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9

Quincy

I glance up from the pint glass I’m filling at the tap, my heart racing as a tall blonde guy walks into the brewery.

Not him.

Dammit. I’ve had the same reaction every time a handsome blonde guy has walked through the doors of Cedar Ridge Brewery in the past week. That one-night stand with “sexy stranger,” as I’ve been calling him, really messed me up; my thoughts are all over the place. Part of me longs to run into him again, but I’m also a little scared that seeing each other in the daylight might ruin the fantasy I’ve built up around that night. Right now, I’m holding onto that memory—it’s become my favorite daydream.

I’ll never forget his face, the way he touched me, or how that hard muscle felt under my hands. Not to mention the intensity of his gaze as I fell apart under him. Clinton who? That jerk feels like a distant memory now. He never made me feel the way my sexy stranger did; Clinton is just a boy, while that guy was all man.

I snap back to reality, startled as cold liquid splashes onto my wrist. “Shit,” I mutter, quickly pushing the tap back to stop the beer from spilling over onto my hand.

“What’s got you distracted today?” Kyara teases as she walks up, tossing a bar towel my way.

I pour a little of the overflowing beer into the drain under the tap, then pick up the towel to wipe the pint glass before setting it down. “I’m not distracted,” I lie, wiping my hands.

I glance at Kyara, and she has her hands on her hips, giving me a knowing look. We both know I’m just pretending.

I finish drying my hands and fling the damp towel in her direction. She snatches it out of the air, using the same hand to point a finger at me. “Just tell me it isn’t Clinton.”

“It’s not Clinton!” I sigh exasperatedly. “I told you before, your little mission totally worked. I’m over that jerk.”

“Then what is it?” she asks, narrowing her eyes.

I don’t want to admit that I’m done obsessing over how things ended with Clinton because I’ve moved on to obsessing over sexy stranger instead, so I go with a deflection.

“If you must know,” I begin, blowing out a breath, “one of my friends stopped by yesterday to ask if I’d consider joining the IT unit at the squad.”

“And?” Kyara steps closer, her interest piqued.

I shrug, twirling a strand of hair around a finger. “And I’m considering it, I guess.”

Kyara’s eyebrows shoot up.

I swallow, continuing. “I mean, I was interested in going out for the squad after high school, but I put everything on hold because Clinton asked me to stick around. And now that we’re over… well, it kinda seems like the perfect opportunity to get away from it all, right? To start over?”

“So what’s there to consider?” Kyara laughs, folding her arms across her chest. “It sounds like you’ve already made up your mind.”

“I don’t know,” I sigh. “I don’t think my dad would be a fan of me moving out, for one. It’s just the two of us at the packhouse.”

Kyara nods sympathetically. I told her a while ago about how my mom died in an accident when I was eight, and now every time I allude to it just being me and my dad, she gets this sad look in her eyes. I know she means well, but I also kinda hate the look of pity. I’ve been getting that same look for the past ten years every time someone mentions my mom, and honestly, it has tainted her memory a little bit. I don’t want to be sad when I think about her- I want to think of how joyful and vibrant and loving she was.

I guess everybody processes things differently. My brother Thomas hasn’t ever been the same since Mom died; it seems like he’s mad at the world and takes it out on everyone around him. He and my dad don’t get along, so Thomas doesn’t come around much. It’s a shame, really- I wish I was closer to my brother and that we could lean on one another more. We’ve got shared trauma, after all… our mother’s death will always be a part of us.

As if she’s reading my mind, Kyara asks “but isn’t your brother on the squad?”

I give a little nod. “Yeah, but we aren’t super close.”

The five-year age gap could account for some of that, but it’s mostly the fact that Thomas moved out when he turned eighteen and rarely comes back. His life is the squad, now.

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