Gin Fling (Bootleg Springs #5) - Lucy Score Page 0,120
the darkened studio. It was just the two us. The music thumped off the walls, reverberating in my bones. I could see the last mile ticking down down down.
“Almost there!” He flashed me his heartbreaker grin in the dark. “Keep going!”
My legs were burning. A white-hot fire under the skin had consumed the muscle and was now devouring bone. And I kind of almost sort of didn’t hate it.
“Go, Shelby honey, go!” Jonah crowed as the screen on the far wall clicked over to fifty.
I slumped over the handlebars in relief.
“No, you don’t. Keep moving. Bring the heart rate down slowly,” he said, stepping off his bike. He rested his hand on my neck, his thumb brushing the scar I bore there. A reminder of how close we came to nearly losing it all. A reminder that every day together was precious.
But the past was officially the past. Never to haunt us again. And the future stretched on in front of us like an endless happily ever after.
“How come you get to stop?” I huffed, but I managed to make a wobbly revolution of the pedals while I complained.
He crossed the room and grabbed two fresh sweat towels off the shelving system next to the festive fake Christmas tree and returned to me, still grinning. “Fifty miles, Shelby. Not bad for a little ankylosing spondylitis.”
I took the last of the resistance off the bike and let the momentum carry my legs around and around.
“That century ride isn’t going to know what hit it,” I predicted breathily.
Jonah and I had signed up for a romantic 100-mile bike ride through Canada this coming summer, and we were spending the cold West Virginia winter training in his new gym space.
He changed the music on his phone from hard-driving, celebratory rock to a slow, sweet country ballad. It was adorable how Bootleg Springs had claimed yet another victim.
“How you feeling?” he asked as I took a swig from my water bottle.
“Tired but good,” I said. “I promise.”
He looked… nervous? Excited?
“What’s going on with you?” I asked pointing a finger in the direction of his handsome face.
My flares had been few and far between since meeting Jonah, and when I did get knocked down by one, I had my handsome, pushy boyfriend to pull me back up. I was thriving. We were thriving.
Jonah’s new gym was a bustling gathering place year-round for townsfolk trying to work off a few extra pounds during the holidays, for summertimers trying to maintain lake bodies. To his loyal elder following who mostly just wanted to gossip and watch his back muscles flex.
With my PhD hot off the presses, I’d landed a research professor gig at the nearby Buck State University where I was heading a decade-long study on the opioid crisis in communities. My survey was also being rolled out as a nationwide initiative to identify, among other things, loneliness within communities and potential solutions. And I was working on a book. The story of how Bootleg Springs claimed me as its own.
Billy Ray was now almost full-grown, though he still acted like a puppy. Fortunately our paper towel consumption had finally returned to normal.
Best of all, we finally had a home. We’d saved and searched, weighed our options and overthought. And then on Thanksgiving Day, just last month, crowded around the huge table in Scarlett and Devlin’s new home, the Bodines had handed Jonah a set of house keys.
The keys and deed belonged to the Bodine childhood home, now stripped of old, sad memories. Refreshed and renovated. Ready for a new family. Our family.
“Jonah, I—” I lost my train of thought immediately.
Jonah Bodine, my boyfriend of a year and a half—scratch that, my boyfriend of exactly eighteen months—was on bended knee in front of my bike.
“Shelby Thompson.”
“Jonah Bodine,” I whispered back. My feet froze in the pedal cages.
“It’s been exactly eighteen months since you and I first decided to start this summer fling,” he began. “And as you instructed me, couples shouldn’t even start talking about the future until they’ve survived eighteen months.”
“I do recall imparting that information,” I said, bringing my fingers to my lips. My hand was shaking. My vision was blurring, and I had the distinct suspicion that it wasn’t sweat.
“It’s been eighteen months and one wild ride. You were there with me every step of the way through everything my family went through. You were by my side when things seemed like they were at their darkest. You stuck.”
I pressed my fingers against my lips harder as his words hit bullseye after bullseye dead center in my heart.
“You showed me what a partner is supposed to be. You let me in. Let me fix things on occasion. And Shelby, honey, I can’t wait for the next eighteen months with you. The next eighteen years. The next forever. I’m ready. Are you?”
I nodded, blinking back tears. And kept nodding.
“Good, ’cause I’ve got something real important to ask you.” He revealed a small black box, and I held my breath while he opened it.
It was a simple oval solitaire that glittered like a thousand stars on a delicate gold band.
“Dr. Shelby Thompson, would you do me the great honor of being my wife? Running herd on a bunch of loud Bodine kids. Riding through Canada and running through everywhere else. Growing old here so we can cause a ruckus at The Lookout. Would you do all that with me?”
I could barely get my feet off the pedals. I launched myself at him, mostly out of joy but also a little because my legs weren’t working yet.
He caught me. Jonah always caught me.
“Is that a yes?” he asked, his voice muffled by my sweaty hair.
I nodded and kept right on nodding. “It’s the biggest, loudest yes you’ve ever heard in your life.”
We laughed, fumbling in the dark studio for the box, the ring, the kiss.
It was salty and sweet and everything I’d ever dared dream of. And so was Jonah.
My parents were going to be thrilled. Hell, the entire town was probably going to throw a party.
“This isn’t going to interfere with Gibson’s wedding, is it?” I asked.
Jonah laughed. “My brother and I already discussed it. It’s all good.”
“It’s better than good,” I said, watching the diamond wink on my finger. The sparkle blurred before my eyes. “It’s perfect.”
“We’ve got about twenty minutes before my phone starts ringing off the hook with Scarlett demanding to know if it’s official yet and insisting we come over to celebrate. She’s making dino nuggets for you.”
I snort-laughed and covered my mouth. “Twenty minutes? We can get into a whole lot of trouble in twenty minutes.”
“I’ve got a bottle of champagne on ice in the locker room. What do you say we pop the cork and get cleaned up?”
The way those green eyes sparkled, brighter than the diamond I wore, I knew exactly what he meant.
“Jonah, you are going to be everything your father never had the chance to be. You know that, right?” He already was. The good man. The generous neighbor. Now, he’d be the dream husband. The wonderful father he never had.
He cupped my face in his big, warm hand. “That’s the plan, Dr. Bodine. And you’re everything I ever wanted.”
PREORDER THE LAST BOOTLEG SPRINGS NOVEL NOW! Releases on July 24th.
Click here is get Bootleg #6 Highball Rush
Author’s Note to the Reader
Dear Reader,
First of all, let me assure you that your questions will be answered in the next (final) book. I PROMISE YOU AND I WOULD NOT MESS WITH YOU LIKE THAT. I mean, I would in my reader group, but in a cute charming way. Anyway…
I’m so happy/sad right now! I can’t believe my contribution to the Bootleg Springs series is over. The Bodine family and their crazy West Virginia town feel so real to me. I’ve had the best time writing these books with Claire Kingsley and I can’t wait for you to see what she’s got in store for you with Book 6 when all will be revealed!
Family for Jonah, I really wanted him to have a sense of rootlessness. So being accepted by the Bodines is the puzzle piece he’s missing. Shelby, our little independent nerd has family, but also knows what it’s like to be a bit of an outsider. Bootleg adopting them both was the icing on the pepperoni roll. I’m just kidding. There’s no icing on pepperoni rolls! But you get what I’m saying.
Thank you for being on this journey with us. For enjoying the little town that we created for you. Thanks for being you.
Now, if you loved Jonah “Drop It Like It’s Squat” Bodine and Shelby “Is That a Bear” (Lucy Note: literally me anytime I am outside) Thompson, please feel free to tell all of your book-loving friends and write a glowing review that brings tears to my eyes. Now, go off and order Book 6 so we can say good-bye to Bootleg Springs together.
Xoxo,
Lucy