yet I’d made no move to do anything about it. The feeling-restless thing probably had something to do with the wanting-Brody thing. Maybe going out would help; maybe getting laid would prove I wasn’t catching feelings for my country boy.
Not that he was really mine.
Not that I wanted him to be.
His family would lose their shit. This town would lose their collective shit, and that was fucking with my head.
I wasn’t supposed to care what any of them thought. I still didn’t know if I did, but I thought maybe a tiny, secret part of me wanted to belong, wanted to fit, which was crazy as fuck and not what this was supposed to be about. All I was supposed to do was open this damn distillery, prove to…hell, I didn’t know who, but to someone, how fucking good I was at it, while helping Brody as a friend, no feelings involved, and getting some orgasms out of the deal. Everything else just complicated an already complicated situation. I didn’t do complicated, but I was obviously currently obsessed with the word.
This town was making me crazy.
Case in point, I was sitting in my car in the parking lot of an ice-cream parlor, obsessing about what people would think of me and Brody O’Ralley.
About our afternoon at the swimming hole—and if that didn’t sound like something out of a small-town dictionary, I didn’t know what did.
About him showing me my parents’ initials, which affected me more than I’d expected.
About kissing him, and playing around with him, and nearly drowning him, all in good fun, of course. He’d tried to do the same to me.
And I was still sitting in my car like a crazy-ass, weird, obsessive person, so I needed to cut that shit out STAT.
I was losing my damn mind.
Knock, knock, knock.
“Shit.” I looked over to see Lauren standing by the window.
“You’re late and spacing off in there.”
Yes, I was, but I wasn’t going to tell her why. She scooted over, and I got out. She was an ice-cream fanatic, so I’d agreed to meet her here because…well, because I liked her and it wasn’t as if I had anything else to do.
We went inside, and I bought us each two scoops. She got rainbow sherbet, and I got coffee flavored.
“You’re such a city boy,” she said, rolling her eyes, as we sat down at a table outside.
“Why?”
“Because coffee doesn’t belong with ice cream.”
“That’s a city thing?” I took a bite.
“Sounds good to me.” We were quiet for a moment before she asked, “So what’s new? How’s the distillery? Isaac? Kissed any more pretty O’Ralleys?”
She only knew about the kiss at the Barn. I could only imagine if she found out what Brody and I were up to. I wouldn’t tell her. It wasn’t my place.
“Oh my God. You have! You’re blushing!”
“I don’t blush,” I grumbled. And even if I could talk about Brody, I wasn’t going to right then because I was already being all emo about him. Pretty soon I’d be doodling his name in a heart. “The distillery is going.”
We chatted about that for a while, and I was grateful she’d let the kissing thing go. Then she told me about a guy she went on a date with and how he kept burping through their meal. “It was so weird.”
“Yeah…so when’s the wedding?”
We both laughed, and hung out for a little while longer before she had to go. She was on her way to A Step Ahead, so it was a short meetup.
“See you soon, Cohen. You should come have a beer with me when you can. Also, don’t fool yourself into believing I don’t think you’re secretly kissing an O’Ralley.” She hugged me and fluttered away before I could reply.
She was a riot. I was still feeling strange about things, about Brody, and in need of something to cure my social bug that hadn’t been fixed with a quick ice cream, so I drove to Murray’s to pick up a few things.