Page 8 of What Hurts Us

I cursed under my breath as I cut the engine and snatched up my sandwich from the tavern.

“Hi, Callum!” she cooed. The stench of her Love Spell body spray suffocated me even though I was still in the driveway.

Some spell…More like man-repellent. It made my eyes water worse than pepper spray. Someone could weaponize that shit.

I could turn and go in the back door.The asshole thought slipped in before I could swat it away. Against my better judgment, I slowly trudged to the door. “BJ,” I said with a chin tip.

Brandie Jean and I had gone to high school together. Her look hadn’t changed since then. She still favored a spray tan in the shade of Cheeto.Still kept her lips coated with a sticky gloss that was probably meant to snare men like a Venus flytrap. Still wore fake lashes that looked like brooms. Her brows hadn’t survived decades of over-plucking. Now, she painted them on. She had disco-ball glitter across her eyelids.

And rumor had it, her boobs and rear end were ten years younger than she was.

I believed it.

A casserole dish of something that smelled like roadkill was perched precariously between inch-long fake nails.

“Scuse me,” I grunted as I dragged my leg up the three steps leading to the porch, fishing around in my pocket for my keys.

“Oh, you poor thing,” she said with an animated sigh, as if I was a wounded puppy. “Here, let me get the door for you.”

I already had my key in the lock. “No need. I got it.”

“I’ve been tryin’ to catch you for a week now.” She lifted the casserole dish. “I made you some dinner. Figured you wouldn’t wanna have to get up and cook for yourself.”

I knew she’d been loitering around my property. I had been able to smell her sickeningly sweet odor for three days. I’d just gotten good at avoiding her.And the world.

Damn craving for a Cuban sandwich…

She wedged herself between me and the door. Her boobs nearly popped out of the glorified headband she wore around her chest in place of a shirt. “How ’bout I warm this up for you?”

I stared longingly at my empty, quiet house. “I, uh… I’m not really up for company.”

She waved me off with a toothy grin. “That grumpy face is too cute to scare me off, Callum!” she sing-songed as she let herself into my house and started cutting on lights like she owned the damn place.

I was still on the porch, staring into the open door, when I heard thebeep beepof Brandie Jean punching buttons on my oven.

“Fuck my life,” I muttered as I hobbled inside.

Brandie stepped out of the kitchen, wiping her tangerine hands on an apron.When did I get an apron?“You know, I was hoping we’d get our second date before the Ladies Auxiliary auction came back around.” She batted her fake eyelashes at me. The left one sagged, probably from the humidity.

That fucking auction fundraiser…

Once a year, the Ladies Auxiliary would put on a fundraiser for the Widows and Orphans Fund. They raised a hell of a lot of money, and it went to a noble cause.

They managed to raise that money by having the single men and women from the police department volunteer—against their will—to have bidders win dates with them.

Even for an asshole like me, I could admit it was all in good fun. Usually, one of my grandma’s blue-haired friends would bid on me, and I’d show her a good time. Two years ago, Maribel Gonzales—the town’s seventy-eight-year-old librarian—won a date with me. She wanted to ride around town on the back of my Harley, and I was happy to oblige. I took her on the scenic route, ending back at her house, where she taught me how to make arepas. It was one of the best dates I’d ever been on. Even if it was fake.

But last year… Last year was when it all went south.

Fresh off her fourth breakup in three months, Brandie Jean bid on me.

And won.

I tried to keep things proper, but the woman was clingier than an octopus with separation anxiety. She felt me up twice before we even made it into the restaurant. She wanted to sit on the same side of the table. Wanted to feed me with her fork and have me reciprocate with mine.

It was fucking terrifying.

When I dropped Brandie Jean back at her place, she practically clawed my dress shirt off, then cried when I pushed her away. I still had a scar on my chest from those talons she called nails. It took some de-escalating to convince a wine-drunk BJ I’d had a nice time. For ten months, she’d been pestering me about a second date that sure as hell wasn’t going to happen.

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