1. Nessa

Nessa

“ I would rather eat day-old, room-temperature gas station sushi.”

Subtlety had never been my strongest suit, much to my mother’s disappointment and my grandmother’s delight.

However, what I lacked in delicacy, I more than made up for with sass, a family trait passed down from one generation of Gibbs women to the next. Along with thick hair and a penchant for emotionally unavailable men, both of which I was still learning to master at the ripe age of thirty-four.

I could practically hear my Granny Gibbs’s voice now.

“ Nessa bear, ” she would say in that distinct smoker’s rasp of hers—marijuana, not cigarettes. “We may not be religious, but in this family, we worship at the altar of cuntology.”

Granny Gibbs, or GG as I called her, had served cunt—along with her famous marionberry pie—seven days a week for ninety-six years, up until the day she’d died. And she’d done it with a blunt in her hand and Birkenstocks on her feet like a motherfucking icon.

I still wanted to be Granny Gibbs when I grew up.

“C’mon, Ness,” June pleaded, looking up at me through those luscious lashes of hers.

June had the kind of eyelashes that most women paid good money for every six to eight weeks. More than that, she knew how to use them. Baby bulldogs had nothing on June’s puppy-dog eyes.

As if that weren’t enough, she also had a killer body—thick and sturdy on top like a swimmer, the complete opposite of me—and an IQ that was practically off the charts, though she never bragged about either. To quote one of my all-time favorite flicks, she had a “head for business and a bod for sin.”

I might have hated her if she wasn’t my best friend.

Thankfully, she was my best friend, which meant I knew she was always on my side . . . even when she wasn’t.

I squared my shoulders and smiled. “I would rather chop my own arm off with a plastic butter knife, slather it in Sriracha, and eat it raw.”

Hot sauce preference might have seemed humdrum to others, but I was a die-hard Tabasco fan, and June knew that.

She shook her head. “Now you’re just being dramatic.”

She was one to talk. This was the same woman who had driven across the country—fresh out of high school—just so she could expose her cheating girlfriend on a jumbotron at a pro basketball game. The same woman who cried hysterically every time she rewatched Toy Story 3 and refused to go hiking if it was warmer than seventy-five degrees outside.

“What’s it going to take to convince you?” she asked.

“I would rather shit myself for the rest of my life, every time I sneeze then—”

“For fuck’s sake, you’ve made your point,” Nero interjected from behind the bar. He slung the rag he’d been using to dry highball glasses over his shoulder and smirked. “But just saying, sis, I don’t think it would kill you to go on one date.”

“A blind date,” I said, correcting him. “I don’t do blind dates.”

“A blind date with my boyfriend’s co-worker’s roommate,” June amended. “Have a little faith, Ness. I’m not going to set you up with a compete weirdo.”

“Just a partial weirdo, then?”

She clucked her tongue.

I dragged my fingers through my unruly curls, gathering them into a haphazard bun atop my head. There were three things I never left home without: my “thigh rescue” anti-chafing stick (because thick thighs saved lives, but they also gave you chub rub), my grandmother’s engagement ring, which I wore on a chain around my neck, and a good, old-fashioned, 90s kid scrunchie.

Summers in Oregon were typically warm and sticky—made exponentially stickier over the last decade or so thanks to global warming—but ninety-three degrees in September was downright offensive. The high temps and humidity were wreaking havoc on my thick hair and thicker thighs. Even now, the fleshy, tattooed skin beneath my shorts was clinging to the barstool’s leather like Velcro.

Getting out of this seat is going to suck.

“I’ll do the store’s books for a month,” June offered, making me smile.

“Thanks, but I have an app for that.”

I couldn’t help but appreciate her tenacity. That was probably the thing I envied most about my best friend—more than her incredible rack and natural lashes—she always went after what she wanted, regardless of the possible outcomes. She hadn’t grown up playing “Consequences” like I had.

“Consequences” was a mind game—or rather, a mind fuck—my mother had invented when Nero and I had barely been old enough to tie our shoes. What had probably started as a tool to help us gauge the possible consequences for our actions had become a way of life.

“Nessa, if you eat another cookie, then you’re going to get a stomachache, ” Mom would say. I could practically smell the sunshine on her skin and lavender on her hands, both leftovers from a day in her garden. “ If you get a stomachache, you won’t be able to go to Kaylani’s sleepover. If you don’t go to the sleepover, then—”

And so on and so on.

In the past couple of decades, I had mastered the game of “Consequences.” Unfortunately, I was still waiting for my prize, or, at the very least, a participation trophy.

“I’ll buy you that teapot you’ve been eyeing. The polka-dotted, Kate Spade one.”

Shit. She knows all my weak spots.

I was a teapot whore through and through.

Still, I wasn’t ready to crumble just yet. Not even for Kate Spade. Besides, my brother would kill me if I brought one more teapot into our house. Especially since he’d just finished building me a fourth shelf for my collection last week.

“I told you,” I said, crossing my arms in front of me. “I’m not interested in dating right now.”

June fixed me with a pointed gaze. “Babe, it’s been nine months.”

“I can count.”

“Hear her out, Nessie,” Nero said. “And don’t you dare throw your wine in my face, because it would be a crime to waste that cab.”

He took a break from wiping down the bar to tuck a stray hair behind his ear. Though his copper locks were nowhere near as long as mine, they were still long enough to tuck it into a small ponytail at the base of his neck while he worked. On his off days, he usually just let it hang loose, down past his scruffy chin.

My eyes rolled back into the deepest recesses of my head, partly because I knew he was right—and I hated when my brother was right—but more than that, I was sick of dating.

Men and women.

I was a failure to bisexuals everywhere.

Athletics had never been my thing, and that applied to the dating game, too. Which was why I had decided to throw in the towel and retire from the sport altogether.

I’d been on a sex ban for months now. My ever-growing collection of dildos and I had gotten well acquainted this past year, ever since Hazel and I had called things off before Christmas. They got the job done alright—more than alright, if I was being honest—but damn, sometimes I missed the touch of another person. Not enough to call off my self-imposed celibacy, but still. Every now and then, I found myself craving those surprise neck nibbles and forehead kisses and early morning, under-the-covers leg tangling—all the things a six-inch piece of silicone named after a porn star couldn’t give you.

“Ness, I’m telling you,” June said. “Landon is perfect for you.”

I lifted a brow. “Landon?”

“Landon Blake.”

Well, that decided it. He sounded like a Bond villain.

Every woman over the age of thirty knew better than to trust a man with two first names. Double the first name meant double the heartache and four times the therapy bill.

Girl math.

“June bug—”

“And before you say anything, you should know he’s an avid kayaker, and he owns his own condo, and he’s Gemini rising.” She winked. “With a Pisces moon.”

“Juney—”

“Oh! Oh!” she squealed excitedly, startling a few of my brother’s regulars. “He’s a regionally ranked pickle ball player.”

Nero snorted. “I’m not sure that’s something to brag about.”

“I’m sorry,” June said, turning toward him. “Are you the captain of The Gherkin Bags ?” She didn’t give him a chance to answer. “No? Okay, then. Quit your yapping”

While I did appreciate the cleverness of a pickle pun, even that wouldn’t be enough to sway me.

“June—”

“Did I mention he owns a Tesla?”

“Juniper Llewellyn Marsh.”

She gasped, startled by the sound of her full name. June had always gone by June, from the moment she’d sat next to me in Senora Perez’s first period Spanish class. Her parents were yoga instructors by trade and wanderers by nature. They’d wandered all the way to Rose City from Fish Creek, Wisconsin, the summer before June and I started tenth grade.

I pivoted to face her head-on and took her hands in mine. “Look, I love you, and I appreciate that you want everyone to be as deliriously in love as you are, but please, believe me when I say, thank you, but no thank you.” I set her hands back in her lap.

The defeated sigh that whooshed out of her was music to my ears. Even if she wouldn’t admit it, we both knew the only reason she was trying to make this double-date fiasco happen was because she herself had a new boyfriend, and couples—especially those in the “honeymoon phase”—had a twisted obsession with wanting to set their friends up with each other.

Her heart was in the right place, but the bottom line remained . . . I was perfectly fine being on my own.

I had a house I loved—even if I shared it with my older brother—a bookstore that after two years, was finally out of the red, and a solid group of friends who were just as nerdy and obsessed with Dungeons & Dragons as I was.

I didn’t need anything more than that, certainly not another broken heart. My book boyfriends and girlfriends never let me down. The same couldn’t be said for my exes.

“Fine,” she grumbled. “Your loss.”

“Thank you.”

She fumbled through her purse before slapping a credit card down on the bar, all while mumbling something about “stubborn bitches” and “Pisces moons” under her breath.

Astrology had always been June’s thing, not mine, though I did appreciate a tarot reading every now and again. Especially from Ms. Rita, Rose City’s very own psychic/wedding officiant/pedicab driver. The woman did it all.

After Nero finished running June’s card, she tossed her purse over her shoulder with dramatic flair. Her hair was too short to flip, so that was the best she could do.

“I guess I’ll tell Landon it’s not going to happen.”

“You do that.”

“If you’re sure . . .”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, I’m sure.”

She stomped toward the door, past Miles and Myron, two of Rose City’s oldest residents and one of the first gay couples to get married in the state of Oregon. Even now, well into their eighties, they spent nearly every evening at my brother’s bar, sharing a bottle of wine and soaking up the small-town gossip.

“Are you sure you’re sure?” June asked in a last-ditch effort.

“Do you want me to full name you again?”

She spun on her heels—or hiking boots, rather—without another word. I called out to her before she reached the end of the bar. “You’re still coming to the committee orientation tomorrow, right?”

“Of course I am,” she called back.

The Buns and Roses Festival was Rose City’s biggest annual event, one that brought in people from around the Pacific Northwest for local eats (hence, the buns), treats, and activities. There was no shortage of punny-named shops and themed events in a small town like Rose City. The city, if you could even call it that, might have been too small to have a mayor, but our thriving community—which had nearly doubled in the past three years—more than made up for the lack of leadership.

June and I had been volunteering as organizers for the festival since high school, and this year, for the first time, the town council had nominated me to head the committee. Which meant I would be overseeing the whole damn shindig, from taste-testing submissions for the Great Bun Baking Competition to auditioning Rose Nylund impersonators and filing permits for the Rosé Run.

The Rosé Run was one of the festival’s biggest draws.

For one weekend every October, droves of bachelorette parties, mom groups, and high school track teams flooded the town for a 5K fun run through the streets and trails of Rose City . . . plus the complimentary wine and cinnamon buns that followed.

I wasn’t typically one for running, but for one day a year, I could run for wine and snacks . . . or at least cheer on my friends while they did.

Especially if it meant my romance bookstore, Smutty Buddies, reaped the benefits. Nothing said an uptick in book sales quite like bachelorettes hopped up on endorphins and gouda. I made a mental note to double-check my staff members’ availability that weekend.

“Is that true?” Nero asked a few minutes later as he topped off my wine.

“What?”

“About June and her . . . boyfriend .” He said it like it was a dirty word. “Are they ‘deliriously in love?’”

I shrugged. “I guess.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“I just . . . didn’t know she was dating anybody.”

“You know, you could always—”

A smile ghosted across my lips when he all but ran into the kitchen to avoid my incoming inquisition. It was for the best. I had a weakness for “poking the bear,” so to speak, and my brother was the cuddliest teddy of them all, a real softie. He’d also had a thing for my best friend, June, since we were all kids. And by “thing,” I meant that Nero was desperately in love with her, something that just about everybody in Rose City knew.

Everybody except June.

“Have a good night, Nessie, sweetheart.”

I smiled and turned in my seat to return Myron’s wave. His thick Bronx accent was unmistakable. “Have a good night, gentlemen.”

“We’ll see you at tomorrow’s meeting?” Miles asked, tucking an arm through his husband’s.

They were such an odd couple, the prime example of opposites attracting, really. Whereas Myron was tall and lanky, much like a cartoon out of a Tim Burton movie, Miles was short and pleasantly plump. He also baked the most delicious scones using lavender from the field behind their house.

“Oh, you bet.”

“I’m going to whip up a batch of my lavender lemonade just for the occasion,” he said, punctuating it with a wink. Any other man winking might have creeped me out, but not this queer octogenarian in lavender Bermuda shorts.

“Have a good one, Nero,” Myron called out. Not three seconds later, my brother appeared, wiping his hands on his jeans.

“Take it easy, gentlemen,” he said, rounding the bar to open the door for the two men. “And stay out of trouble for once, would you?”

Miles scoffed. “Stay boring, you mean.”

Nero clasped a hand to his heart, feigning outrage. “Boring? You? Never.”

“That’s what I thought.” Miles tipped his hat. “Come along, Ronny. Take me home.”

“Right away, cookie,” Myron responded.

I had just finished pulling a book out of my bag when Nero dropped a palm on my shoulders.

“You drove today, right?” he asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“I’m going to dip out a little early.”

“Oh no, don’t tell me you have a hot date,” I teased.

A quick glance at the clock above his head told me the bar closed in about an hour. Seeing as we shared a house and worked two blocks away from each other, it wasn’t unusual for us to carpool together when our schedules aligned. Even if that meant me spending a little extra time reading or doing inventory for the store while I waited for Nero to close the bar.

“There’s a guy in Longview that’s interested in buying Mom’s Camaro. He’s going to stop by the house and check it out.”

I swallowed, my throat suddenly bone-dry. My heart panged at the mere mention of Mom.

“That’s great,” I managed.

“Let Baker know if anybody gives you any trouble.”

I eyed the five-foot-nothing, green-haired goon behind the counter and scoffed. The guy looked like he was barely out of high school, let alone old enough to be tending bar.

“Please.” I showed off the girth of my latest read. “I carry a hardcover romantasy book with me at all times. I can take care of myself.”

I pitied the person who came up against five hundred pages of orc smut. Their ass was grass.

About twenty minutes later, I had just reached the first spicy sex scene in my polyamorous orc romance when Baker set a fresh glass of wine down in front of me.

I stared down at the curious beverage. “Um, I didn’t order this,” I told him.

“I did.”

I turned to my left in time to see an attractive, thirtysomething man slide onto the barstool next to me.

Can’t a girl read her orc fucker book in peace?

It only took one quick scan of my admirer to know that I wasn’t interested. Everything about this guy screamed “douchey finance bro,” from the designer sneakers that I knew for a fact cost more than a month’s mortgage payment to that ridiculous fleece vest that every single one of them seemed to sport, regardless of how hot it was outside. Did they get a group discount from Patagonia or something?

“Thank you, but I’m driving tonight. And I already have a drink.” I smiled politely and gestured to the glass I’d been nursing for the last hour.

I didn’t drink to get drunk or buzzed, at least not anymore. I enjoyed the occasional glass of wine or fruity cocktail when the occasion called for it, but generally speaking, more than one of anything was likely to leave me with a lingering headache.

And no vest-loving, Patrick Bateman-idolizing d-bag was going to change my mind.

“Oh, c’mon,” he protested. “It’s just one more drink. Besides, he already poured it.” He leaned toward me in his seat before adding, “It would be rude not to drink it.”

Not as rude as throwing it in your face.

My lips twitched at the thought.

Ah, ah, ah. Consequences, Nessa.

Inner me was right. I couldn’t risk this dude’s pathetic attempt at a hookup escalating to something more. Especially not when both June and Clarke—aka my would-be “bail buddies”—were too busy falling in love. Who was going to bail me out of jail if a bar fight broke out after I drenched douche face in cabernet?

“I appreciate the gesture,” I told him, settling on politely letting him down. “But I’m going to pass. Have a great night.”

I turned back to my book, hoping that the glass of wine and the man who’d ordered it would evaporate into the night. I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.

“Aw, don’t be like that,” he teased.

“I’m not being like anything,” I said, edging closer to losing my patience. “I’d just like to read my book.”

He scoffed. “Right, that’s why you’re at a bar.”

The sheer confidence of men astounded me. Apparently, simply existing as a woman in any public space—even when nose deep in a book and sans makeup—meant I was asking for attention. But I’d be damned if I was going to rot at home twenty-four seven for the sake of sparing men’s fragile egos.

“You’re not even going to tell me your name?” he asked when I ignored him. “Hello?”

And just when I thought he might take my not-so-subtle rejection and find another place to sit, a grimy palm reached out and snatched the book from my hands. Did he just—

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

He held the book up, just out of reach, taunting me with it like a twelve-year-old on the playground. “Oo, kitty has claws,” he teased. “I guess now you’ll have to talk to me.”

Before I could decide whether to smack the stupid grin off his face—consequences be damned—a shadow fell over the bar, stunning my tormentor into silence.

“Aw, did you already order for me?” a familiar, honeyed voice crooned from behind me.

Jared Pink.

I’d know that voice anywhere. I’d spent the better part of the summer dreaming about that voice, that mouth.

And all the things it could do to me.

My thighs clenched when his fingers lightly scraped the small of my back. I silently cursed myself for responding to this man—of all people—the way that I did. It was so much easier to fight him than my body’s response to him.

I tilted my head back, meeting the pair of sparkling baby blues that had been burning a hole in the back of my head. He wetted his lips with his tongue and smiled.

Damn that boyish, toothy grin.

The man—if you could even call him that at the age of twenty-four, ten years my junior—was a walking advertisement for trouble.

With a capital T and that rhymes with C and that stands for . . . Crest Whitestrips?

“Want to introduce me to your friend, angel?”