As the old adage said, they were still people. Still broke. Still complaining. Still nowhere.
No one saw the potential in the town, something I exploited for everything it was worth. My high school job in an auto body shop led to me buying the business, and after that took off, the sky was the limit.
Next up was the old sawmill on the ridge, the perfect spot for a brewery and restaurant, and after a lot of hard work, I’d be opening the doors of Barrett for Memorial Day Weekend.
I studied the crowd, ready to go as more locals poured in. A fresh wave of salt air and sweat came swirling with them, the grimy combination coating every pore. After spending a day in the shop surrounded by men that smelled just as bad, it was the last place on Earth I wanted to be.
Marsh continued to make an ass of himself, laughing it up with Renee and Joanna, two women too good for the likes of me. They liked their men pretty now — not that it bothered me one bit. I entertained both through their rebellious years.
While easy to look at, once the two peas in a pod were separated, any semblance of personality was replaced with wet straw. After a handful of starfish bedroom performances, I’d had enough.
A perky blonde in a booth behind them caught my eye. She was seated across from Lynette Stephens, a former classmate who never wandered into Greg’s, too wealthy to mingle with regular people after her divorce. On rare occasions, she stopped in the shop when she needed her swanky ride serviced. She wanted me to service more than that, but she made my skin crawl.
I’d never seen her smile so much, cackling at the mystery woman whose laughter echoed, ringing achingly familiar. Every laugh was louder than the last, Lynette’s teetering towards fake territory. It was the kind of hearty haha you give when an interviewer tells a shit joke, but you really need the job.
With poker-straight long locks and tanned skin that beamed compared to the pale faces all around, the blonde definitely wasn’t a local. Her features were softer than the fierce angles of Lynette’s and tugged at my brain like no other, but I couldn’t place her face. That laugh. That hair.
It wasn’t until her lips slid into a half-smirk that the answer clocked me like a fist to the jaw. An icepick to the chest followed it up.
Josie Roberts.
It’d been years since I’d seen her, but I’d recognize that face anywhere. No amount of time scratched it from my mind. All the booze in the world couldn’t wash it away, either.
She either hadn’t seen me or was blowing me off, her attention focused solely on Lynette. Then again, even if she saw me, she probably wouldn’t know it. I’d grown my hair, slapped on tattoos, and sprouted a beard, maturing from a scrawny twenty-one-year-old who let life kick him in the balls to a thirty-two-year-old who took shit from no one.
The pain in my chest intensified as those lips I’d kissed thousands of times pulled into my favorite of her features, an eternal smirk that melted hearts. I always preferred it over traditional smiles reminiscent of sharks, a vicious predator she’d been all along. She tore out my still-beating heart before disappearing with blood churning in the water.
I searched the dance floor for Marsh, needing to get the hell out of dodge before I was sick. Joanna and Renee still danced side by side with their hips wiggling to the music, but the pirate of Briar was nowhere to be found.
Just my luck.
I grabbed my cell and fired off a MUSKRAT text, our code for an emergency, but Josie Roberts was more than that. She was a disaster — a surprise hurricane followed by rapid-fire EF5 tornadoes, annihilating everything in her wake.
I skimmed the bar repeatedly, giving up as the air grew thicker, the stench of betrayal joining the salt and body odor. I was suffocating, the room spinning as I rushed towards the door, taking the long way around the bar to avoid hell on Earth.
I’d wait for Marsh in the truck and fulfill my role as the designated driver. My one beer limit was reduced to a half, unable to stomach the putrid taste any longer with the acid churning in my guts.
Careful planning went straight down the shitter with the resurrection of Josie Roberts in Briar happening far ahead of schedule. I’d planned a camping trip for the day of her little sister’s wedding, but she’d gone and fucked that up royally, showing up in the one place where Briar folk went to unwind.
Sweat beaded at my temple as I rounded the corner toward freedom. In the haze, I bumped into a server, catching her elbow to save her from careening into a pool table. Luckily it was Piper, a choppy-haired redhead who told me off whenever she saw fit.
“Seriously, Barrett?” she hissed, straightening her outfit. Thankfully, she hadn’t been carrying a tray.
The commotion gathered enough attention to clear the surrounding crowd, giving me the perfect view of Josie and Lynette making their way out.
Fuck.
Josie looked good. Damn good. A tight-bodied blonde with long legs, she stilted herself with heels like Lynette, losing the Converse she’d once lived in, while a short sundress bared miles of bronzed skin.
The two were as enthralled in their conversation as they’d been at the table, seemingly unaware of my existence. They were probably swapping country club stories and gossip. She’d been one of them all along.
How disgusting.
We were hellions in our day, driving around in my Camaro without a care in the world. Cliff jumping. Hiking. Mile-high bonfires. We’d done it all.
Until one day, it stopped.
The thought broke the spell, and I remembered
