Page 96 of Gather the Storm

Of course it was an extra small. Asshole.

I tried to stuff it in my bag but Jace just shook his head. “Put it on.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, holding up the shirt. It was minuscule, made for someone with an A cup, if that, not my DDs.

“I’m not,” he said, his eyes like chips of green flint.

I rolled my eyes. “Where can I change?”

Jace’s gaze didn’t waver. “Right here, princess.”

“Fine.” I didn’t know if it was my recent sexcapades with Wolf and Otis or the fact that I’d had enough of Jace Kane, but I was just about past the point of embarrassment.

I reached for the hem of my shirt and lifted it over my head. The irony of having to expose my tits for strangers because of this asshole while simultaneously being relieved I was wearing a nice bra thanks to that same asshole wasn’t lost on me.

Everyone whooped and hollered — not just the guys but the girls too — as I stripped down. Jace glared as I pulled the tiny redSummer Shit 2024T-shirt over my head but Wolf just grinned.

“Still your own worst fucking enemy,” he said to Jace.

My cheeks were hot as I picked my other T-shirt off the ground and stuffed it in my bag. I’d been right about the Summer Shit T-shirt: it barely covered my tits, leaving my stomach exposed over another pair of booty shorts.

On the plus side, it was a lot breezier than my other T-shirt, which had been almost chaste in its coverage compared to the one I was wearing now. The summer breeze was warm on my stomach, and everyone had stopped staring now that the show was over.

I drank from a bottle of beer handed to me by Wolf and sat in a chair around a fire pit that wasn’t yet lit. Jace, Wolf, and Otis had disappeared in the crowd and I was finishing a burger grilled by Syd when a warm voice spoke above me.

“Nice to see you here, sugar.”

I shielded my eyes from the sun and looked up to find Honey, the waitress from Syd’s, standing over me, looking smoking hot in shorts that showed off her long legs and a tank top that made the most of a rack even bigger than mine.

“Thanks,” I said. “It’s quite a party.”

Honey took the chair next to me and balanced a plate with two hot dogs on her lap. “Always,” she said. “Wait until tonight.”

It sounded both promising and ominous.

“Where are the guys?” she asked.

“Not sure,” I said around my last bite.

“Ah well…” she said. “No telling what these fucking guys get up to.”

I didn’t know if she was a smoker, but she could have been. Her voice was sultry and a little scratchy, combining with her platinum hair to give total bombshell.

I laughed. “So true.”

“I’m surprised they left you alone,” she said. “They haven’t taken their eyes off you since you got here.”

“Yeah, they’re like guard dogs,” I said. “It goes with the territory.”

“What territory would that be?” Honey asked.

“The little sister territory. They were my brother’s best friends.”

Honey probably already knew that — everyone in Blackwell Falls probably knew that after Blake’s high-profile murder — but they didn’t always make the little sister connection.

Honey’s laughter was like, well, honey: thick and warm. “Sugar,little sisterwasn’t what I was getting.”

“What do you mean?”

---