Page 73 of Opposites (Never) Attract
“It’s Tuesday night.”
“Yeah, everyone will be there,” she repeated. “Every night’s Friday Night in Last Hope Gulch since the Feud Day Festival. It’s awesome. You have the tourists, who want the real western experience. The locals, who hate the tourists, but love their money, and, of course, the cowboys.” She waggled her eyebrows.
“Sounds like fun.”
Which was not something I typically engaged in, but I was doing a lot of things recently I’d never done before. And all of them had turned out pretty great.
Bliss’s blue eyes met mine in a way I’d never experienced from her. Like she was seeing me and letting me see her. Two fully adult women who happened to be sisters.
“Really? You’re serious? You’ll come?”
It was stunning that she cared. The way Amity caredwhat I thought about her food. Like I mattered to them, when I would have guessed they never thought of me at all.
“I’d love to.”
Bliss’s smile was brilliant. “Cool. I’ll get the word out. Everyone who hasn’t seen you in a long time will want to be there.”
That was highly unlikely, but I wasn’t going to rain on her parade.
“Awesome,” I lied. Being surrounded by my old high school classmates, most of whom thought I was weird as shit, did not sound like fun at all, but I wasn’t going to back down. This obviously meant a lot to Bliss.
“Don’t worry. I’ll tell the McGraw motherfuckers, too.”
“Bliss,” my mom admonished. Another old habit that obviously had no impact on Bliss and her language.
“Seth and Eli are out of town, obvs,” Bliss said. “And Mac won’t come if Amity is there.”
“Really? Still?” I asked.
Mac and Amity had been off and on since grade school, basically. A secret relationship that wasn’t so secret. But, that was years ago. Surely, they’d managed to overcome any hard feelings after such a long time.
Last Hope Gulch was too small for sustained hostility.
Bliss shrugged. “That’s just how those two roll. What’s really comical is when Seth or Eli are in town, Mac will use them to order all the takeout food he can get his hands on from the Last Meal. Mac thinks he’s fooling Amity, but he’s not.”
“Interesting.”
“Not really,” Bliss said. “But Ethan and Harmony will definitely come, and if Carter can get Mac to watch the kids, he’ll show up, too, if only to make an appearance. We’ll turn it into a homecoming party!”
Ask Tag, I wanted to say, but I couldn’t figure out how to ask it casually. I felt like the second I said his name, my eagle-eyed sister would know what we did in the barn last night and the shit would hit the fan. But, I knew I would spend the whole night wishing he was there, waiting for him to walk in the door, and being disappointed when he didn’t.
Jesus. It was high school all over again.
“Don’t make it a thing,” I said. “I’ll just come and have some wine. You do have wine, don’t you?”
“Of course. Stomp it with my own two feet,” Bliss smiled.
“Mom, tell her to stop lying.”
Mom lifted her head up from her phone, where I believed she was playing Wordle. “Bliss, stop messing with Sunshine.”
“You’ll really come?” Bliss asked.
I nodded. It was time for me to start remembering I had a family. A pretty large, extended family at this point. My sister wanted me to come to her bar tonight, to see her in action, and that’s what I was going to do.
And I was going to try really hard not to think of Tag.
FIFTEEN
