Chapter 28

CHAPTER 28

SLATE

J ess and I walked into the pool hall in town side by side but far enough apart that none of her friends would suspect there was anything going on between us. Why that was so important, I didn't know, but I was respecting Jess's wishes.

I looked around as we walked into what I gathered was one of the only entertainment venues in town, and the place was old. Like circa 1960 old.

The scent of stale beer and chicken wings clung to the air like it'd become part of the very molecules in here and the carpet under our feet had worn through in places. All of the pool tables were in dire need of being re-felted and most of the cues appeared to be in poor shape. Even the dart boards were ancient, and Jess had warned me that a full set of darts would be nowhere to be found.

But she'd also told me the company would be good.

Frankly, I would have agreed to come either way. I was curious about life in Firefly Grove beyond the farm and the market, and this gave me an excuse to spend some more time with Jess. Get to know her better away from her parents and her never-ending list of chores.

Jess smiled when she spotted a group of people around her age clustered around the bar and the nearest surrounding tables. Sophie saw us first, throwing her hand up in a wave that alerted the others to our presence.

As I was starting to realize was her signature style, Sophie was wearing another delicate dress. It wasn't pink this time, but it sure as hell wouldn't hold up on the farm. A pair of low-slung heels were on her feet and the earrings she'd bought at the market the other day dangled from her ears.

Tag started clapping his hands when he saw us, introducing me out loud to the others all at once. "There he is, ladies and gentlemen. Slate Spieres, the man who's going to put the Grove on the map."

I frowned and glanced at Jess, keeping my voice down as we approached the group. "What happened to not wanting people to know who I was?"

"Not these people," she said emphatically, immediately falling into the waiting embrace of a guy wearing a beanie and sporting another of the ever popular Mac jackets. "These are good people."

She said it to me over her shoulder, then released the guy and pointed at him. "Slate, this is Johno. Johno, Slate."

The guy grinned, extended his hand to shake mine, and then surprised me by pulling me into a quick, back-thumping hug. "Slate! I've heard a lot about you, man. Thanks for taking care of the Merricks through all this. They'd have been mobbed had you not been around to help."

I chuckled and even returned the back thumping. "It's nice to meet some locals. You've got a great little town here."

"We like it," he replied easily, then passed me off to his buddy beside him. "This is Angus. We all went to school together. From kindergarten to senior year."

"Wow. It's cool that you're all still friends."

"Always, man," Angus said, his black hair sticking straight up from his scalp. He was friendly too, shaking hands with me before continuing his conversation with the guy next to him.

In fact, most of their friends seemed to be guys, with only a few girls scattered between them. After Jess introduced me to the rest of them, she smiled. "Go sit with Johno and Tag. I'll grab us some beers and be right back."

I nodded, heading over to the first table we'd greeted. The guys already had a seat waiting for me. They welcomed me with easy smiles. Johno cast a glance at Jess before he turned back to me.

"How's the wild child treating you? She can't be taking kindly to this kind of disruption at Merrick Meadows."

"The wild child?" I laughed. "She's not that wild."

Johno scoffed down a bark of laughter. "Trust me, she is that wild. She's just busy at the moment."

Angus must've seen the confusion on my face because he leaned forward and folded an arm on the table, gripping his beer in his other hand. "Our Jess had a bit of a rebellious streak as a teenager. We've been taking bets on whether it's back now that she's feeling like she's losing control of the farm."

I shook my head. "She's been alright. There was a bit of a misunderstanding when my crew first arrived, but we sorted it out. Just exactly how big was this rebellious streak, though?"

Johno snorted. "About four miles wide. Give or take another sixteen."

"Let's just say that Jess wasn't your average teenage girl," Angus said, wincing when she turned away from the bar. "On that note, I'm gonna shut up."

I frowned at him, wondering why on earth it looked like he might just be a little bit scared of my sweet and sassy farm girl. As if she saw just by the looks on their faces they'd been talking about her, she punched Johno's shoulder as she sat down.

"What did you tell him?" she asked.

"Nothing," the guy protested, laughter in his eyes even as he rubbed his shoulder. "We were just trying to get Slate to settle something for us."

Her eyes narrowed. Tag and Sophie joined us from the bar, passing beers around the table. Jess flicked her eyes from Johno, to Angus, and back to Johno. "You made a bet about me, didn't you?"

"What, no?" Johno scoffed.

At the exact same time, Angus sighed. "We've got to make our own fun around here."

Jess shook her head at them. "What's the bet?"

They exchanged a glance, but it didn't look like they were going to cave. Tag, on the other hand, gave in almost immediately. "We were just wondering how long it was going to be until Fun Jess came out to play now that there's upheaval at the Meadows."

She groaned, burying her face in her hands. Then she peeked at him between her fingers. "For the record, I take offense to that. I'm always fun."

"Sure, but not as much fun as you used to be," Angus said, glancing at me. "She's all grown up and shit now, but you should've seen her back in the day."

"She didn't give a crap about those girlie-type magazines my sister and Sophie used to devour." He inclined his head at another girl sitting at the table next door, who I was assuming was his sister.

She flipped him off without even stopping her own conversation with some of the others, just sticking her hand into the air and giving him the finger. I laughed. "My sister was never very into any of that either."

Angus's head jerked in surprise. "Here I always thought Jess was the only girl in the world who'd rather work under the hood of a car or race around the backroads with the boys. Before she even had a license. Your sister's like that too?"

"Uh, no," I admitted. "Not exactly." I glanced at Jess, somehow even more attracted to her than I had been before. "It sounds like you were hell on wheels. What happened?"

"Life," she said easily, grinning and sipping on her beer. "I craved speed to balance out the mundane work on the farm. Tractors are boring, but cars? They've always been fun."

"More fun than sex, according to Jess," Johno joked. "She always said she didn't need a date when she could have a race."

"I would've thought that would make teenage boys go after her harder," I said.

It sure as hell would've had that effect on me, but to my surprise, everyone at the table shook their heads.

Sophie sighed. "Jessie fit in better with the boys than the girls. Except for me, obviously, because I'm awesome, but she was just one of the guys, you know? They didn't look at her as dating material at all."

"Except for me," Tag said proudly, pumping his eyebrows at me. "I asked her out two dozen times between the start of our senior year and graduation. Eventually, she agreed to go to prom with me." He practically went cross-eyed at the thought. "It's still one of the best memories of my life." He suddenly glanced at Sophie and chuckled. "Aside from kissing you under the bleachers, that is."

She smacked him in the stomach. "You're not supposed to tell people about that!"

As they fell back into that familiar bickering I'd heard from them at the market, I got a kick out of being here with this group. Learning more about Jess was a trip too. Who they were talking about didn't sound like the girl I'd gotten to know at all, but now that they'd told me how she used to be, it wasn't actually that difficult to imagine her working on engines and getting in drag races with the guys.

While Sophie and Tag bickered, she stood up, bringing her beer with her. "Who wants to challenge me in a game of darts?"

I took her up on the offer immediately. "You're on."

In no time, I was standing behind her, wondering why no one else had seemed interested. Either way, since I had her all to myself, I took advantage. One hand curled around her hip and the other went on her shoulder as I coached her on how to throw a dart.

She let me do it, gently curving her back and pushing her butt into my crotch. I could feel people watching us, but I didn't care. She'd told me she didn't want anyone suspecting anything about us because it would get back to her parents eventually if they did, but it seemed she wasn't overly concerned about it right now.

After talking her through it, I took a reluctant step back. I'd rather have kept that ass against my crotch for a couple of hours, but since her friends would definitely start suspecting then, I forced myself away from her. "Ready?"

She nodded. "As I'll ever be."

Without hesitating for even a second, she threw the dart and it sailed smoothly through the air, hitting the bullseye as if it always landed right there. Blinking fast, I was stunned, but I grinned anyway. "Congratulations! I've never seen a shot like that from a rookie."

Tag burst out laughing his head off. He slung an arm around my shoulders. In the same movement, he spun me to face the wall in the darkened pool hall. The brick was lined with plaques, and Jess Merrick's name was on almost every first place in the dart competitions going back at least a decade.

As I glanced at her, my eyebrows arched. She winked at me, twirling a dart between her fingers as she walked past us. "I need another beer, but it's cute you thought you could beat me."

Surprised laughter tore out of me as I watched her sashay her way back to the bar, a definite swagger in her step. I shook my head, getting more enthralled by her by the minute. When I'd first met her, I'd known she was country, but somehow, I'd thought that was all there was to her.

I was starting to realize that I couldn't have been more wrong. Jess Merrick was a lot of things, but she was also fast becoming a woman I was growing just a little bit obsessed with.