Page 43 of Reach Around

“Right you are.”

He heads toward the pit, and I trail pathetically behind. That’s when I notice the stack of kindling he thinks he’s going to use.

“Dude! We have newspaper for that!”

“Newspaper doesn’t burn like these,” he says, striking a match with the flair of a man lighting his enemy’s love letters.

I want to argue. But you don’t win against Bennett. You just eventually stop bleeding.

Joely catches my eye, half-smirking like she expected this. And maybe she did.

Hell, maybe she expects everything from me now.

And maybe… I want to give it to her.

Bennett struts over to the stack of fire-starting supplies like he’s about to perform open-heart surgery with a toothpick and a dare. He’s got that look in his eye—the one that means trouble, not brilliance—but I say nothing. Because I know how this ends.

“Newspaper’s boring,” he announces, plucking a fistful of coasters from the box Mom left by the back door. My coasters.The Brogan coasters. The ones with her loopy doodles and puffy hearts. One of them even has the words “I heart your dumb face” scribbled across it like a high school diary entry.

After last night, they feel sacred. Relics. Like proof that what’s between us was always there, right out in the open, and I was the last idiot in Sorrowville to see it.

“Dude, no,” I say, moving toward him. “We have a literal stack of newspaper. Use that.”

Bennett grins like a man with a death wish. “But these are special. Sentimental. The perfect kindling for a night to remember.” He strikes the match with dramatic flair and tosses it in like he’s the star of a Hallmark arsonist special.

The coasters catch. Fast. And just like that, Joely’s quiet little secret love notes are turning into ash in the wind.

I scrub a hand down my face. “You’re an actual menace.”

“Correction.” He points the stick he’s been poking the flames with right at me. “I’m doing you a favor. Symbolic fire. A fresh start. Cleansing the awkward, pre-hookup energy.”

“Or,” I mutter, “you’re just a dick.”

Behind me, I hear Joely laugh. It’s soft, but it punches me square in the chest. I turn and catch her standing near Shep with a beer in her hands, watching the whole thing go down. She’s got that smirk—like she’s torn between amusement and murder—and I honestly don’t know which side I’m rooting for.

“You’re burning my mistakes,” she calls out, cheeks pink from the cold… or maybe from me. “I was saving those for future humiliation.”

“Too late,” Bennett calls back. “We’ve all been humiliated now.”

I shoot him a look. “I swear to God.”

He shrugs. “Blame Mom. She’s the one who let the box sit out.”

“Mom wasn’t the one who lit it on fire,” I grind out.

“Fair,” he says, then grins wider. “But now there’s no evidence. Which means you get to write a whole new love story. One that started last night.”

My jaw tightens because I want that, and it scares the hell out of me.

But before I can chase that spiral down, Joely steps up beside me, brushing her arm against mine like it’s nothing… like it’s everything.

My brother salutes me with a burnt coaster corner and saunters off toward the woodpile, muttering something about amateur lumberjacks.

A few minutes later, everyone finds a spot around the fire—some on old lawn chairs, a couple balancing on chopped logs. The flames spit and snap, throwing sparks up into the cold night as Bennett dumps another chunk of wood on top, like he’s daring the fire to burn hotter than the gossip. The air’s thick with smoke, laughter, and the familiar sting of snow on your cheeks.

Gage and Boone are locked in a heated debate over the only right way to roast a marshmallow, Shep’s in the middle of telling a story filthy enough to make Wolfe choke on his beer, and Heath’s already crooning off-key to whatever country song Virgil’s got playing on the speaker.

Joely and Lynsie are sitting shoulder to shoulder, heads close, whispering. I know that look—Lynsie’s got her “extract the truth at all costs” face on, and Joely’s cheeks are pink enough to tell me they’re definitely not talking about the weather. My stomach does this stupid little flip because, yeah, I know exactly what (or who) they’re talking about. God, I hope she’s not telling her best friend about how I fumbled the bra strap or how my nerves almost made me forget how to put on a condom. I want last night to be something she’s proud of, not just another punchline in the group chat.

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