Page 39 of Best Friends, Tennessee

As I was gathering up the blanket a few minutes later, I heard the sound of the back door swinging open again.

“Get the fuck inside, Cumshot King,” Ori said, calling out toward me. “I put onBritish Bakingso we can crash out on the couch. Also, we’re never doing that again, okay?”

My heart flooded with relief all at once, like a dam had broken inside me.

God fucking bless.

He’d acknowledged the weirdness, made a joke, and agreed that we wouldneverdo it again, all in one fell swoop.

Ori Adams, my hero. No filter, no hesitation. I knew he’d been my best friend for a reason.

“I’ll be in soon,” I said.

But a twinge of disappointment crept in as I made my way back inside, glancing back out at the extinguished fire pit.

Never again.

But it still felt really good, didn’t it?

7

ORI

They say nothing good happens after 2 a.m.

But really fucking hot things do.

I stepped out of the diner and onto Laurel Ave. Instantly I was met with the smell of barbecue. The sun was just starting to set, and a crowd of people were standing across the street near the Hard Spot.

“No wonder nobody was coming into Red Fox for the past hour,” I told Thomas as we spotted the Big Slab BBQ food truck parked across the street.

“They bring in food trucks for game night at the Hard Spot,” Danielle said from behind us. She’d just left Olivia with the babysitter for two hours so she could come with us.

“Guessing these game nights are kind of a big deal, if the crowd is any indication,” I said as we walked past the cobblestone corner on Laurel & Second St.

Normally I would have avoided a big event at a country western saloon—there was bound to be plenty of country music,cowboys, and potentially lots of people from my past I didn’t want to see. Bestens wasn’t the tiniest town, but it sure as hell wasn’t big.

But Dani and Thomas wanted to go, and truthfully, I desperately needed a distraction.

It had been three days since Finn and I did… whatever we did out in his backyard, and the memory had been burned into my brain ever since.

His eyes on mine.

Howfearlesshe’d been.

His goddamn thumb in my mouth, and the way I’d been all too eager to suck it clean.

Each day since then, we’d been stuck in a reverse schedule from each other again. He’d gone out to the ranch early in the morning, then been gone all day with massage clients. I’d worked afternoons and nights in the diner, and by the time I got home, he was asleep already.

We basically hadn’t seen each other at all since that night.

There was one night I’d given him a quick nod in the hallway after he’d grabbed a glass of water, but that was that.

Today my diner shift ended early, though, and…

I wasn’t ready to go home.

To face him.

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