Rekindling the Flame (Smoky Heights #1)

Chapter 9

NINE

WYATT

Jesus Christ. There’s not enough beer in the kegs by the barn for this. Definitely not enough in my system.

Could I ever forgive her?

Do I even have an answer to that?

I thought we were being friends. Do friends pick at old wounds, scabs with little corners sticking up on the sides, ripe for tearing off and gouging the skin that had been trying to heal and creating even worse scar tissue than what was there before?

It’s taken me years and years to form these scabs, even shitty as they may be, but in she comes, ready to just pull at them all, scrape away and scratch them off rather than let me keep doing my slow healing?

Nah.

This is a conversation I’m not here for. Not tonight.

Rory breathes out a heavy breath next to me, cheeks all puffed out as she looks the other way.

“I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that. I … I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Damn, girl. What happened to starting over?” My tone is more strained than I was shooting for, but I think I’ve done pretty well tonight, all things considered. I should get a little slack here.

That gets me a watery laugh, and she shakes her head. “You’re right. I was out of line.”

I nudge her body with my elbow and wait until she turns back and meets my eye again.

“Friends, yeah?” I offer. “I meant that. While you’re here, if you need a friend … I’m here.”

She’s always been my soft spot. No matter the turn my life took after she left, the damage she caused, all I can feel for her now that she’s back is empathy. That’s a sentiment I’m not too familiar with, being a bit of a surly fucker myself, but like I said, she’s my weakness. Always has been. She’s hurting, she’s in pain, she’s here, facing her fuck ups to do the impossible, and I can’t not try to make it easier for her. Giving her what she needs, I spent so much of my youth, my formative years, focusing on it, I think it became part of my DNA, some sort of evolutionary shit.

“Friends,” she says with a nod and what might be a sniffle. She takes a big gulp of her beer and looks back at the bonfire. “So, how’s your brother?”

I huff out some sort of snort and she looks over at me, eyes wide. “Another sore subject? Damn, this is like Battleship, trying to talk to you, huh? Direct hit after direct hit?”

My beer is dangling from my hand by the lip of the cup, and I raise it in front of my face to down some more. Hopefully it gives me the ability to talk to my one sore subject about the other.

“Think I’ve only got the two,” I mutter with a look that tells her I’m not being cruel. Most other topics should be safe. “Weston … he’s Weston,” I add on with a shrug. “Same old irresponsible little shit he always was.”

She laughs, looking back at the fire, lost in some memory of him that’s much happier than mine are. “I always liked your brother,” she says fondly. “Like we’re kindred in some ways.”

“Yeah, you’re both bougie as fuck, and expensive to keep happy, and neither of you cared to stay in the Heights.”

She pulls back with a start. “He left the Heights too?”

I shrug back at her. “He left, came back, left again. In and out whenever the urge strikes. I’m sure he’ll be back. Flaky bastard that he is, it’ll probably be when he needs something.”

She makes a noncommittal noise, something like disapproval, and I realize we need to change the subject before this turns into a sad sack fest. That’s not the break she needs tonight.

I ask her about life in New York, and she tells me all about the amazing apartment she scored, how she finished school up there, and the firm she got a job with and has since moved up the ranks with. Her favorite bagel vendor, the various bakeries and grocers she frequents. Her face lights up when she talks about all of it, and for a minute I’m jealous of the city for giving her that light that this town and I couldn’t. But I’m happy for her. It’s good to see that she followed her dream and it worked out.

I fill her in on what she’s missed around here. Not a whole lot. I’m still working on cars, obviously, just like I was when she left. Give her the recap on my family, Ronnie’s, the general gist of the town at large, at least the better parts of it.

“Sounds like everything’s more or less the same then?” She tosses out with a quirked brow after my updates.

I suck in an offended breath through my teeth. “You take that back, ma’am. We got a Buc-ee’s. It’s basically a whole new world out here.”

The sound of her tinkling laughter warms my insides even more than the beer, and I manage to prompt her for more about her life, despite the thickness in my throat.

She tells me how the partners she reports to wouldn’t let her fully quit, insisted that she go on a hiatus, and possibly do some remote work on contracts and other legal documents while she’s away. How she’s been trying to figure out how to make that work in that tiny apartment she’s living out of while also doing what she’s here to do.

“I’m sure Duke and Dallas would let you use the bar during the daytime,” I throw out. “There’s never anyone really other than Ernie there until the plant and the factory close.”

She waggles her head back and forth. “Yeah, that’s true. Definitely would be more room down there at least. If I could set up a printer somewhere it’d probably be a lot easier to review documentation on a larger surface than whatever tiny desk would fit upstairs.” She smiles at me, and it feels like a prize I’ve earned. “Thanks, Wyatt.”

Her eyes—those dangerous, wavering little bastards of mischief—they float to my lips, not for the first time tonight. My cock takes note, and I fight readjusting myself. I tip back my beer for another swig instead. “Of course.”

She licks her lips and looks away, and I wonder if she’d still taste the same. Wonder how crazy I’d have to be to try and find out.

I’m nearing the end of this cup, my third beer, when something unexpected leaves her mouth again. She’s still facing the other way when she asks, “Do you ever think of me?”

I toss back the rest of my cup. Fuck it. She wants my truth, I’ll give it to her.

“Only when I’m coming.” It sounds like a growl, and I can feel her reaction next to me, without giving in to the temptation of looking over at her. The sharp little inhale she takes when she registers my words.

I bet her cheeks are pink, her nipples pebbled, and her pussy wet.

I wonder if that still tastes the same.

Now there’s no helping it, I’m gonna have to readjust. I rest an elbow on a knee, drape my arm across my lap, and sneak the other hand down to free up some space inside my pants, my underwear, try to let my boner breathe until I can talk it down or rub it out, whichever comes first.

“Oh,” she finally says, and I dare it. I look over to my left and she’s staring at me, that mouth of hers in a perfect O, one that I could easily see stretched around my dick, because I’ve already seen it hundreds of times before. After all, it’s what I usually see when I’m coming in some other girl’s mouth.

“I think about you too,” she admits softly, and I give in again.

I let my eyes run over her face, those lips even plumper than I remember them, down her neck, follow that flush to her chest, those perfect tits that look even bigger than they were the last time I got to see them. She’s breathing faster, and I follow the rise and fall of that chest, let my eyes fall down her dress, picturing what’s happening underneath it right now. Is her underwear soaked? Are her thighs clenched? Is her clit puffy and begging for my tongue, my lips, my teeth?

If she looks at me with those needy eyes—begging for things her mouth won’t say aloud—when she’s fully sober, I’m gonna do something about it. That’s the kind of friend I am, I guess. You need something, I’m your guy. As long as your name is Aurora Rose.

And it’s when my eyes are on her legs that I see something else by her legs. Something she surely hasn’t noticed, because as much as Aurora Rose Weiss has changed, she’s definitely not any more outdoorsy now than she was when she lived here. And the creature creeping toward her exposed toes, feet, and legs is not going to be a welcome one.

I open my mouth to warn her, but the critter gets to her first. It wends between her ankles, beneath the extended calf there, and brushes up against her, tail winding around her lower leg, eliciting an ear-piercing scream.

It actually makes me feel a bit safer—if she’s got that set of lungs on her, I don’t think she needs a whistle for muggings or any of the other thousand dangers I’ve spent hours researching the statistics of on Google in her absence.

In an instant, she’s jumped up, back, and away from the thing, but I was ready. I’m with her, next to her, bracing her as she tries to jump on top of the log, like that’s going to help her get away from the friendly barn cat.

“WYATT!”

This would be a great time for a joke about her screaming my name, if I still did those. That was Wyatt 1.0.

“I’m here, you’re fine,” I tell her placatingly, but not patronizingly. Her irrational fear of cats isn’t as irrational as it might sound, actually. She had a bad run-in with an overprotective mama kitty when we were teens. She’s still got the scar on her arm, and the nickname to boot.

Aurora is still dancing on top of the log, mostly behind me, holding onto my shoulders for balance as she wipes the offended leg on her other, trying to remove the feeling from her skin.

Like I said, I know the girl. Dedicated a huge chunk of my life to knowing her, her needs. Understanding them.

“Hop up,” I tell her, gesturing toward my back, and she doesn’t think twice. Her lithe body, tall, pretty average build, soft in all the right places, leaps up and attaches itself to mine. Those arms of hers wrap around my neck, strangling me.

“You might like to be choked, but I don’t,” I grunt out, peeling her forearms from off of my windpipe.

“Not the time for jokes, Grady!”

Ooh. My last name. She means business.

I grasp her lower legs to make sure she’s secure and then I reach down to the cat, who’s now pacing the log, purring by my ankles, and scratch behind his ears.

“This is Boots,” I tell Aurora, trying not to focus on the way her heavy breaths are hitting my ear, her breasts pressed into my back so tightly I’m pretty sure I can feel her rapid heartbeat through them. Is there an ulterior motive at work here? Me, leaning down, her being pressed further into me as I do? Might be. “Puss in Boots, in full. He’s the barn cat here.”

“That’s lovely. Please get me away from Boots.” Her death grip on me tightened when I leaned down, and she doesn’t ease up until I’ve walked around the log, toward the majority of the other people and her senses seem to come back to her when we’re far enough away from the danger.

“You can put me down now,” she says stiffly, and I drop her down carefully, hands bracing her as best I can from this angle as she goes, trying to ignore all the curves I end up feeling by default as she dismounts.

I turn to face her and she’s hugging herself, arms across her body. “Thank you,” she says as dignified as one can be after just having been terrified by a furry little friendly cat and scaling your ex for safety.

It’s a good thing I’m not prone to excessive smiling or laughing, because I can tell that would not be the right move based off of the look on her face, her posture, her demeanor.

“We can hang out over here?” I gesture back toward the barn and the bulk of the other people, many of whom are now staring at her, some even snickering or laughing at her display. Knowing them, it’s probably just amusement at what just happened, but knowing her—for as much as she says she’s changed, I’m quickly seeing she’s still a lot of the girl I’ve always known—she’s probably taking it as something worse than that. Her mind always worked against her when she got stressed, and I’d say that probably hasn’t changed.

She shakes her head in what I think might be horror. “No, no, I think I’m good. Thanks again for the beers, and the invite. And, you know, saving me.”

Her attempted fleeing is interrupted by the arrival of my best friend. “Is that Rory?” Ronnie’s brash yell reaches us from where he’s just parked. “Is that Rory Weiss I see?”

“You might’ve missed your chance to go peacefully,” I whisper to her as he crosses the field, nodding and waving his hello to most of our friends as he does.

She grumbles, shifting from one foot to the other, but doesn’t make a break for it.

When Ronnie gets to us, he walks straight over to Rory, leans down to hug her, and then lifts her up and spins them around.

Something acidic turns in my stomach, and I have the most unusual impulse to crack his spine. Honestly, I could punch him on a good day, but the specificity of the spine cracking is what’s new there.

He puts her down and I think she’d be laughing once again if she weren’t still shaken and a bit mortified by what happened with the damn cat.

I can tell she’s back in her own head again, after all the work of getting her out here, back into nature, what’s always calmed her, and those benefits have already faded away.

“It’s Aurora now,” she tells Ronnie instead of the million other ways she could’ve greeted him, and I see his face fall just a fraction before he gives her a big grin.

“You’ll always be Rory to us,” he tells her jovially, but it doesn’t land.

I glance between them and can see her shutting down brick by brick. Great.

“And seeing you with Grady? Just like old times!” He keeps going, because he’s a fucking numbskull who can’t read the room if it were in a children’s picture book with hundred-point font right in front of his damn face.

Aurora’s face falls even further, and she backs up away from both Ronnie and me.

“I was just leaving, actually,” she says, jerking a thumb over her shoulder, back toward the makeshift lot.

“Are you good to drive?” I ask her. “I can take you,” I offer before she responds.

She shakes her head. “No, no, I’m good. That sobered me right up. Thanks.”

I glare at Ronnie for a split second, then back to her. “At least text me when you get home?”

“Home is seven hundred miles away,” she corrects me quietly. “But I’ll text you when I get to the bar.”

And she’s gone. Again.

The silence of her absence makes me realize that, for once, I didn’t mind all the talking tonight.

My sharp glare returns to Ronnie, a crestfallen look on his face.

“What did I do?”