Neat (Becker Brothers, #2)(24)

I nodded, lining up my first shot. I sank the four ball in the corner pocket, finally looking at her as I rounded the table for the next shot. “Thank you.”

Mallory smiled, and silence fell over us as I took the next few shots. When it was her turn again, she passed by where I stood against the wall, her arm brushing mine before she paused in front of me.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said, voice a little lower now. “About what you said earlier. About me.”

She was so close, just another inch and her chest would touch mine. Of course — the top of hers would hit the bottom of mine. She was at least a foot-and-a-half shorter than me.

I swallowed, looking down the bridge of my nose at her glowing eyes. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” she answered. “I like that you think I’m different.” Her eyebrows folded in. “Well, that you thought I was different. And I was hoping we could start over, that we could go back to when you thought I was this intriguing minx and not just the princess of Stratford — like everyone else in this town.”

I smirked. “I never said I thought you were a minx.”

“But you did,” she fired back with a smirk of her own. Her eyes glowed a little fiercer then. “You still do.”

I rolled my lips between my teeth, looking up at the ceiling like God himself was up there to help me resist this woman in some way. When I looked at her again, her smile had climbed, eyes dancing in the low light of the bar as she waited for my answer.

“We can start over,” I told her, avoiding the minx assessment altogether.

She opened her mouth to respond just as the lead singer of the band came over the microphone to introduce himself and the rest of the crew. Mallory immediately cringed, plugging her ears with her fingers as she glanced up at the speaker that hung right above us.

We were both silent as the band talked on, and when they started playing, Mallory unplugged her ears, saying something I couldn’t make out — no matter how hard I stared at her lips.

And trust me — I was staring.

“What?” I yelled over the music.

She said it again, but I shook my head, still not able to make it out.

Then, she grabbed the collar of my button-up plaid shirt and pulled my ear down to her lips. The soft, warm, velvet flesh of them brushed my ear lobe when she spoke.

“Wanna get out of here? Take a walk?”

Chills broke out over every inch of me — which thankfully was covered by the sleeves of my flannel shirt and the denim of my dark jeans. Mallory released my shirt, stepping back with a hopeful smile.

Do not say yes.

Do not go on a walk with that girl.

Do not entertain whatever fantasy you have — not now, not ever.

But I ignored every warning firing off in my head, nodding instead as I hung my cue stick on the rack and drained what was left of my whiskey. Mallory sucked her drink down, too, nodding toward the bathroom. “Just give me a minute,” she screamed. “I’ll meet you outside.”

I nodded again, apparently speechless now that I’d agreed to leave Buck’s bar with Mallory Scooter. When she was inside the bathroom, I made my way over to the bar stool I’d abandoned next to my brothers, tugging my jacket off the back of it.

“Where are you going?” Jordan asked.

“On a walk.”

“Alone?” Noah probed.

“Why don’t you mind your own business?”

Noah laughed, while Jordan’s brows folded over his eyes so hard I didn’t think he could see me when his hand caught the sleeve of my jacket in a fist.

“She’s a Scooter,” he reminded me. “Watch yourself.”

“She just wants to apologize,” I said, ripping my arm away from his grasp. “Besides, we work together. We need to get along.”

Both of my older brothers watched me like I was a kid walking into a snake pit I didn’t even realize was there. What they didn’t know was that I saw the pit, I just didn’t care.

Maybe the snakes weren’t the venomous type.

Maybe they were garter snakes, like the ones Dad used to find in our yard all the time.

Neither of them offered another word, and neither did I. I slapped some cash down on the bar for Buck for the tab I’d run up before Mallory paid for my last drink, nodding a goodbye to him before I made my way toward the door. Mallory was just outside, and when I pushed through the door, she turned, smiling as a puff of white left her mouth with her first breath.

She was wrapped up in a black leather jacket and thick, burnt orange scarf. Her hands were in her pockets, eyes somehow different than they’d ever been before as she offered me a smile.

“Should I lead the way, or am I following you?”





Mallory


Stratford was quiet, as it always was this late on a Monday night. Logan and I walked side by side, our steps in line, the only sound between us being the soft thumps of his boots on the sidewalk and the click-clacking from the heels of mine. Christmas lights were strung all along Main Street — curling up the light posts, adorning the limbs of each little naked tree, highlighting the storefront windows. Gold and garnet garland accompanied the lights on the posts, along with little signs that said things like Merry Christmas and ’Tis the Season.

Even from where we walked at the north end of Main, you could see the lights from the big tree set up in our small town square at the south end of the main drag. That tree was erected every year on the Friday after Thanksgiving, Stratford residents always being more excited about seeing the ornaments and lights hung on that evergreen than they ever were about catching a Black Friday deal.