“Sorry.” Lindsey’s cheeks flush an endearing shade of pink. “We’ll have our coffee and snacks for here, please, Agnes. One hot coffee, black. And one—”
She glances over at me, and I, in turn, look at the little old lady. Her mouth is pinched so tight it looks like a butthole as she takes in my expensive button down and trim navy blazer. She’s got the Spidey sense that I want to order something fancy and flavored. I can feel it.
“Um, another hot black coffee,” I say, flashing a polite smile. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Another hot black coffee,” my little sister repeats. “And two plain bagels, please.”
The little old woman makes a tutting noise as she enters our orders on her register. In less than ten seconds, our hot black coffees and bagels are slid across the counter. I pick them up and follow Lindsey as she trails through the crowded shop over toward an empty bubble near one of the windows.
“Sorry,” she says, stroking Kate’s red head as we settle in. I pass her one of the mugs, and she clasps it in both hands before blowing on the top and downing her first swig. “Believe me, I can’t wait to show you what all your high-falutin’ basketball cash bought us. Mama has her own little suite in the backyard, and we’ve gotthreebathrooms, and Jakey has been eyeballin’ one of those fancy hot tubs at a store out in Alpharetta. We’re living the high life.”
“But you prefer to stand and drink bad coffee with a view of the underdeveloped downtown area. I totally get it.” I smirk and sip my drink.
Lindsey sticks her tongue out at me. “Listen, you know you’re welcome to stay with us. But Baby Kate is teethin’ and I know it’s driving Jakey up the wall. So we talked about it, and we had some spare cash this pay cycle, so… we paid your way out at the Little Haven Inn. You’ll get some peace and quiet, and it’s only a five-minute walk from our place.”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t take this coffee to go,” I argue. “I’ll get myself settled in at the inn later. I can hold our coffees and we can take this stuff—”
“SMITH!”
Everyone in the shop turns to see who has entered. I notice the guy who was eyeballing me earlier, a smug smile on his face as his guess at my identity is proven correct. I look over at the front door.
My childhood best friend, Hunter Moore, is parting the crowd to get to me in the way only his six-foot-three frame can. A grin instantly tugs at my mouth, and I’m striding over to him, too. He pulls me into a hug, burying my face in his camo jacket.
“God, you’ve gotten uglier,” he growls in my ear.
“I, um, invited a bit of a welcome party,” Lindsey says sheepishly, stepping up beside us.
“How much makeup are they putting on you for TV interviews?” Hunter steps back, pinching my cheeks as he looks at me. I grimace, pulling away, but cracking into a smile nonetheless. “You’ve gotten fat. And you look like you’re dressed for a funeral.”
I laugh. “Hunter, you’re a walking reboot ofThe Beverly Hillbillies. You smell like cheap tobacco and deer guts.”
He pounds his chest with one fist, grinning in that All-American way I remember from when we pulled off a smooth play together in one of our high school basketball games. Despite the camo and the bushy beard he’s grown since then, he’s still the good-looking tramp I grew up with. He’s got those deep dimples on his cheeks, the packed build, and the confidence that must drive all the camo-wearing, beer-drinking, bass-fishing girls around here crazy.
“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Hunter says, beaming. “Now why the hell did it take you losing your job to finally come visit me? I’ve been sending you text messages you can stay at my family’s place for years now. You know we would have lit this town up.”
I laugh again, knowing Hunter means what he says. We were a force in high school, but he was always the instigator. I took basketball more seriously, with dreams to go pro, while he played the sport for the hell of it. Hunter was the one organizing all those ragers my sister mentioned, and he was usually the only kid from school brave enough to use his fake ID to get booze out in Mountain Hope.
“I didn’t lose my job,” I correct him, the words catching in my dry throat. “It’s paid leave. I’m just suspended.”
Hunter snorts. “Your punch took Maxim Myers off People’s Sexiest Man Alive list. You can’t come back from a nose that broken.”
A familiar heat sweeps across the back of my neck, and my fists clench and unclench. I shake my head.
“God, that was so stupid,” I admit. “But give me a few weeks. I’m just going to keep my head down, stick by my folks out here, and then I’ll come back like nothing ever happened. Some talking head will say something stupid and the next news cycle will pick it up and everyone will forget what happened with me.”
There’s a gust of wind as the coffee shop door opens again, and a spray of snow flits across the room.
“Back here, Moll!” Hunter booms out again, waving one arm.
I glance back at the door, and my chest tightens.
God. She looks better than I remembered.
Molly Moore, Hunter’s little sister, pushes toward us through the crowd. Snowflakes are streaked through her long dark hair and are crystallized on her sooty lashes. Her body has filled out since she was sixteen; where she was once skinny and gangly, she now has curves, soft arms, a slight stomach. She’s got on this ruched sweater thing that dips a little low for this conservative small town, exposing a generous line of cleavage between two pale white breasts. She looks a hell of a lot more like a woman. She’s got to be—what? A little over thirty now?
Her mouth is the same, though. Full pink lips and big white teeth. Dimples that match her older brother’s when she smiles, as she’s doing now.
Molly pulls me into a hug, and I’m ridiculously stiff. She pulls back, eyeballing me aggressively.