Page 68 of Opposites (Never) Attract
Sunshine took the steps to the door, and when she turned the knob, it opened.
“Someone should lock this,” she said, like she couldn’t remember what growing up in the Gulch was like.
She hesitated before going inside, and I knew what she was going to do before she turned around to face me.
“Don’t you dare thank me,” I said, beating her to the punch. “Don’t want your thanks or your apologies. What we have here is a…mutually enjoyable situation.”
I could see the flash of her smile under the nearly full moon.
“A mutually enjoyable situation. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it called that before. Sounds civilized.”
I growled, thinking how uncivilized we’d been, and I watched her eyes widen in reaction. Yeah, I thought, this thing between us was pure chemistry. Nothing but animal.
“Call me if you need me, darlin,” I said, stepping back into the shadows where I’d come from. “Fuck it. Call me if you don’t.”
“Night, Tag.”
“Night, Sunshine. Now get inside before you get cold.”
She was still wearing my coat, but I’d be damned if I’d made her take it off. Her bare skin was pressing against the denim I wore every day. I imagined when she gave it back to me it might smell like her. I felt the chill of the windrolling out over the hills and valley of this place and it settled me.
A reminder that I was made for this place.
She closed the door behind her, and I walked to the truck I’d parked down the road, so no questions might be asked about what I was doing out at the Calloway farm so late at night.
But, suddenly, I could feel questions buzzing around me like horse flies.
I hopped in the truck, trying to stay in motion, like sitting still might give all the questions a chance to land, and then I’d have to reckon with them. I turned the key in the ignition and reached for the gear shift to put the truck in drive. But the headlights illuminated the roof of the Calloway house over the hill. The big tree she’d climbed down. To me. The top of the barn, where I’d had, without a doubt, the hottest blowjob of my life.
I paused and the questions landed like fists.
What the fuck was I doing with Sunshine Calloway?
FOURTEEN
SUNSHINE/KAITLYN
I stoppedin the middle of the town square, struck dumb and motionless in front of the replicated hangman’s platform that was the town’s signature statue.
I’d forgotten this stupid statue. All the stupid statues, really.
I’d tried so hard to forget I’d grown up in a death-themed town. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it was the death of my family members that was part of the theme. I mean, no wonder I tried to put this place far behind me.
But here was the town square – the middle of the town, the community focus, reminding me that being a Calloway in this town meant more than having red hair. It meant we were folklore. Myth. We were part of the town’s identity.
We were something the town was invested in. Felt ownership of.
Both families – the McGraws and the Calloways, had a responsibility to this place.
The gallows, as they must have stood over a century ago, had been recreated and bronzed to represent our history of hanging folks.
They didn’t call the town Last Hope Gulch for nothing.
“Oh, Sunshine,” Mom said, standing in front of the twelve-foot stand with a town community board attached to it.
We came into town together and had been heading over to Amity’s place for lunch.
The community board was covered with advertisements, announcements, dates and times for the next town meeting, street cleaning, and upcoming art performances in the town square. The school bake sale.
