by Morgan Young
“You told me to get out.”
“After asking you to stay.”
We stand there in active silence, until finally I can’t take it anymore. “So why are you here?” I ask. “Why come after me?”
“Because I’m in love with you,” Ryerson says. “I’ve been in love with you since before you kissed me at the barbecue. I saw those pretty brown eyes across the sea of elderly faces, and I thought, Damn. That is the girl of my dreams.”
I try not to smile.
“And then, when I came over to you, and you tried to ignore me, I thought, Holy shit. This is the girl I’d take home to meet my family.”
I bite the inside of my lip.
“And Cheyenne, honey, when you stormed out of my house and left me crying with my dog, I said to myself, Well, fuck. That’s the girl I want to spend the rest of my life with.”
My heart flutters.
“I messed up,” Ryerson says. “But I am out of my mind about you. I love you, and I think you love me. But I don’t want to just date you. I don’t want uncertainty. I love you, and I want to build houses with you and let you pick the paint colors. I want to have kids with you, and let you pick out their crazy ass names—” He laughs despite his heartfelt speech. “I don’t care,” he says. “Whatever you want, Cheyenne. I just want to do it together. I just want to start our lives.”
I’m quiet for a long moment, not giving away the fact my heart is soaring. “You’d really let me pick the names?” I ask, tilting my head.
He smiles. “Anything you want. Just tell me if you love me, too. Don’t keep me in suspense.”
“Ryerson Banks,” I say like he’s impossibly dumb. “I’m madly, passionately, and stupidly in love with you.” I take a step toward him. “And I, too, saw you in the group of senior citizens and thought, Wow—who’s that guy? And when you came up to talk to me, I thought, I sure hope I trip and fall into his arms. And when I left your house with my ex-husband, crying the tears of a broken-hearted lover, I thought…”
I stop in front of him, and run my hands up his chest until I lock my arms behind his neck, getting on my tiptoes. My voice turns serious. “I thought I lost the best bad idea I ever had,” I say.
Ryerson stares down into my face, his eyes watery. “You broke my heart,” he whispers, leaning to rest his forehead against mine. “I didn’t think you were coming back.”
“I’m here now,” I say.
He licks his bottom lip, that vulnerable look back in his eyes. His guard is gone; he’s helplessly in love with me—I can see that. I get up higher on my toes, and pull him into a kiss.
His left hand glides under my hair to the back of my neck, while his right rests on the curve of my low back. His tongue touches mine, and he devours me, devastates me in the best possible way. It’s a claiming kiss. It’s a promise—one I know he won’t break.
The kiss may have gone on for a little too long because Rufus barks from the back of the truck, and Ryerson laughs between my lips. He hums out his relief, and then quickly kisses me again.
“So can I take you home now?” he asks. Before I can answer, he adds, “Our new home. The furniture was delivered to Cambridge yesterday.”
“What?” I ask. “The ones I picked out?”
“They were for you,” he says. “I knew the first time I brought you there—the way your eyes lit up when you saw the place, the way you decorated it, making it a home. It’s yours, Cheyenne. It’s ours.”
I nod, overwhelmed and unable to say a word. How I’ve just gone from the worst day to the best possible day is unbelievable. I never thought… I never thought I could be this happy.
Ryerson reaches to take my hand, the way he always holds it, and pulls me towards the truck. I look back at the office of Miller’s Garage, and Ray waves to me. Frankie rolls his eyes, like this was all a little sappy for his taste, but he nods goodbye.
I walk over to give Rufus a quick pet before getting in the truck, so glad I won’t lose him, either. I get in the passenger seat, and Ryerson climbs behind the wheel, his hand automatically on my thigh like it belongs there.
And he starts the truck, changing my life, and he brings me home.
THE END
Want more from the Small Town Sexy series?
Turn the page for the first three chapters of
book one, SMALL TOWN SEXY!
Chapter One
“Come on, Zoey. No one ever died from taking a shot.” My very best friend, Cheyenne Winslow, pushes the shot glass across the table. Her wild curls are pulled back in a hair tie to keep them off her neck. We’re both sweating like crazy in this oddly hot October weather.
I stare at her. “Plenty of people have probably died from taking a shot. Like, from alcohol poisoning? Or, if they were allergic?”
She sighs. “Please, Zoey. I know you’re not allergic to alcohol. How long have we lived together? And on the rainbow of alcohol poisoning, you aren’t anywhere near the pot of gold, honey.”
“Where did you even find a shot of tequila at Oktoberfest, anyway?” I ask.
She smiles evilly and takes a sip out of her giant beer stein. “I have my ways. Besides, we’re here to get over—wait, what was that asshole’s name?”
“Chet.”
“Okay. First take the shot. And then, I have questions.”
I grab the shot glass and down the tequila. Then I pick up my beer stein and take a big gulp of cold beer to chase it. “Ugh. Fine. Shoot.”
“What the hell kind of a name is Chet? I mean, why didn’t that kind of a name just turn you off immediately? Like, when he said his name, didn’t you automatically want to put more clothes on?”
I grimace. “Kind of.”
“I have another question. Didn’t he have a barbed wire tattoo?”
I look down at the table. “Um, maybe. Say, do you want to walk around, like, maybe, look at the booths?”
Cheyenne hops off her barstools. “Yeah. But my question stands. Did he or didn’t he?”
“Didn’t he what?”
“Have a cliché tattoo?
“He had them around his ankles, too,” I mumble. I slip off of my own barstool and follow her onto the street, which has been partitioned off and lined with booths and vendors. Cheerful men dressed in lederhosen—at least, I think it’s lederhosen—and women dressed as barmaids check IDs and offer refills. I used to love Oktoberfest, but today, it’s all sort of grim.
Cheyenne laughs out loud. “And we don’t need to go over how he dumped you, which is the sole reason we are here, getting sloshed, this very day.”
“No, we don’t,” I agree, grimly. Because he dumped me by—well, not dumping me. One day, on his Facebook, he just announced he was tired of his old girlfriend and wanted people to hook him up with a new one.
Old girlfriend being me.
“He was a douche canoe,”Cheyenne says.“Like, literally a douche canoe. If there were instructions on how to build a douche canoe you would actually use Chet Donelson’s skin. I swear.”
I stare at Cheyenne. “Are you talking about building a boat out of my ex-boyfriend’s skin?”
She stares back. “Damn right I am.”
I lift my beer stein. “That’s why you’re my girl.”
We drink. And then we refill our beer steins, and we drink some more. A group of wasted college guys gives us blinking beer mug necklaces.
“Are we really wearing these?” Cheyenne asks, holding hers up between pinched fingers.
“They look great,” I say. “You’re like the hottest beer stein wearer I’ve ever seen.”
She spins in a circle, the little mugs clicking around her neck, laughing. I hold up my phone and snap a picture of her, and she leans in so we can take a selfie together. I’m hardly thinking about Chet at all.
“Look!” Cheyenne shrieks suddenly, peeling herself away from me. “Puppies!”
We stumble over to the humane society cages, where they try to convince half-drunk Oktoberfest-goers to adopt adorabl
e shelter dogs. Right now, a German Shepard is sitting patiently on a leash, thumping its tail against the hot asphalt, tongue wagging.
“Oh my gosh, sooooooooooooo cute.”
I turn, and that’s when I see him.
“Right?” I say, but Cheyenne is already stooping down to pet the dog. But I’m not paying attention. And I'm not talking about the dog.
Because across the street, standing in the shade next to the old fire station, are two cops.
And the officer on the right—there’s only one word for him: hot. He’s tall with bright blue eyes, and just a little facial hair, like maybe he forgot to shave that morning. His arms are muscular, and he has an ass I could bounce a quarter off of. At least, I would love to try.
“Cheyenne!”
“What?” She bounces up. “Can we adopt this German Shepard? I think he loves me. How can you tell if a dog loves you? Because I think maybe this dog is for sure in love with me.”
I pull down my sunglasses, still staring across the street. “Can I adopt him?”
Cheyenne spins around, beer sloshing out of her stein. “Holy shit. What calendar did he escape from?”
“Helllloooo Mr. Oktober,” I giggle. I take another drink of my beer. My mind is buzzing nicely by now. Almost buzzed enough to tell Cheyenne that she can bring the German Shepard home.
“I’d sign up for that fan club,” Cheyenne quips.
“I’d get jackets,” I say.
“I’d pay a yearly membership fee for a timeshare.” Cheyenne pauses. “Is that how timeshares even work? I don’t know. I never was rich enough to get robbed like that.” She takes another drink. “If you’re not going in, I am.”
“Stop. I saw him first. You were all about the German Shepard. That would be like me adopting the German Shepard that you saw first.”
Cheyenne crosses her arms. “We live together, so you basically would be.”
“Fine. We’re close enough to share a dog, but Officer McHottiepants is all mine.”
Cheyenne stares at me. “Oh my god. You’re trashed. But fine. If you’re going to stake a claim, do it. Walk across the street and kiss him.”
I blink at her. “What? Like, right now?”
“What’s stopping you?”
I look across the street, at the man leaning on the bricks of the old fire station turned café.
I take another drink of my beer. I’m definitely drunk enough. Maybe too drunk.
But what’s too drunk?
So I wade through the crowd in the middle of the street, cooing over puppies and buying jewelry and other little knickknacks, and before I realize what I’m doing, I’m standing in front of him, and his ice blue eyes are fixed on me. He smiles, just slightly, and the other officer crosses his arms in front of his chest.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” His voice has the slightest accent to it, like maybe he was born somewhere else, but I can’t place it. My eyes focus on his badge—Officer Banks.
I spot a golf cart parked next to the curb that says POLICE. “Nice car,” I say, pointing.
His eyes are still smiling as he responds. “Great gas mileage. I’m going green.”
I smile at him over my stein. “I like a man who cares about the environment.” I can’t believe I’m doing this. “I’m Zoey Winston,” I tell him. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Porter Banks.”
“That’s very good to know, Porter.”
He smiles back at me, widely this time, showing even white teeth that should be in a toothpaste commercial. “And why is that good to know, Zoey?”
“Because I promised my mother I’d never kiss a man without knowing his name first.”
His brow furrows. “Excuse me?”
Before I can lose my liquid nerve, I stand up on my tiptoes—Porter is tall, even for a girl like me—and press my lips to his.
And Porter—he doesn’t exactly kiss me back, but he doesn’t exactly not kiss me back, either. And I swear, before I pull away, I feel the slightest little flip of his tongue. I wrap my arms around him, squeezing him tightly, and then I release him.
“Thank you for your service, officer,” I say. I blow him an extra kiss, and I walk away, my head spinning, trying not to trip over my feet on the sidewalk.
Chapter Two
“The drunk tank. This one, for sure. I don't know about the other one. We’ll let her off for now.”
“She’s not that bad, Officer Oslo,” Cheyenne protests, conveniently setting her beer down and turning on what I affectionately refer to as her mom voice.
Officer Porter Banks is nowhere to be seen, but the other cop, the officer that I all but ignored while drunkenly sucking Mr. Oktober’s face off, is pissed.
I could die. I could seriously die right now.
Officer No-Fun (Officer Oslo) just happened to see me trip and fall into the bushes, which was seriously not even a big deal. It could actually happen to me while sober. I’m a naturally clumsy person. And he assumes I’m drunk in public.
Which I am.
But still. So is everyone else at Oktoberfest. There is an elderly woman painting a flower pot at the Krafty Korners booth and I would give you fifty to one odds that she’s more fermented than most bottles of wine.
“I’ll give you a lift to the jail to sleep it off." He points at the little golf cart with the word POLICE emblazoned across the front and sides.
I stare at him, horrified. “No thank you, sir. I’ll just call an Uber.”
“It’s not an option.”
“But I’m the city librarian! Do you understand what it would look like if you put me in the…golf cart of shame and truck me through downtown? What will I do at reading hour when I read to small children next week if they know I’ve been in jail?” I fold my hands, pleading.
“What about the small children who saw you assaulting an officer of the law with your tongue?”
I shrug. “Spreading the love?” I offer.
He doesn’t even crack a smile. Or take off his aviators, even though it’s after twilight.
“She’s fine,” Cheyenne tries to interject again.
“Do you want to be arrested too, Miss?” the officer asks.
“Cheyenne, please. Don’t get yourself into trouble. I’m begging you.”
Cheyenne shoots me a pleading look. “I can’t let you go alone, Zoey!”
“You owe me from that time I vacated the apartment for an entire week so that Archer Edwards believed that you were living as a tortured artist from New York City because you thought he’d be into that sort of aesthetic.”
She sighs. I’ve got her, and she knows it.
“Into the police vehicle.”
I turn to the cop. “Don’t you mean the golf cart? That really can’t qualify as an actual police vehicle you can arrest people in. It doesn’t even have seat belts, and I think we both know that’s a law.”
“Get in the cart, then, if you don’t want to be charged with drunk and disorderly.”
Is drunk and disorderly a thing? I begin to panic. I’m not used to the getting caught part.
I oblige, slipping into the back of the cart. “Can you just pretend you’re giving me a lift somewhere because my feet are sore from heels?”
“You’re not wearing heels.”
I groan. He doesn’t get it. He’s ruining my life and potentially my reputation and my career. He climbs in the front and starts the engine of the little golf cart, and all of a sudden, I’m being officially escorted to the police station in an actual golf cart.
“Don’t you actually have to determine my blood alcohol level before you’re officially able to arrest me?” I ask.
“We’ll do that at the station,” he says, not turning around.
“I’ll pick you up, Zoey!” I hear Cheyenne call.
I spy a plaid button-up—the type that trendy girls tie around their waists—lying in the back seat next to me, and I swoop it over the top of my head. I’m not going to let anyone realize it’s me. Our little Ka
nsas town is small enough that I’m sure at least someone will recognize their poor awkward librarian.
I feel the cart begin to move, and I pretend not to notice that we’re moving slowly, and probably through a thick crowd, probably all staring at the tall drunk girl hiding in a golf cart underneath a plaid shirt.
After about ten minutes, the cart comes to a stop, and I hear a familiar voice.
“Wait. This isn’t…Carter. You didn’t.”
“She fell into the bushes, Banks. She was a danger to herself and the community at large.”
“I am not!” I sit up indignantly, peeking out from underneath the flannel. A sleeve falls into my face.
Of course it’s Officer Banks. Porter. Officer I-Sucked-His-Face-Off.
“I’m just hiding under this shirt because I don’t want to be seen!” I tell him. “It’ll ruin my career!”
“Your career?”
“I’m the city librarian?” I ask. “I take myself very seriously.” The sleeve falls into my face again, and I brush it out of the way.
He swallows hard, like he is choking back a smile. “If you don’t mind me saying, Miss…what is it, again?”
“Winston.”
“Yes. Miss Winston. You seem a little inebriated.”
I nod. “I’m not entirely sober. But, uh, I wasn’t going to drink any more. And this is Oktoberfest. And I didn’t hurt anything, except, like, maybe a branch on a brush. But you have to understand, my boyfriend Chet decided to advertise for a new girlfriend on Facebook, and maybe I got a little drunker than I meant to.”
His eyes widen. His eyes are so blue. “Your boyfriend—advertised for a new girlfriend?”
I snort. “Basically.” I cover my nose. I just snorted. In front of Officer Porter. I sound like a hungry little piglet. A hungry, drunk, decidedly unsexy little librarian piglet. What is wrong with me?
“Carter,” Porter says. “Is this really necessary? You’re doing this for a trip-and-fall while there’s a guy smoking weed on the corner that we’re ignoring right now.”
“So you want to bust the guy for weed?”
