retreating form.
Along with the crowd I hold my breath, waiting for his reaction.
Smith pauses the length of three erratic heartbeats and then looks over his shoulder, flipping a lock of hair from his eyes while doing so. The bastard must practice that move in the mirror, it is that good. He raises an eyebrow, which seems a bit over the top at this point, but my wobbly knees don’t think so, especially when he pairs it with his trademark crooked smirk.
“Thanks, but I’m not sure if I’m up to date on my tetanus shot.”
The crowd laughs loudly, loving it. Stupid drunks, that doesn’t even make sense. It’s shine, not a rusty nail.
“I get it,” I toss back, all casual. “You’re scared.”
“OOOOOHHHHHH.” The crowd obliges.
Now it’s my turn to smirk, because I’ve got him and we both know it.
There is something about the male brain that makes it particularly susceptible to the threat of being called a chicken. They will do the dumbest shit to disprove it.
Smith, though, is worse than the average male. He and Dylan threw dares at each other the way other siblings might’ve played tennis for sport. Except they volleyed increasingly dangerous challenges, never backing down, always wanting to hit it back harder.
The crowd parts for Smith as he sprints toward the table, charging at me and reminding me of another one of my uncles’ favorite sayings: “Mess with the bull, you’ll get the horns.”
My liquor-soaked reflexes are too slow to do anything except pull the moonshine close to my chest, protecting those last precious drops from harm.
It’s a smart move, ’cause Smith leaps and, with the same grace he uses to clear the track hurdles, lands on the table beside me. The whole thing rocks and my free arm windmills, looking for something to keep me on my feet. But there’s only Smith.
My fingers brush against his shirt sleeve. I don’t grab hold, though. Falling seems safer.
Just when it seems that the floor is my destiny, Smith’s arms circle around me. Our noses brush and his eyes are so close to mine I can see the little flecks of green and gold that swirl through the brown. His hands are warm against my back and the only thing keeping us from being completely sealed together is the jar of moonshine still clutched to my chest.
I swallow loudly, and something flickers behind Smith’s eyes. In the romance novels my uncle Dune (not so) secretly loves, the heroines are always reading things in the heroes’ eyes. They soften with love, grow hard with anger. Sometimes, if they’re really furious, they’ll shoot sparks. I can’t say what Smith’s flicker means, though. Maybe he’s thinking about that time we kissed. Maybe he’s thinking about that message he left me. Or maybe he’s gagging from my booze breath.
In case it’s the last one, I close my gaping mouth and lean back so I can bring the jar of shine up between us.
“Make a wish?” The words come out soft and husky, not brash and confident the way I’ve been saying them all night. The sound of them brings up a bubble of sadness that I quickly swallow back down.
All the while Smith studies me and I can only hope he’s no better at reading eyes than I am.
“I wish,” he says, his voice pitched low but easily reaching the ears of everyone in that hushed kitchen. “To be there when you get what you deserve.”
It’s a sucker punch. It shouldn’t be, but it is.
So I remind myself of the lessons Smith’s little voice mail taught me. Crying doesn’t do anything except make me soggy and tired. But getting good and pissed, that’s the type of fuel that keeps a person marching through one shitty day after another.
I suck in a gasp of hurt surprise, and breathe it back out as fire.
“And I suppose you’re the one who’s gonna give me what I deserve?” I laugh like it’s a joke and jab a finger into his chest for good measure.
And there’s the Smith smirk™. “Nope, not me. I just want to be there watching.”
“Kinky.”
“It’s my wish.” Smith shrugs.
“Okay,” I say slowly. “Well, I wouldn’t want you to miss a thing. So you can have a front row seat when I ‘get what I deserve.’ Or even better—you can take my hand and deliver me straight to the devil’s door yourself. That work for you?”
“It’ll do.”
I shove the jar at him. “To going to hell hand in hand!” He brings the jar to