Page 6 of That Moment
“I am,” the woman smiles, jutting her hand out toward me. “I’m Sadie.”
I almost tell her she looks too young to own it, but I remember how much I hated hearing that from senior-level attorneys over the years. It almost felt like an underhanded way of saying they didn’t take me as seriously because of it.
“It’s so amazing to meet you, Sadie.” I shake her hand and we each go around introducing ourselves.
“I guess the Slades really do own this town, then, huh?” She laughs after hearing us each say our last name.
“Something like that," Milly laughs. “But I promise you, any of the bad rumors that you might hear are ancient history. The only Slades you have to worry about are the single male Slades.”
That sends us all into a fit of laughter because it’s kind of true. The second a single woman shows her face in this town, it’s a race to see which Slade asks her out first.
“Including her brothers.” Brooklyn points her finger at me and wiggles it, “That Axel is a handful and a half.”
“No kidding.” I roll my eyes. “But seriously, we’re just teasing,” I add when I see her eyes grow a little wide at our jokes. “My brother is great, he’s just the wild one out of us Slade triplets.”
“Triplets?” She shakes her head, “I bet your poor mom had her hands full then. I only have a fourteen-month-old daughter and I feel like I’m running on fumes and well,” she gestures around us, “caffeine.”
We finish up our small talk with Sadie, and she retreats to the back to get our drinks.
Brooklyn folds her hands under her chin and narrows her eyes in a way that would send a grown man’s testicles back up inside of himself. “So. Who ruined your attention span today?”
I blink. “Excuse me?”
Milly props her chin on her palm, grin pure trouble. “She had the look.”
“What look?”
“The Scotty look,” they say together, clearly pleased with themselves.
Heat crawls up my throat. I take a long drink of water.
“We are not doing this.”
Brooklyn’s smile tells me I don’t stand a chance against their onslaught. “We are absolutely doing this. It has been, what, two years since your last “almost” kiss, and you are recently back on the market, which means that Scotty will be sniffing around again at any second.
Milly counts on her fingers. “Let’s see. There was the Fourth of July bonfire when he oh so gently put his hands on your waistto get by, and you short-circuited. The barn dance at Ranger’s, where you two took over the dance floor for like, four songs and then pretended nothing happened. Then last winter, Juniper said you brought donuts to the garage for no reason and left wearing his hoodie.”
“It was cold,” I say primly, reaching for my water again.
“Uh-huh,” Milly says. “And in 2020, when the whole town had nothing to do but drive around and wave at each other from six feet away, you somehow ended up in his driveway a lot.”
I stare at the menu like it might offer a trap door. “He lives on a road between places I frequent.”
Brooklyn finally breaks. “You and Scotty do this every couple of years, babe. You flirt like you invented it, you escalate to emotionally charged jabs at each other and eye fuck each other like the damn Titanic is going down, you almost kiss, you pull back. Then you spend six months pretending he’s just a fun detour while you try to find Mr. Perfect and ignore what you really want.”
Sadie shows up with our order just in time to provide me a few minutes of reprieve from Brooklyn’s knowing gaze.
But the second she steps away, Milly leans in, eyes sparkling. “You like the chase. That’s the thing. It’s your kink.” My mouth falls open at her comment. “If you ever actually got caught, the fun would be gone.”
My laugh sticks in my throat.I like the chase, sure, but God, sometimes I like the idea of arriving.
“It isnota kink. It’s just—I dunno, maybe it’s the thrill of it since we know it could never be anything more. Scotty isn’t happily ever after material.”
“Which is code for kink,” Brooklyn says, completely unbothered. “Look, I’m not judging. We’ve all been distracted by the bright lights of rippling muscles and a wicked tongue. The problem is the reputation.”
I pick a nonexistent piece of lint from my skirt. “Whose reputation?”
“His,” they say, and then both pause long enough while staring at me until I’m uncomfortable.
