Page 5 of Moonshine Kiss
He squeezed my hand until I nodded. “Got it.”
He let go of my hand and drove me the four blocks to my parents’ house in silence. I sulked, and Bowie did whatever he usually did in his head.
My perfect southern gentleman put the SUV in park and turned off the engine. He was walking me to the door whether I liked it or not. We walked up the brick sidewalk to the house. It was a wide, white two-story with tall columns. “I live in the White House,” I’d told Scarlett when I met her on the first day of kindergarten. It was about three times the size of Scarlett’s house. And what went on within my walls was a hell of a lot different than Scarlett’s. Sometimes I felt guilty that I had so much. That my parents were so good, normal.
Bowie shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans when we reached the door.
I sighed. Just because I was devastated and all didn’t mean I shouldn’t thank the man for giving up his evening to come to my rescue again. I reached into my own pocket and pulled out the ten-dollar bill I’d stashed there about thirty seconds after making the bet with Bowie.
“Thanks for being there. As usual.” I leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. A kiss good-bye to my fantasy that this summer would be the summer Bowie realized he was mine.
His hands were out of his pockets and on my waist, and I was jumping out of my skin like a bullfrog hopping for the pond. He was probably only holding me up in case I went unsteady again.
I slapped the money to his chest and gave him a little push back.
“Keep it,” he told me.
“I always pay my debts.”
He took the bill, folded it neatly, and without taking his eyes off of mine slid it into the neck of my shirt and under the bra strap.
“Keep it, Cass.”
I’d lost the power of speech. And apparently all major motor skills because when I stepped back, I tripped over the antique dang watering can my mother kept full of pussy willow branches next to the door. I caught myself with my palms against the painted brick.
“You all right there?”
I could hear the smirk in his voice.
“Peachy.” I made a grab for the door handle.
“Cass?”
He stopped me with just my name.
“Yeah?”
“Glad to have you home.”
4
Cassidy
It was too hot for a bonfire, but you couldn’t have a lake-front party in Bootleg without one. It added to the “rustic ambiance” as Blaine—not Blake—the cute summertimer from the other night pointed out. It also kept the dang mosquitos from eating us alive.
Blaine was in town for the month staying with his family in one of the big houses on the dog-leg end of the lake. He was a junior at one of the lesser known Ivy League colleges studying economics. And he was currently dancing up on me like we were in some nightclub with dark corners and $15 beers.
I wasn’t particularly into it seeing as how I’d spotted Bowie wander by a minute ago. But Blake—I mean Blaine—was going to be my palate cleanser. I was going to make out with this whale logoed polo-wearing cutie and get Bowie Bodine out of my head.
“Tell me more about your fraternity, honey,” I purred, not giving a flying crap about Kappa Papa Whatever.
While his hands wandered my waist and midriff, Blaine launched into another story about his fraternity brothers. I tried not to notice when Bowie wandered by again, beer in hand. But his gray eyes met mine and held. I felt more from that contact than I did from Blaine’s soft, smooth palms brushing my bare skin.
The bonfire flickered behind him, the music played all around us while our friends and neighbors drank and danced. All I saw was Bowie.
It wasn’t fair.
Side-by-side, poor Blaine didn’t stand a chance. Bowie was wearing a beloved t-shirt that molded to his chest. His jeans were slung low on his hips. He had on leather flip-flops and a battered ball cap.
