Page 3 of Moonshine Kiss
“Coffee, water, pancakes, and waffles, please,” Scarlett ordered from her repose.
“Water and the veggie omelet,” I decided. I didn’t need caffeine coursing through my system when Bowie’s arm was resting on the back of the booth an inch from my shoulders.
He ordered his eggs and sausage and coffee while I tried not to think about how close that arm was to touching me.
Carla wandered off in no hurry to plug our order into the system.
“Y’all have fun tonight?” Bowie asked me.
Let’s see, I’d done shots with Scarlett and three summertimers—what Bootleggers called the outsiders who flocked to our hot springs and lake every summer. Then I’d picked the cutest summertimer and showed him a two-step by the fire that had both our heads spinning. I’d gotten into a debate about recidivism with a fellow criminal justice major. And now I was sitting here with Bowie Bodine’s arm almost around me.
“Yeah. It was all right,” I told him. “You have a date tonight?”
He gave me one of those long, quiet looks. “Yeah.”
“Have fun?” I asked, blasé as you please.Cassidy Tucker couldn’t be bothered to care about his date, no sir.
“It was all right.” He echoed my own words with a slow grin.
He shifted, taking up more space in the booth. When his knee brushed mine, I considered swooning and then decided against it. It should take more than the accidental brush of denim to impress me, I decided.
Scarlett snort-laughed at something that was only funny to her in her alcohol-addled mind, and Bowie and I shared an amused look. I was finally an adult. Nineteen years old. I’d long clung to the idea that Bowie had never made a move on me because I was too young.
It was either that or he was physically repulsed by me.
But I was pretty sure that wasn’t it. I was no big-boobed, bleached-blonde Misty Lynn Prosser. I had my own long-legged, freckled-nose appeal. It was a damn shame it was taking Bowie so long to realize it.
Our food arrived, and Bowie’s arm disappeared from the back of the booth. I was a little relieved seeing as how the “will he or won’t he touch me” debate would have raged in my head until I’d bitten through my tongue or lip. It’d happened before. There’d come a day when I’d probably choke to death on something because I was too distracted by his presence to chew my dang food. As a safety precaution, I’d taken to eating less around Bowie.
Scarlett popped back up on the other side of the booth and gave Bowie a ten-minute, breakfast carb mouthful rundown of our evening. “Cassidy, what was that guy’s name that you were dancin’ with?”
Even drunk, my Scarlett was a schemer. She said it as innocent as you please, but I saw her eyes skim Bowie’s face, looking for a reaction.
I reached for my water. “Blake.” I was almost sure of it. Or maybe it was Nate? Hell, his name wasn’t Bowie and that was that.
“Looked like you two were gettin’ real cozy,” she purred. My best friend was a tiny little fireball with an evil, calculating mind. I loved her to bits and pieces.
I lifted a shoulder as if my own dating exploits were too boring for comment.
Bowie was suddenly very interested in his plate of food. I didn’t know what that meant, but Scarlett was grinning like a jack-o-lantern on Halloween.
3
Cassidy
“Idon’t need a chauffeur,” I argued.
We’d deposited Scarlett on Grumpy Gibson’s couch for the night. Neither of us wanted to deliver a drunk Scarlett home to her perpetually drunk daddy. She needed someone who could help out should she decide to barf all over herself or talk her out of drawing a hopscotch board in the middle of Main Street…again.
Gibson, the oldest Bodine, drew the short straw…again.
Bowie crossed his arms. “You know the rules, Cass.”
“Callie Kendall disappeared four years ago, Bow. I think we can rule it an isolated incident.”
“Get in the car, trouble,” he said, pushing me down the sidewalk.
I argued, just so he’d give me another little shove. I wasn’t proud of it. Being this hangdog needy-in-love wasn’t who I’d expected to grow up to be. But love was love, and there wasn’t much point in fighting it.
