I roll my eyes, trying not to smile at his infectious optimism. “You need to be checked into a facility.”
He grins with each shiny white tooth, mocking me from across the room. “Think all you want, but I have a feeling you’re going to say yes.”
“And how do you know that?” I challenge, accidentally taking the bait.
Knox’s gaze lingers on me, and something dangerous starts to creep its way under the thick jean fabric of my overalls. He looks so confident, and it… Nope. Nope. It doesn’t do anything.
“Because underneath all that sarcasm and attitude, you’re still the same girl who craves a little adventure in her life. And I think this is going to be a great adventure for both of us.”
The words send a longing pang straight to my heart, but I smother it out before it can create the same ripple effect that turned the best summer of my life into the worst.
“You should go,” I say plainly.
“Fine,” Knox grunts. I look down and attempt to busy my hands, stacking and unstacking papers as he makes his way toward the door. “When you make a decision, you know where to find me.”
And with one final ring of the bell chiming over the door, he disappears into the brightly lit streets of Honey Grove.
It would be easy for me to say yes. If he paid for my truck repairs, that would help me out so much. I was quickly burning through my savings and the thought of piling up debt on credit cards makes me physically ill.
This deal could solve a lot of problems, but it could also create new ones.
When I was sixteen, I fell in love for the first time. But it wasn’t just the obnoxiously charming boy with blue eyes that haunted my dreams—it was this town.
And now I’m back with the same man who’s asking me to take a chance on him again. Something I swore I’d never do again.
CHAPTER 6
EMERY
Me: Can I ask you something without you judging me?
Eli: Like what?
Me: Hypothetically, if I was going to pimp myself out…how much could I get out of a deal like that?
My phone rings, and the screen lights up with a photo of my little brother with his face smushed between mine and Eve’s.
“You don’t do phone calls,” I say, answering the call without a hello.
An irritating groan fills the speaker. “I do when you send me ominous text messages about pimping yourself out.”
“I said hypothetically,” I correct him.
“Fine. Please explain then,” he says, his voice groggy. I look at the time on my phone and almost chucklewhen I see it’s before nine. Eli is probably still in bed, and it is the highest honor that he called me this early.
“Did you just wake up?” I ask, hoping to distract myself from my embarrassing dilemma for a minute.
“Yes,” he groans again. “Not all of us wake up at the ass crack of dawn to paint furniture like Mary fucking Poppins.”
“You obviously don’t know anything about Mary Poppins. She was a magical nanny—not a creative genius like me.”
“You have two seconds to stop annoying me before I go back to ignoring your text messages.”
“No!” I cry out. It took me a solid three years to get him to text me back on a regular basis. There’s nothing more humiliating than getting left on read by your baby brother.
He answers with a light chuckle, easing into our early morning phone call. “Can you please stop stalling then and tell me why you sent me such a weird text?”
“Yes,” I agree, adjusting the phone against my cheek. “Let’s say—and again, this is hypothetical—someone offered to cover the cost of replacing the engine in my truck if I pretend to be their fake girlfriend for the summer.”
