Page 2 of Moonshine Kiss
“Cheese sticks,” I corrected, shoving Scarlett into the back seat and rolling her window all the way down. Bowie and I spent some quality time together over Christmas break cleaning Scarlett’s last puke fest out of his door pocket.
“I had a corndog, too,” Scarlett sang. “Junior was makin’ some in the microwave.”
“That’s probably why you just destroyed Mrs. Morganson’s shrubbery,” Bowie observed.
Scarlett thought that was hilarious and laughed until she hiccupped.
“Where to, trouble?” Bowie asked, settling behind the wheel as I buckled myself into the passenger seat. Trouble was his pet name for me. It was meant ironically since I was never in trouble. I’d never be calling someone for bail money on dollar shot night at The Lookout. Not with my dad presiding as sheriff over our sweet little slice of West Virginia. I was the good girl. The smart girl. The criminal justice major who planned to come back here and serve my town. I was the best friend who got Scarlett out of her messes of trouble.
Bowie was like me. Practically a choir boy. Secretly, I thought maybe he was doing his best to make up for his parents while I was living up to mine.
Scarlett warbled a little song in the back seat.
“Let’s get some food in her,” I suggested, leaning back in the seat and sighing.
Bowie nodded at the waters he’d thoughtfully stashed in the cupholders. “You know the drill.”
“Hydration,” I twanged. I opened Scarlett’s bottle for her and handed it back. “Drink up, buttercup.”
Bowie opened mine for me, and I drank deeply. I wasn’t much of a heavy drinker. I had better things to do than go around getting shitfaced all the time. But Scarlett sure could be persuasive when she got started.
But the fact was, I was always there to hold Scarlett’s hair.
I always called Bowie, and he always came.
It was who we were.
2
Cassidy
The 24-Hour Eats Diner was our go-to place to shove fried foods down to soak up the varieties of alcohol underage drinkers were inclined to ingest. It was far enough out of town that we didn’t have to worry about running into any Sunday school teachers or father sheriffs. Best of all, it was completely empty.
I slid into the booth and was surprised when Bowie shoved in next to me, leaving Scarlett the whole other side to herself.
My heart did that familiar tap dance when he was close to me. No matter how many boys I dated, none of them ever made me feel that cocktail of nerves and anticipation that he served up for me. It was almost embarrassing how eager my body was just to be close to his.
I opened my menu and pretended to study it. In my peripheral, I gave Bowie the once over. What was it exactly about him that got me? Was it habit? Had I just loved him for so long there was no other way to feel about him?
He was tall like his brothers but leaner. Gibs and Jame were two sides of the same lumberjack coin. Flannels and facial hair. But Bowie was a little more stylish with his haircut and his clothes. Dark hair, gray eyes. That nice, almost-straight nose that had the slightest kink in it from a baseball knocked back at him after the pitch. He’d made the catch, got the out, and earned two black eyes for it.
He was leanly muscled everywhere from the line of shoulders to the tapered waist. I knew, from up close visual inspection, that he had those abs that were all the rage in Misty Lynn’s mama’s collection ofPlaygirlmagazines that she’d charged us a buck a piece to look at in seventh grade.
But Bowie was more than a sexy-as-hell body. There was so much going on behind those sterling silver eyes. When he looked at me, I felt like he was trying to decode my DNA. Like he wanted to knoweverything. It left me breathless and the exact opposite of the apathetic, available woman I was trying to be.
He was smart. He was kind. He was quiet. He was steady. He was good. Deep down, movie star hero quality good. I’d be stupid not to love him.
I just didn’t know if he loved me.
The signs pointed to a strong maybe. I’d been keeping a running tally for about three years now, every look, every comment, every stray physical contact. My instincts were telling me that the man had feelings. But I preferred a black and white, definitive answer.
“I’m havin’ pancakesandwaffles,” Scarlett decided. She was lying down on the booth bench, holding her menu aloft over her face.
“You want coffee?” I asked her as our usual late-night waitress approached.
“Yes, please,” Scarlett called.
“What’ll it be?” Carla the rockabilly poster girl asked, peering at us through her purple cat-eye glasses. We were in here, drunk and a little disorderly at least once a quarter, yet she’d never shown us the slightest bit of recognition, forcing us to increase the percentage of her tip to astronomical realms. We’d left her fifty percent last time. I thought that would at least get a “the usual?” out of her.
