In the Weeds (Lovelight #2)(6)

I’m pretty sure I’d like just about anything with Evie. I want all that black, silky hair wrapped around my fist, that smiling mouth at my neck. Last night she spent twenty-two minutes tracing the tattoo across my bicep with her mouth and I want that, too. I want to return the favor with the freckles on the inside of her wrist and the marks at her hips.

I push off the desk and set my cup to the side. I step towards the bed and watch the movement of her hand. She swipes it low across her stomach, a wicked smile on her pretty face. I plant my knee on the bed and find her ankle, her bare foot dangling off the edge.

“I love to watch,” I tell her as I grip her thigh and make room for my body between her long legs. I drop a kiss to the inside of her knee and her whole body shivers. I drop another kiss just above it. “But I like to touch more.”

A finger digs into my ribcage as I’m violently yanked from my favorite daydream.

“Are you paying attention?”

My knee jolts and my boot catches on the chair in front of me, sending Becky Gardener rocking precariously to the side. She curls her hands around the edges with a white-knuckled grip and shoots me a look over her shoulder. I fix my attention on my boots and mumble an apology.

“I’m paying attention,” I tell Stella, and swat her hand away.

Kind of. Not really. There are too many people in this room. All of the business owners in town are sandwiched together in the conference space at the rec hall, an old room that I’m pretty sure is used to store Easter decorations if the slightly terrifying six-foot bunny in the back corner is any indication. It smells like stale coffee and hairspray and the ladies from the salon haven’t stopped cackling since they stepped through the door. It’s like sitting cross-legged in the middle of a parade while the drumline marches around me. All of the sound pulls my shoulders tight, an itch of discomfort pricking at my neck.

And I keep making eye contact with that bunny.

I don’t usually come to these types of things, but Stella had insisted. You wanted to be a partner, she said. This is what partners do.

I thought being a partner meant I could buy the fancy fertilizer without checking in with anyone, not attend meetings that serve absolutely no purpose. There’s a reason I chose a job where I spend seventy-five percent of my day outside.

Alone. In the quiet.

I struggle with talking to people. Struggle with coming up with the right words in the right sequence at the right time. Every single time I come into town, I feel like everyone is looking right at me. Some of that is in my head, I know, but some of it is—

Some of it is Cindy Croswell pretending to fall in the aisle at the pharmacy just so I have to help her up again. Or Becky Gardener from the school asking me if I can host a field trip while eyeing me up like I’m a rare steak with a side of potatoes. I’ve got no idea what goes on half the time I come into town, but I feel like people lose their damn minds.

“You’re not paying attention,” Layla chimes in from my right, legs crossed and hand rummaging around in the giant bowl of popcorn she brought with her. Layla runs the bakery at the farm while Stella holds down the tourism and marketing side of things. Since Inglewild is the size of a postage stamp and Stella has a bone-deep urge to make Lovelight Farms a cornerstone of the community, we seem to be expected to be involved in a lot of town business.

I don’t even know what this meeting is about.

“Where did the popcorn come from?”

I glance at the gargantuan bag stuffed under her chair. I know for a fact there’s some brownies and half a box of crackers in there. She says the Inglewild bi-monthly small business owner’s meeting is a drag without a snack and I’m inclined to agree. Not that she’s offered to share.

Layla circles one finger right in front of my face and ignores my question. “You have that moony look on your face. You’re thinking about Evelyn.”

“Was not.” I sigh and roll my shoulders, desperate to relieve the tension that sits between them. “I was thinking about the pepper crop,” I lie.

I’m distracted. I’ve been that way since two hazy nights in August. Sweat-slicked skin. Hair like midnight. Evie St. James had smelled like sea salt and tasted like citrus.

I haven’t had my head on straight since.

Layla rolls her eyes and crams another handful of popcorn into her mouth. “Okay, sure. Whatever you say.”

Stella reaches across me and snatches the bowl out of Layla’s hands. “They’re getting ready to start. If we could pretend to be professional, that would be great.”

I raise both eyebrows. “For the town meeting?”

“Yes, for the town meeting. The one in which we are currently in attendance.”

“Ah, yes. Always very professional.”

At the last town meeting, Pete Crawford tried to filibuster Georgie Simmons during a vote on new parking restrictions in front of the co-op. He had re-enacted Speed, complete with props and voices.

Stella levels me with a look and turns back to the front of the room with the bowl in the crook of her arm. Layla shimmies closer and rests her chin at my elbow. I sigh and look up at the heavy wooden beams that cut across the ceiling and pray for patience. There’s a deflated balloon stuck up there, probably leftover from the Valentine’s Day event they had last month. A speed dating thing, I think. My sisters had tried to make me go and I locked myself in my house and turned off my phone. I stare at the balloon and frown. A faded red heart, deflated and stuck, string wrapped around and around.