Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 62643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
I heard her words like they were coming from a far distance… possibly from a whole other lifetime. Because as the crowd parted in front of her, I spotted a man standing off to the side of the stage dressed in pressed wool trousers that clung to his narrow hips and a white button-down so starched I could use it to stake tomatoes. He was nodding at something Savannah Nutter was saying, and the serious look in his dark eyes was so familiar I recognized him immediately.
“Oh my God,” Alana breathed. “Is that…?”
“Junior Nutter,” I gritted out. My stomach burned, and my chest tightened with a whole mess of emotions too tangled for me to piece them out entirely. Confusion, shock, annoyance, anticipation… and something else. Something that made my mouth water against my will.
“But he never comes back here,” Alana said, still staring like she’d never seen a beautiful man before. I might have made a snarky comment about this if I weren’t busy staring at him the same way.
I forced myself to look away. “Well, clearly he does,” I snapped. Though she was right, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard about Junior visiting the Thicket. It was well-known that he was far too busy with whatever the heck he did in Chicago to care much about the people he’d left behind.
“Bet he could sand the hell out of a floor,” Alana whispered.
I elbowed her.
She elbowed me back. “What? Look at those broad shoulders. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t want him to… sand something of yours too.”
“I’m not bidding on Junior Nutter,” I hissed. “First off, I don’t believe he’d ever participate in something so countrified. Mr. Private Boarding School is way too hoity-toity to ever let his people sign him up to be auctioned off like a prize steer. And even if he did,” I went on when it looked like she was about to argue, “have you forgotten that he’s persona non grata in the Jackson family?”
“I haven’t forgotten anything,” Alana informed me. She straightened her shoulders and flicked back her blonde ponytail with one lacquered nail. “And if you won’t bid on him, I will.”
I stared at my beautiful sister in horror. “You can’t. Alana. Of all the men ever born in the Thicket, Junior is the snottiest, the most entitled, the—”
“Sexiest, the most gorgeous—”
“The sneakiest, the… the… thievingest—”
“The smartest, and… oooh, baby.” Still staring at Junior, she bit her lip and wiggled her eyebrows. “Definitely the ass-iest. That man has been blessed.”
“Ass-iest is not a word,” I protested, but I couldn’t help turning to see what she was looking at.
Junior had turned and bent a little so his uncle Amos, who wasn’t carrying his cane, could sling an arm over his shoulder. The way he was leaning did a lot of interesting, eye-popping things to Junior’s posterior region.
“Ass-iest is as much a word as thievingest and muuuuch more applicable to the situation,” Alana purred. “I know you think Junior stole from you, but I still think there was more to that situation than met the eye. You never found out why—”
I looked away again. “Because I know why. Junior thinks he’s better than all of us. He thought he had a right—”
Alana shook her head and patted my arm in a gesture that was more riling than soothing. “Hunter. I love you. But sometimes you tell yourself a story and twist the facts to fit it.”
I scowled. “I do not—”
Alana didn’t want to hear my objections. She’d already turned toward the stage, where Amos Nutter was passing the mic to Red Johnson so the mayor could open the festivities with a moving speech about… castration, I was pretty sure? I couldn’t make myself pay attention.
Alana was wrong—dead wrong—about me and about Charlton Nutter, Jr.
She seemed to forget that I’d known Junior for years, that we’d gone through elementary and middle school together, that we’d shared a tent on Cub Scout campouts, that Junior had taught me to swim and I’d taught him to ice-skate, that I’d considered the asshole my friend—to the point where I’d thrown down when the kids at school teased Junior about his prim-and-proper polos.
Alana might have forgotten the details of how everything changed too, but I certainly hadn’t. At the start of freshman year, Junior’s father had married a rich second wife who ponied up some cash. Almost instantly, it seemed like the sweet and slightly geeky kid I’d known had grown a foot taller and started talking crazy talk about the world outside the Thicket, where a person could “be whoever they wanted,” like you couldn’t simply be who you were right here. Rumors had swirled about Junior’s mom buying a house in Nashville so they could move away, and at first, I’d dismissed them—Nutters belonged in the Thicket, just like Jacksons did, so they wouldn’t leave, for heaven’s sake.