shimmered under the moonlight. She held one finger up to her ear as she talked on the phone. I watched her full lips move as she spoke animatedly into the phone. She was wearing a light blue dress that hugged her hourglass shape.
My heart pounded in my chest and I found it difficult to inhale or exhale. It happened a lot around that girl. For some reason, breathing became a difficulty.
I hadn’t seen her in years and hadn’t spoken to her in close to a decade. On the rare occasions that I did return home, I’d done my damnedest to avoid her. She was the only thing I’d ever loved as much as the rodeo. But I’d stayed the hell away from her because she was perfect, in every way, and she deserved a hell of a lot better than me.
I watched, mesmerized, as she disconnected the call and put her phone in her purse. Then she inhaled slowly as she tipped her chin up and waved her hands in front of her face. As soon as she did, I had a sense of déjà vu. I’d seen her do the same thing when she was eight and her dog, Brutus, got hit by a car.
I’d been at her house playing Street Fighter with Bentley when her mom got the call that Brutus had been hit by a car and was being rushed to the vet by a neighbor.
All the kids had wanted to go to the vet with Mrs. Calhoun, but only Brady, the eldest Calhoun, was allowed to. Bentley had to stay home to watch the girls, his twin sisters Molly and Olivia.
Molly had broken down in tears, but Olivia had just walked stoically out into their backyard. I’d followed her outside and found her doing the same thing that she was doing now. When I asked if she was okay, she’d sniffed back her emotion and told me she was fine.
I found out later that she had a thing about people seeing her cry. If I had to guess, her issue with it probably stemmed from her oldest brother Brady calling her and Molly crybabies. He was such an asshat.
My eyes were still glued to her as she lowered her chin, took in a deep breath, ran her hands down the sides of her dress, turned on her heels, and walked back inside.
Without thinking about it, I grabbed my wallet and phone from the console, and got out of the truck.
It looked like I was coming home after all.
Chapter 2
Olivia
“Always believe that somethin’ wonderful is about to happen.”
~ Maggie Calhoun
As I walked back into the auditorium, I put my head down and hoped that no one would be able to tell that I’d been tearing up. Thankfully the entire room of two hundred people or so was focused on the newly engaged couple, Jackson Briggs and Josie Clarke, and not on my red-rimmed eyes.
I’d never been comfortable with anyone seeing me cry. Some people had dreams where they would be naked at work or at school; I had nightmares where people would see me crying.
I walked past the crowd gathered around Jackson and Josie and beelined it back to my sister, who may not have even noticed that a proposal had just happened.
“I thought you were leaving for a hot date.” My identical twin Molly didn’t even look up from her phone as she made the observation.
“Tyler called.” I lowered down into the seat beside her. “He’s running late.”
Her face scrunched. “Is Tyler the nose picker?”
“He had an itch.” Or at least that’s what I was telling myself. It was better than admitting I’d caught him digging for gold.
“Call me crazy, but I think picking your nose on a first date is a red flag.”
“It was our second date.”
“Yeah, that’s the key piece of information in that scenario,” Molly stated flatly.
Molly had not been a fan of any of the guys I’d dated recently. To be fair, I hadn’t either, but I was doing my best to keep an open mind. I wanted to find love. I wanted the sort of love that I’d just spent an hour and a half watching people talk about in the documentary we were gathered to watch, called, What is Love? I wanted the sort of love that I’d just witnessed when Jackson had got down on one knee.
So, for the last couple of months, I’d been putting myself out there. Did I want to date a bunch of nose pickers?