Chapter 6

Iget back to Highland Hills on December 27th feeling like a new man. Did Don and I wake up on Christmas morning with hangovers so bad we instantly went back to bed? Yes. But it feels like something shifted. Like our grief gave away to something else. Maybe it’s just my attitude that’s changed, because suddenly it doesn’t feel like the new year is going to bring the same old shit to bury me down. It feels like it might be different, and in a way that doesn’t suck.

It’s Brittany, a voice in my head insists. And maybe that voice has a point. I might not know what I want, precisely, but I know I don’t want to be at odds with her. I can’t stand to be. So on my second day back in town, I decide to stop being a coward and go talk to her. Maybe we can figure something out. Maybe not. Either way, I’m not going to avoid her until I get shoveled six feet under. A town like Highland Hills is too small for you to avoid anyone successfully unless you plant a tracker on them.

So I go into the brewery on the 28th after I close up the shop. My brother and Brittany are both behind the bar, and I catch a glimpse of Ivy Anders’s bright blonde hair as she rounds a corner, probably taking someone’s order from one of the tables.

My heart rate kicks up as Brittany turns and meets my gaze. Her expression is cool and unaffected, as if we’re nothing to each other. I freeze—unable to move—and then everything in my body kicks back in, only I feel such an overwhelming sense of regret that I can barely breathe. That’s what tells me how I feel more than anything else. I may be confused, but I”m not stupid. I want her. I know that.

She isn’t wearing my necklace, or if she is, the chain is hidden beneath her black, high-necked sweater.

I’d hoped to see that little bit of myself on her, the proof that I have some sort of claim even if I’d denied wanting it.

I walk up to the bar, trying to act like I’m not freaking out, and Cole spots me and grins. “There he is. Jane’s spending the day with Holly and her family, but they’re coming over in an hour or so. You should stick around. You know, I was starting to worry Don had stolen you.”

“He tried,” I say. “But I’m a small-town kind of guy.”

“Well, something about you is small, that’s for sure,” Brittany says, propping a hand on her hip.

“I’d welcome you to prove yourself wrong, Brittany,” I say as I lift my eyebrows. Fuck. It was the wrong thing to say, especially since I pulled away from her a few days ago, but it came out automatically, and it’s too late to reel it back in.

A hurt look crosses her face for a half-second before she closes it down. My hand pulses with the need to reach across the counter, to cup her cheek. To tug the neckline of her sweater down so I can see if she’s wearing that necklace after all. But I can’t do that here, at her place of work, and I definitely can’t do it in front of my brother, who’d deck me.

Brittany clears her throat. “No, thank you, I’ll take the word of half the women in this town over yours.”

Cole whistles and then laughs and slaps the counter. “Whatever you did to piss her off, you better make it right. Because I’m going to go out on a limb and guess it was your fault.”

“You’d guess correctly,” I say, giving Brittany a poignant look. She doesn”t even glance at me.

Someone flags Cole down, and he heads off to see to them. It’s an opening.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what I want?” I ask, just because I want her to look at me. I need it.

She skewers me with a hard stare. “I prefer not to waste my time dwelling over mysteries that don’t want to be solved. If you want something, I figure you’ll tell me. You got no problem taking what you want.”

She’s wrong.

She’s misunderstood me, and I need to make myself clear.

I need her to know that she’s important to me, and I fucked up, and I’m confused.

“Is your car okay?”

Something softens in her gaze. “Yes, thank you. I need to pay you for that.”

“First tow’s free.”

She leans forward a little, and my skin prickles in anticipation, because I know what it’s like to touch her now, and I want more of it. “Doesn’t sound to me like it’s a good business model.”

I can’t help but smile, but it falls a second later. “I’d like to talk to you about what happened before Christmas,” I say. “There are things I need to say.”

The warmth slips out of her eyes, and she waves a hand through the air. “Well, you’re here, aren’t you? Anything you need to say can be said here.”

“I’d like to talk to you in private.”

Her lower lip trembles, and I think I’m maybe getting through to her, when Ivy Anders bustles up. “Hey, Logan. You need a beer? I can pour it. My last one was only half foam.”

“Well, when you make an offer like that,” I say, grinning easily.

“He hasn’t ordered anything yet,” Brittany snaps.

Ivy’s eyes widen, and she lifts her hands, palms out. “I report to Badass Britt.”

“Badass Britt,” I say, letting my eyes fall on Brittany again. “I like that. I’ll have an IPA, if you please.”

“One half-foam IPA coming up,” Ivy says with a salute as she slides behind the bar.

Brittany walks away, and she doesn’t come near me all evening, even after Jane shows up with Holly and we start playing Crazy Eights. Normally, Brittany would play with us. Normally, she’d clean up, and all the rest of us would be left in her dust.

I stick around, hoping.

Finally, after Jane and Cole go upstairs, she gives me a nod. “Five minutes, out back.”

“Should I bring the pistols?”

There’s a glimmer of humor in her eyes before she rolls them. “Maybe.”

Brittany finds Ivy, says something to her in an undertone, and I stick a couple of twenties on the bar and head for the door, because if I only have five minutes, I’m not going to miss a second of them. My heart is thumping fast, letting me know it’s in my chest, and my hands are clammy. I’m not sure what’s happening to me, but I feel as nervous as I did in the third grade when I gave the girl I liked a valentine.

I stand by the little copse of evergreens by the parking lot, waiting, and then Brittany steps up next to me. She’s not wearing a coat, and I instantly take mine off and try to hand it to her.

“I’m not cold,” she says, “and you’re wasting your five minutes.”

I know that look her in her eye—she’s not going to bend—but I’d feel like a real piece of shit to put it back on, so I let it hang from my hand.“It’s here if you change your mind.”

Her eyes bore into me. “Is this you, trying to change yours?”

I don’t know how to answer her, which is my first clue that I should’ve spent the last few hours at the bar planning what I was going to say once I managed to get her alone.

“I don’t know,” I finally say, feeling the inadequacy of it in my bones. “But I think the world of you. I’ve been unsettled these last few days, being at odds with you. It didn’t feel right. I wanted to know what you were doing on Christmas, what you were feeling.”

Her jaw works, and again, my hands wants to rise to touch it. “Were you unsettled because it was me you were at odds with or because you have a god-forsaken need for everyone to like you?”

“I don’t,” I say, caught off-guard. Because she’s not entirely wrong—people do like me, and I like them. My favorite part of working downtown is that people will stop by just to talk. Or women, just to flirt. Only, I haven’t had been taking any of them up on it lately. It’s seemed…stale. Unexciting.

I say so, and she lifts her eyebrows. “And you didn’t take me up on it either, did you? Let’s just forget the whole thing.”

That’s when I do it, mostly because I can’t help myself—I lift my hand to her cheek. It’s cool under my fingers, and I want to stuff her into the jacket. I want to wrap my arms around her and warm her with my body, but she flinches away from my touch. “Brittany,” I say, my voice plaintive. “I screwed up. I didn’t mean for you to think I don’t want you. I do want you.”

I glance back at the bar, then nod toward the trees, and thank fuck, she follows me. I drop the jacket and, holding her gaze to make sure it’s all right, put my arms around her. She sighs into me, leaning her head into my neck, and I feel at peace in a way that staggers me.

I kiss the top of her head, taking in her scent, and because I can’t help myself, I feel along the neckline of her shirt until I find it, the cold metal chain, and my heart bursts with gratitude and need.

When she tips her head up to me, I can’t help myself—I kiss her, sucking in the bottom lip that trembled in the bar and then tipping my mouth until it can capture more of her. She makes a little sound of need that makes me instantly hard, and then her tongue is twining with mine, making the kiss deeper and hotter. Making me want things with a heat that’s sure to burn me to the ground or drop me to my knees.

This time she’s the one who pulls away, and I whisper, “Holy hell.”

She smiles, slightly, her lips pink and mine. And then she says, “What do you want?” She’s as blunt with this as she is with everything. “What do you want from me, Logan?”

“Ivy wasn’t wrong about you being a badass,” I say with a rueful laugh.

Her gaze hasn’t strayed from mine. “I asked you a direct question, now I’d appreciate a direct answer.”

“I want… I’d like to explore this thing between us. I can’t stop thinking about you. I…” I take a step toward her. She doesn’t move away, but she doesn’t touch me again, and her eyes are still fixed on mine.

“And do you want to explore it openly? Exclusively?”

Surprise jolts through me, because for some reason I didn’t think of this. If we do that, then Cole will know. Everyone in town will know, and they’ll all have opinions about it. My brother will probably want to tan my hide, because he doesn’t trust me to know how to treat her right. He very directly said so, and I suppose I’ve given him no reason to believe otherwise.

“Shouldn’t we see where it goes first? Take things slow?”

“Sneak around, is what you mean,” she says, and her voice quavers—and I remember that asshole Tommy was sneaking around on her for years. “I can’t do that.”

“Not sneaking around,” I say quickly. “But we can go to dinner somewhere else. Asheville, maybe. Make a day of it.”

“You need to drive nearly two hours to be seen having dinner with me?” she asks, her eyes full of righteous indignation, and good God, I am not handling this well. Not even a little. It’s just…my head is dizzy with her.

“Just at the beginning. Then—”

“Let me cut you off there, Logan,” she says, her eyes shining. “There will be no beginning. This was a terrible idea, and I own my part in it. I’ll see you later.”

And with that, she turns around and leaves me in the cold with my coat at my feet. For some reason that feels like an analogy for my life right now, but my head’s too turned around to figure it out. All I know is I’ve already messed things up with Brittany, and they never really got started.