Page 39 of Small Town Firsts
“You’re the boss, Kira. You make the decisions and the plans. And believe me, I know you have a plan B, C, D, all the way to Z.”
“And when I fuck it up?”
My chest tightened with anger and a healthy edge of annoyance. “Who says you’re going to fuck it up?”
“Ever—” She cut herself off.
“No one. Beckett wouldn’t have put you in charge if he didn’t believe you could do it.” As much as it grated that they were so close, I knew that much was true.
I might be the new guy at Brothers Three, but even I could see how scarily capable she was at damn near everything.
“And you know what? You will fuck up some stuff.”
Her arms clenched tighter around herself.
I pulled one of her arms free then opened my palm. She stared at it for a moment before placing her hand in mine.
Something inside of me unclenched. I didn’t even realize how tight my shoulders were. I laced our fingers. “I know you’ll have a fix for it. And when you don’t, I’ll be there to help. I know I’ve been letting you do everything when it comes to the Taproom, and that’s because youareso capable. But I’m right there in thebrew room when you need me. And I don’t care if it’s just to move tables around for you.”
She huffed out a breath, but her shoulders dropped a little.
“But when I say that you act like one of the guys, I mean, you have forgotten you are a sexy and incredible woman. And you know what—I’m glad about that right now. Because I can be the one to show you exactly how fucking sexy you are.”
We idled at the entrance to The Mason Jar as I waited her out. A car came up behind us and honked.
“I can pull back into the parking lot.”
“Go left,” she said on a shaky whisper.
I lifted her hand to my mouth and scraped my teeth over the fragile skin of her wrist, then lowered our linked hands to my thigh before turning onto Crescent Lake Road.
The sun slipped behind the trees and into the horizon as we headed back toward Turnbull. The only conversation included her directions and her soft breaths.
I didn’t even put music on.
The silence in the cab of my truck added to the molasses-thick tension between us. She directed me down a winding road to a dead-end street and a hundred-year-old Victorian with an improbably-sized parking lot for the era.
Probably an old elephant that had been chopped up into apartments in the nineties. At least that was what my mom used to call them. The old factory towns across the east coast were famous for the ostentatious houses that fell to ruin when the job opportunities ended. When I’d researched the area, I’d seen lots of ads for them while looking for a place to rent.
“Park towards the back.”
“To hide my truck?”
Her jaw flexed in the dim light from the dash. “Because my place is in the back.”
I found an empty slot and jammed my gear shift into park. Before we could get into another argument—because we were so good at them—I unclipped her belt and drew her across the bench to get out on my side.
“Caveman,” she muttered.
I kept our fingers tangled, firming when she tried to brush past me. She led me along the path to the back of the house. There were three cracked cement stairs at the entrance to a back porch.
Deep green and white paint tried to mask some of the age and disrepair, but I could tell the old place needed work. She toed away a few rocks and bent to retrieve a plastic rock that held a key. I let her hand go so she could open the poor excuse for a lock that made me instantly want to haul her off to the hardware store for a new kit.
Maybe for a complete security system.
I glanced at the postage stamp yard then beyond to the gnarled paths crowded out by brambles and felled trees.
I had to shimmy my way through the door because it was definitely made in a time where men were not my size. The hallway was just as narrow with barely any soundproofing. The oppressive heat of the day hung in the air mixing with…was that taco seasoning?
