“You always this tightly wound, Sloane-for-a-girl?” I asked as we passed the edge of the marsh, her estate looming in the distance like a castle straight out of a Southern fairy tale.
“Only around people who think sarcasm is a personality,” she shot back.
“Good thing I’ve got charm to back it up,” I said.
“Debatable.”
I chuckled. “You ever let your guard down, or is that just for your brunch friends and followers?”
That one hit. I saw it in the slight flick of her lashes. The tiny shift of her mouth.
“I don’t brunch,” she said.
“Liar.”
“Not with people like you.”
“That’s okay. I’m more of a gas station biscuit guy.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Figures.”
“You’d be amazed what you can learn at a truck stop,” I said.
“Oh, I’m sure. Like how many varieties of beef jerky can give you botulism.”
I laughed again, louder this time. “Now you’re getting it.”
We turned onto the drive leading to her father’s estate, and it hit like a slap. Gates taller than my truck. A tree-lined lane that probably took five landscapers a week to maintain. The house itself? Massive. Whitewashed columns, three balconies, and more windows than a glass factory.
“Nice place,” I said, pulling to a stop near the gate. “Electric bill must be a fortune.”
She didn’t smile. She didn’t laugh. She gave me a look. The kind that could peel paint. Then, with the same dignity of a queen addressing a stable boy, she unbuckled her belt, opened the door, and stepped out.
No “thank you.”
Not even a nod.
Just curves for days and an exit that deserved a slow clap.
I watched her walk to the gate like she was on a runway. Head high. Hips swaying. Like she hadn’t spent the last twenty minutes dripping in sarcasm and sweat.
She didn’t look back. She didn’t need to.
I should’ve felt relief. I should’ve been glad to be rid of her.
But as I turned the truck around and headed back toward the hangar, the smell of her perfume lingering in the cab, I found myself shaking my head.
She was the polar opposite of everything I wanted.
And yet, damn if I didn’t find her the most interesting thing I’d seen all year.
3
SLOANE
My daddy’s estate came into view like something out of a Southern gothic fever dream. It was three stories of white-painted brick framed by live oaks, Spanish moss, and pressure so thick you could bottle it.
Home sweet suffocation.
