“Youngest Kent,” Molly said as I walked up to her, and she moved away from the blonde woman she’d been chatting with when we’d walked in. “How are you? Had a good day?”
I shrugged. “Fine. You know, typical ranch day.”
“Not A-grade?” she deadpanned, the only hint to her joke a slight dimple forming at the corner of her mouth.
Molly was one of several hundred townspeople who were endlessly amused by the fact that our parents had given us all names that started with the letter A. After all, what else could one expect from a couple named Albert and Alice?
As soon as they’d found out about Aaron, they’d chosen the name quickly, and figured that they might as well continue the tradition as they continued having kids. All of us had known that they’d continued trying for a girl, but my parents had never let on even a hint of disappointment in their four boys.
No, they’d been proud of their squad of boys, and as we’d grown up, there had been no shortage of nicknames that had been thrown our way. When I’d gotten old enough to start dating, the nickname Straight A’s had even entered the picture.
As we’d gotten older, the nicknames had petered off, but Molly had refused to let it go. Somehow from her, though, we’d never found it quite as annoying as it had been from any of the others who’d made the jokes over the years.
Now, I raised my eyebrow at her, allowing the chuckle out. “No, not A-grade. Unlike your bartending.”
“Oh, stop your shameless flirting,” she said, heading over to the tap. “You guys all want the usuals?”
“Yep,” I said, leaning forward and setting my elbows on the bar. “Austin and Andy are both raring to go.”
She chuckled. “I’ll bet.” As she started pulling out a few frosted steins from under the bar, she tilted her head to the side. “By the way, who taught you to ignore your old friends? Granted, I don’t know Alice that well, but I happen to believe she’d think that’s pretty rude.”
I blinked at her, unsure about what she meant… but just then, the woman that she’d been talking to turned to look at me, and I felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room as I looked into a pair of familiar green eyes. “Holy shit,” I said, blinking rapidly as I fully took in the woman in front of me.
“Well, that’s a one kind of greeting,” she said, her eyes shining with humor and a slightly exasperated smile at her friend’s shenanigans. “Hey, Adam.”
Lucy Oliver, my childhood best friend, was stunning. Lucy, Molly, and I had been in the same grade in school, and while Molly had been off doing cheerleader things, Lucy had come over to help me get through my chemistry and English tests so that I could graduate from high school.
After studying, we’d hang out, usually going for rides out in the pastures at either one of our family’s ranches, and I’d try to hide how drawn I was to her. We’d always found it so easy to laugh together, and those laughs had always lit up her face more than any sunrise.
I’d never admitted to my crush before she’d left for college, knowing how pointless it would be with her going off to school. My home was the ranch, and I wasn’t prepared to give up on what my parents had been working so hard to give us.
So she’d gone off to find her career, and despite her saying that she’d come back eventually and become the large animal veterinarian for our small town, I’d never really believed that she would, as much as I’d hoped for it. Part of me had always believed that she’d just stay in Utah and meet someone else in school as smart and ambitious as she was, and even though I’d thought that I might see her on breaks, she’d only ever really come home for Christmas, which she’d spent almost entirely with her parents.
I’d never blamed her for that, but it hadn’t exactly made for easy catching up.
Despite the occasional text here or there to check in and wish each other a happy birthday, we hadn’t really kept in touch more than that over the last couple of years. She’d allowed her ash blonde hair to grow out of the short, shoulder length hairstyle she’d kept it in when we were teenagers, and now the pale strands floated down to hit her back just below her shoulder blades. Her smooth, pale skin was dotted with the familiar constellation of freckles that I’d always found so hypnotic as a kid, wishing it wouldn’t be weird for me to reach out and trace a line between the dots.
I didn’t allow my eyes to linger on the rest of her body, but that didn’t mean that it escaped my notice. The dark jeans she was wearing hugged her legs and ass so tightly that they practically formed a second skin against her body. And as my eyes traveled up, they took in the shape of her under the plaid flannel that she had tucked into the front of those jeans, and the very slight edging of lace that seemed to hover on the pale skin of her breasts.