Page 5 of Christmas Music
And had never spoken to me again.
CHAPTER3
Connor
Iyanked my eyes away from the menu attached to the wall—which I should have, by rights, had memorized with how many times I’d been in here—and looked down at where our legs were still tangled together.
“God, girl, what did you do, weaponize your knees?” I asked, bending down to rub at the—imaginary—bruises forming on my own legs.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” a low, very cool voice answered.
I froze.
Iknewthat voice. I’d heard that voice about a million and one times. Though I hadn’t heard it in years, and had only interacted with it directly one time.
I turned my eyes slowly up to the face that belonged to the voice and found Olivia Johns herself staring back at me, her hair just as red as I remembered and her eyes a shade of green so striking that I’d once sworn I would never see another set like them.
I hadn’t. I’d looked all over in Nashville and had never found another set to match hers.
But I didn’t like the way they were currently staring at me.
I looked down again, noticed that our legs were still all tangled up together—how the hell had that happened?—and took a slow step backward, telling myself to be cool. Calm. Collected. I mean it wasn’t like I was standing here tangled up with the girl I’d had a crush on through the entirety of high school, or anything. It wasn’t like she’d just shown up in our hometown—which I’d thought she’d left for good—during one of the lowest points of my life.
It wasn’t like she was anything at all to me, honestly. She never had been. She’d always been way too high up to pay attention to someone like me. Way too pretty and popular and ultimately successful to bother with some rancher’s kid.
The thought brought my self-discipline back and I straightened my shoulders and took another step backward.
“Well I’ll be damned. Olivia Johns, what are you doing here? I thought you were in Nashville, mixing with the rich and famous.”
A quick flush rose in her cheeks. “Me? No, I, uh...”
She glanced quickly at the dark-haired girl next to her, and that girl spun around as well, exposing yet another familiar face. Parker Pelton. Of course. She and Olivia had been thick as thieves when we were kids, and Olivia had almost never gone anywhere without her slightly older, much more outspoken counterpart.
“She’s here for Christmas, Connor. Why areyouhere?”
I tipped my head at that, surprised that she didn’t know. This was a small town, and everyone knew pretty much everything about everyone else. Word of my dad’s cancer had spread so quickly that I’d barely stepped off the bus home before people started telling me how sorry they were to hear it. How was it that Parker—?
Ah. She was in Nashville too, now that I thought about it. She and Olivia had moved there together the day after we graduated. And I didn’t know about Parker, but I knew Olivia had never been back.
I’d watched for her.
And if they didn’t know...
I shrugged. “Here for the holidays, I guess, same as everyone else. Mom and Dad still have the ranch, after all.”
“Right,” Parker said, drawing out the word. “So...” A lifted eyebrow told me that she considered this conversation finished, and a quick glance at Olivia told me that she wasn’t going to intervene.
Not that she ever had.
Like I said, rancher’s son. I’d never been a part of the circle that Parker and Olivia managed to form around themselves. Parker’s dad had owned the grocery store and Olivia’s ran the hardware store.
My parents hustled cows.
Different stratospheres. And I guessed growing up hadn’t changed that.
I snorted, feeling all the old frustration from high school rushing back in, and turned around without another word. I had enough to worry about right now without picking a fight with those two. Between my dad and the ranch, my resources were all tied up, and after tonight, I’d have one more thing to add to the list.
The contest.
