Tilly speaks first, too curious for anyone’s good. “Where are you going?”
“I just want to see something quick.”
“If you’re not back in ten minutes, I’m looking for you,” she warns.
I roll my eyes, giving her a thumbs-up before leaving them in between the trucks. It only takes me a minute to find the one I’m searching for. Parked away from everyone else, the black Ford with the Painted Sky logo on the passenger door is my focus. I quicken my pace, cheek tucked between my teeth.
Asshole. He’s an arrogant, asshole cowboy with a death wish.
Without thinking twice, I lift my foot and send it into the back tire. It doesn’t move, too thick to feel the impact of my boot. I blow a breath out of my nose and do it again, releasing a grunt. Over and over, I kick his tires until I’m panting.
“You don’t have a knife to slit them? Consider me disappointed in you.”
I whirl on Rowe, forgetting the tires long enough to contemplate kicking him in the crotch instead. But all it takes is one look at him this close up to make me stumble, my anger evaporating long enough that I grow eerily calm.
Those steel-grey eyes tighten at the corners when he slips his hands into the pockets of his jeans and leans a shoulder against the truck. His feet cross at the ankles, his black boots squared at the toe. I swallow the excess moisture in my mouth and straighten, trying to make myself appear taller.
After all these years of resentment and this forever raging hurt gnawing on every chunk of flesh, I’m finally standing in front of him. And he has the nerve to appear put out by my presence. That’s fucking rich.
“If I had a knife, I wouldn’t bother with the tires. You’d be pulling it out of your stomach instead.”
7
ROWE
I should leave.
The moment I saw her kicking my truck tires like they’d personally wronged her, it would have been smart of me to turn back the way I came. The Tilly I knew was never someone who held her frustration behind gritted teeth. She showed it loud and proud with a vicious grin and a lash of her venomous tongue.
Clearly, that hasn’t changed, despite how drastically the rest of her has.
My best friend’s twin sister is not a teenage girl anymore. Far fucking from it. There’s a figure to her body now, and my brain trips over itself trying to compare who she used to be to who she is now. Her eyes are the same hazelnut brown, and she’s still got the honey-blonde hair that she kept braided most of her younger years, but the woman they belong to is more . . . hard. Like she’s dealt with a lot of shit over the last decade.
“Stabbing is a new hobby for you,” I grate out, digging my shoulder into the body of my truck.
In a pair of jean shorts that have ridden up so high on her thighs they may as well be underwear at this point, Tilly glaresred-hot daggers at me. It’s obvious she wants to draw blood, but that’s not something I’m prepared to give her.
She doesn’t deserve anything from me.
“I have plenty of new hobbies. It’s been a long time.”
I tap my tongue behind my teeth, dropping my gaze to the tire she was just abusing. “Heard you’d gotten back to town. I didn’t think you’d be here.”
“Would you have rode if you knew ahead of time?”
“You think too highly of yourself to believe I’d have given a shit.”
Her laugh is too similar to the angry noise that damn black horse makes when I get too close. “You’re still a fucking asshole, Rowe.”
“Careful,” I warn, curling my fingers into the inner fabric of my pocket.
“Or what? You’ll give away another hat to try and prove a point?”
My eyes twitch when I pop the back door of my truck and grab my spare hat from the seat. It’s what I came out here for, and standing in front of her is making me wish I’d grabbed it already and gotten far fucking away. Once it’s back on, I can breathe a little easier.
“I’ve got no point to prove,” I deny, tasting the lie on my tongue.
It was a warning more than anything. She can’t be looking at me like that again. Not when we’re no longer teenagers, and there’s so much damage left between us that I can hardly think straight right now. I’d prefer to bite her head off and send her running. She’d keep her distance then.
