Page 64 of Hot Ice, Tennessee

I didn’t want any of them.

I felt like I was broken, or something.

“Going to walk downtown,” I told them. “It’s a nice night. Maybe this time I won’t almost get struck by lightning.”

“Did that happen?”

“Last time I tried to walk home from there, let’s just say I was a few hundred feet away from being a piece of roadkill.”

Finn patted my back. “You’ll be good tonight.”

I made my way past a sea of gowns and tuxedos before I reached my front door. I swung it open, making my way out and onto my front driveway.

I breathed deep.

That’s better.

The air smelled sweet, like hay and far-off barbecue. The moment I was out and onto the road, I was glad I’d left. The night was perfect for a walk, finally cooling off after today had been another warm one.

The stars were out now. Better than any of the glittering diamonds that were currently populating my house. I walked along the edge of the sloping hill, sucking in air.

Swearing off sex one minute and then wound up like a spring the next.Couldn’t say it wasn’t my own fault.

Even last night at the Hard Spot, I’d tried to find someone I liked—and instead found myself wishing everyone was just a little bit… different.

Wishing a guy had tattoos.

Or that he was younger.

Or that he was… more like Jesse.

But apparently nobody could fucking scratch that itch.

Jesse was the only person my cock seemed to be interested in anymore, which was a real fucking pain in my ass.

When I made it to Laurel Ave about half an hour later, the night was bustling. People walked up and down the road likesummer itself had invited everybody out tonight. I wanted to capture this feeling and put it in a bottle, like a firefly.

I needed something.

Like in my dreams, where I kept going and going, searching for something I didn’t know how to find.

I turned the corner on Second Street and saw the front lot of the Hard Spot, full of cars. A group had just walked in the front door and there was another figure there, someone leaning on the front brick exterior, his body cast in a low glow of light.

My heart did something funny as I saw the guy there.

Jesse.

I’d been doing that every day—thinking people around town were him for a split second, then realizing they weren’t.

But as I walked closer, my shoes crunching on a piece of loose asphalt in the lot, I realized that it was real, this time.

It actually was him.

Leaning on the wall out front with a goddamn lollipop in his mouth.Fuck, he looked so good it was almost unfair. How did I always seem to find him, even when I was trying my best to play it cool?

He caught sight of me as I slowly approached. He glanced up to give me a quick nod like I was just another person heading inside. When he met my eyes, though, he pulled the lollipop out of his mouth with a littlepop, his gaze dancing down to my lips then back up again.

“There you are,” he said, his voice low.

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