Page 107 of Small Town Firsts

“Got it. I’ll grab your drinks and bring some bread.” She pivots on her heel and heads back to the kitchen.

I turn to Abby Jane and find her gaping at me with wide eyes, looking slightly shell-shocked. “What? What’s up?”

“You remembered?” Surprise paints her tone.

“Our order from back in the day? Fuck yeah, I remember. To be honest, there’s not much about you I don’t remember.”

“Oh really?” she asks, her competitive side rising to the surface. “Okay then, when we were nine, what did I want to be when I grew up?”

I drum my fingers once on the tabletop. “Really? A quiz?”

She smirks. “I mean, if you don’t know…”

“Well, to answer that question accurately, I’d need more info. Are you referring to at the end of third grade when you wanted to be an astronaut and begged your mom to send you to space camp? But she sent you to equestrian camp instead, and you changed your tune and decided you wanted to be a horse groomer, because you liked braiding their manes. Or maybe you mean the start of fourth grade when you wanted to be a veterinarian after helping treat one of the horses for a snake bite?”

When I’m finished, she sits there slack-jawed for a minute or two—long enough for our server to drop off our frosty mugs, two plates, and a platter of thick-sliced bread.

“Holy shit. You really do remember, huh?”

I pour a generous portion of olive oil onto my plate and dust it with some oregano and red pepper flakes. I tear off a bite of bread and run it through the oil before popping it into my mouth. After I swallow it, I take a long swig of my root beer. I know my silence is driving her a little bit crazy, so I decide to let her off the hook.

“Told ya. If it involves you, I remember.”

We munch away on the bread until our server returns with our pizza and two fresh, frosty root beers. “Here y’all go. Lemme know if you need anything else.” She carefully places the pan onthe pizza stand, and I waste no time serving us both up two slices—pepperoni for me, added veggies for her.

Abby Jane lifts hers to her mouth and takes a bite, a string of gooey cheese connecting the slice to her lips. I reach out and wrap the strand around my thumb, severing it from the slice. With her eyes locked on mine, Abby Jane sets her slice down onto her plate and grabs my hand, sucking my thumb briefly into her mouth, ridding it of the cheese. I’m talking in and out in two seconds, butJesus, I think I lived and died in those two seconds.

“So good,” she moans as she digs back into her pizza. She’s polished off an entire slice, and I haven’t even started on mine. I’ve been too busy watching her eat, reveling in her little moans of satisfaction, obsessing over how it would feel to have other parts of me between those luscious lips of hers.

“Aren’t you gonna eat?” she asks, nodding to my still-full plate.

Mentally, I shake off the haze I’m in. “Yeah, sorry. Got sidetracked.”

We polish off the rest of our meal in a comfortable silence, and when our server comes by to ask if we’d like dessert, we decline, and I ask for the check. When she deposits it on the table, I can’t hold back my laugh.

“What?” Abby Janes asks.

“Look.” I spin the wooden board the bill is banded to toward her. “Read the band.”

She scans it over, a huge smile breaking out across her face when she reads the words embossed into the band:seven days without pizza makes one weak.“Oh, my God. That is great. How have I never noticed that before?”

“I don’t know, but I haven’t either. It’s fucking funny. I guess it’s new?”

Just then our server reappears. “You mean the bands? Yeah. They’re new. Just got them in this week. I’ll have to tell Vinnyy’all liked them. He was hesitant.” She nods toward the board. “You ready for me to take that? No rush or anything…”

I pull out my wallet and slide two twenties under the band. “We’re good. Keep the change.”

CHAPTER 15

AJ

“Thank you for dinner,”I say to Brock as he opens the passenger door of his truck for me. “It was delicious.”

Brock backs me into the open door, causing the running boards to dig into my legs. He presses a soft kiss at the base of my neck—light and lingering, before working his way to just below my ear. He gently traces my lobe with the tip of his tongue, sending shivers down my spine.

Unable to take any more of his torture, I grab his face and angle it toward mine, claiming his lips. He opens for me immediately, groaning into my mouth as he palms my ass and lifts me into the truck and pulls away.

We’re both out of breath, and the wood he’s sporting beneath his jeans is impressive—it’s something I’d like to get intimately acquainted with. Brock catches me ogling his junk and reaches down and gives it a hard squeeze before adjusting himself. “Buckle up,” he all but growls, and I fucking love knowing he’s all worked up over me.

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