Page 43 of Sugar
Ava didn’t stick with rodeo for too long, but she sure stuck around me.
Falling for her was essentially the beginning of a years-long drawn-out chase, one that had us both shifting back and forth between roles of pursuer and target as time went on. There was a learned language to our flirting, an unspoken choreography to the dance between us. She’d give me that coy smile, the one that rounded her cheeks into apples and crinkled the skin around her sapphire eyes, and I’d be snared like a wild dog. Then I’d say or do something brazen to let her know I was on to her and it’d send her off running.
It took some effort, but I learned how to play hot and cold too. I once went months without so much as looking at her at school and was thrilled with how it sent her spiraling. She’d been so determined to rope me back in that she started a rumor about us just to give herself a flimsy excuse to chastise me in front of everyone at a party, including her boyfriend at the time. The little minx.
She always had a boyfriend, or at the very least there was always some guy set in her sights. It was never me, not directly. But it was also somehowalwaysme.
The smell of the bonfire wafts in the salty air through my truck’s open windows before I even turn into the lot for Scorpion Bay. My body’s already buzzing in anticipation because I know Ava’s going to be here tonight—she made it clear enough when she’d stopped to talk about it in the hallway at school yesterday, right in front of me.
I’m not real big on these parties, not when work comes early every morning at the ranch, but I still try to make it out now and then with some of the guys from the team. Tonight’s bonfire—an end-of-summer tradition—is a perfect excuse to hang out with my friends, but the truth is I’m only here for the dark-haired beauty who’s front and center in all my dreams.
The cicadas are screaming tonight. I look up through my dirty windshield at the dusty orange sky beyond the dark plumes of smoke and wonder if it might rain. Definitely wouldn’t hurt after all this heat we’ve had. The humidity’s been downright suffocating. If the sky finally decides to open up, it’ll be a relief for us all. And it wouldn’t hurt to put out the lingering embers of this fucking dangerous fire the boys have started.
I park my truck in one of the last open spots in the lot and lock it up. It’s another warm night—I can already feel sweat starting to pool along my spine beneath my red Mustangs jersey. I paired it with an old pair of jeans and my boots, which maybe isn’t ideal beach attire but no one will ever catch me wearing a pair of sandals, that’s for fucking sure.
“Kasey!” Someone calls my name from the top of a sandy hill that separates the beach from the lot. I turn to find Tomlinson stumbling as he climbs higher, an amber bottle in his hand. “The fuck took you so long?”
Tonight’s supposed to be fun, I remind myself. Our first football game of the new season is next weekend, so this is our last hurrah before everyone tries to behave more than usual.
“Work,” I holler back. Most of these boys only know the work put on that football field—they’d never be able to keep up with me and my brothers on the ranch. Lucky for me, it keeps me in good enough shape that I don’t have nearly as hard a time with all the conditioning we’ve been subjected to since the season started a couple of weeks ago.
“Fuck work!” Tomlinson shouts back.
Yeah, I think.See where that gets you in life.
I guess it’s not exactly Tomlinson’s fault that he’s a moron. His parents are even bigger morons who spend so much time worrying about what their neighbors are doing or what they’re buying or where they’re vacationing that life has pretty much turned into a weird competition for them.
Getting the most while doing the least is not my idea of a good life. But it’s also not my business how any of these guys decide to live theirs—unless they fuck with me or my family.
Or Ava.
Yeah . . . I’d inflict some serious hurt if any of these fucks even looked at Ava wrong.
I sigh, shaking the thought away. Just more evidence of the anticipation I feel at seeing her tonight.
“Want a beer?” Tomlinson asks as I step off the blacktop and into the sand.
“Nah, I’m all right,” I say. “Don’t think I’ll be here long.”
“Aw, why not? Everyone’s here.”
My gaze flits through the crowd, eager and impatient. “I got an early morning.”
He frowns. “Shit. Doing what?”
I cut a glance at him. “We’re hauling a few horses out to Forth Worth.”
“I always forget you’re into all that horse stuff. A true country boy!”
I nearly scoff. “I’ll catch you later,” I mutter, moving down the sandy slope toward the people crowding around the fire.
I find more guys from the team circling around a keg that sits in the sand, all of them juniors like me. Most of them are just as sauced as Tomlinson, but I’m relieved that a couple of them have drawn short straws as designated drivers and are looking out for the group. Football in Texas is its own religion, and it’s easy for the fame and attention to make players feel invincible. Too many tragedies have taken the lives of good kids too soon, most of them revolving around parties like this.
“Have you seen Molly yet?” Richards asks me, driving the back of his hand into my chest a little too hard.
I shake my head—I’m not even sure who Molly is. “No, don’t think so.”
He nods toward a group of girls gathered on the edge of the shoreline. “The blonde with the pink tank top,” he says. “I think I’m going to ask her out.”
