1. Aubree

Every Sunday night during football season, a game blares from the corner of the bar. The TV mounted on the wall was updated last year, the pool table is even newer and although the back room and one side of the bar is taken by men with gray beards who have come here for decades, this half of The Peanut Bar and Grill is ours.

It’s been ours for three years now, ever since I moved to this small town. The only thing missing is our names carved into the tabletop at our regular booth.

Same crew every Sunday, and on Wednesdays too for half-price nachos. A smile grows on my lips as the bar cheers, someone shouts in protest and Dani, the bartender, breaks out in a laugh. She and I are alike; neither one of us really cares about football, but this is a part of home.

Nick and Michelle, high school sweethearts who have been married for five years now, are cuddled up in the corner of the booth. They’ll leave early, just like they have since she found out she’s pregnant.

It wasn’t even on the menu until Michelle told the owner she was craving them during her first trimester. He’s her neighbor and said it’s the least he could do.

I take another sip of my pale ale just as the happy couple makes the rounds to say goodbye, root beer float in hand.

Jackson and Nate mock protest over them leaving although every single one of us knew it was going to happen. The other five of us will be here till close most likely.

Nate and his girlfriend, my close friend Anne. The rest of us are the single bunch: Jackson, Cheryl, and me.

“Have twice as much fun for me,” Michelle says and sighs sweetly as she gives me a hug, her belly nudging against mine. Her flowy cream blouse peeks out from her jean jacket that wouldn’t close around her if she tried. It’s not maternity, but it’s darn cute.

“Where’s your sweater?” Nick questions, cutting me off in a protective tone that’s all too adorable just as she’s snatching it from the seat with a smirk on her face. It’s cute how he is with her, and just as cute how she toys with him.

His smirk matches hers once she gives him a peck on the lips.

I can’t help but feel a pang of jealousy watching the two of them wave as they exit the bar. Hand in hand. Madly in love.

Another sip of my beer heats my cheeks as I peek at Jackson. Nick and Michelle had one side of the booth. Nate and Anne, the other. Then Cheryl and I took the outside seats while Jackson, Cheryl’s older brother, sat at the barstool closest to the table.

That’s been our setup for years.

Three years of sitting just feet away from a man I have a crush on, every single week. Ever since I moved to this small town.

“Another?” Dani calls out, catching my attention. Her dark eyes stare back at me and it’s only then that I look down and realize my glass is nearly empty.

“Yeah,” I answer and the tall brunette is already pouring me another. She works this side of the room. Her brother works the other. The Peanut Bar is a family place. Practically everything in this town is that way.

It’s all close quarters and routines. Everyone knows everyone and also their business.

Which is why my fingers fiddle with my drink a moment too long before I nudge Jackson, opting to hand him the empty glass, which he easily exchanges for the full one Dani’s holding out to him to pass to me.

My heart does a little pitter-patter every time he looks my way. His sharp blue eyes and charming smile aren’t what gets me, although they don’t hurt. There’s something else about him. And when his fingers brush against mine, in that small moment of contact, a heat blazes through me.

For three years it’s been like this. And every day that passes without acknowledging what he does to me, only makes it harder the next.

The bar cheers again as the screen shows a playback of the game. Cheryl’s busy chatting with Nate and Anne. The couple behind us, neighbors of Cheryl, leans over the back of their booth to join the conversation.

I stare up at the screen, pretending I don’t want to glance back at Jackson, pretending I don’t wish he was sitting next to me and the whole damn town knew we were a thing.

Jackson’s my friend, tall, dark and handsome … but only a friend.

The timing was simply never right for us to be anything more.

When I met him, the butterflies were there, the instant attraction undeniable … but I tried to deny it, because I had a boyfriend. It was a long-distance situation—I’d graduated college and left that town to come here, but I was determined to make it work. Cheryl, my friend from college who convinced me to move here, introduced me to her brother and it was damn hard to keep my impression of him to myself.

Jackson greeted me with a charming smile and a laugh that made me feel things it shouldn’t have. After three years of this charade, Cheryl is well aware I have a crush on her brother.

I wasn’t the first of her friends to feel puppy love for him. Apart from some teasing here and there, she’s kept that information to herself and we remain the closest of friends.

Thank God. I love her like family, and I don’t know what I would do without her. Without any of them really. She became the sister I never had while we were in college. As far as I’m concerned, this town and these people adopted me.

Which is why I’ll never cross that line with Jackson.

Back then, when she first introduced us, I thought: he’s not into me like that, and he’s not going to be hanging out with us all the time anyway. So I need to get the idea of the two of us out of my head.

Only he did keep coming around, and those feelings kept growing. I didn’t realize just how tight knit this town is.

Over the following months, I realized I couldn’t deny what I felt. So I did the right thing, I ended the three-month relationship I had so I could confess to Jackson how I felt. But when I went to the bar, in that spot across from me, right where Jackson is sitting now, there was a cute little redhead by the name of Mallory attached to his hip. And she made him smile, so I couldn’t hate her.

Back and forth for years, one of us was always taken. I’d convinced myself it was meant to be that way because as time went on, he became my rock for so many things. Just like Cheryl.

“You want a root beer float?” a masculine voice murmurs close to the shell of my ear. My body heats with a flush that I’m sure is visible. And that baritone cadence elicits an ache of desire between my thighs.

He knows exactly what he’s doing. The cocky grin on his handsome face tells me so as he stands back upright, a hand on the back of the booth. He towers over me in blue jeans and a simple plaid button-down.

“We could get one with beer and ice cream?” Jackson offers, lifting his glass in mock cheers before taking a sip. The bar erupts as our team scores, yet the noise seems to fade and blur behind him. Even with the scent of beer in the air, I know exactly how he smells. It’s like amber and woods, mixed with a hint of freshness.

Instead of saying anything at all that’s on my mind, I answer as I should, in a teasing, nonserious manner. “You want beer with ice cream?” I shake my head gently, a crease between my furrowed brow as I add, “What is wrong with you?”

He lets out a laugh and motions for me to slide down the booth so he can sit next to me.

The leather is still warm from where Michelle was sitting as I scoot back. It’s quiet back here, slightly more private but not really.

“So you don’t want to split ice cream with me?” he questions, a touch of his Southern drawl coming through, along with feigned vulnerability in his puppy dog eyes.

Yes. Jackson knows exactly what he’s doing when he flirts with me.

And I know what I’m doing when I flirt back. “If by ‘split’ you mean I get a whole three bites before you devour it, then sure.” I shrug and pull a leg up onto the seat so I can wrap my arm around it. My black leggings and baggy gray knit sweater keep my appearance casual. Although I did spend time on my makeup, keeping it relatively natural but with a hint of pink. Heavy mascara and a braid down my left shoulder were the finishing touches.

His hand runs down the side of his chiseled, stubbled jaw as he chuckles. “I asked you last time we split a dessert if you wanted more,” he protests. Leaning closer he adds, “If I knew you were going to hold it against me, I wouldn’t have touched your half.” He’s close enough now that I can feel his heat, I can smell him too and it’s just like I knew it would be.

Before I can answer, a balled-up napkin hits Jackson square on his nose. “Get a room,” a grinning Cheryl calls out from across the booth. Nate and Anne are laughing, and the couple behind them in the booth adjacent to ours is laughing too. Not at us, thankfully. They don’t seem to notice and with a smile, Cheryl’s already left the table. With a bit of a tipsy sway, she’s headed to the bar before either Jackson or I can answer.

Thump, thump, my heart batters against my rib cage in protest, but this tension doesn’t affect Jackson in the least. He’s never bothered and I know it’s because he doesn’t feel what I feel.

He doesn’t feel this pull between us like I do.

My throat’s dry and I try to swallow down my nerves with a sip of the cool beer as Jackson leaves my side, the leather groaning as he goes.