I stepped back to admire my handiwork and swiped a hand over my forehead. The refinished deck glistened under its new coat of varnish. Just in time for summer, Devlin had a nice new deck for our quiet mornings together.

We could move some of the weekend bonfires here, too, I thought. On a practical level, he had more bathrooms than I did and a bigger fridge for beer. I could string up some lights in the trees, put in a fire pit, and maybe add a paver walkway, something wide and level for Granny Louisa and Estelle to enjoy when they came home.

I had a postcard from them in Madrid. I hoped that when I was that age I’d be doing exactly what they were. Living. Really living.

I’d wrap up my projects here by the weekend. The house gleamed like new inside and out with the improvements I’d talked Devlin into. I gave myself a pat on the back.

I liked working near Devlin. I liked looking up from my sawhorses or disgusting pile of ripped up English rose carpeting and seeing him watching me. I liked our long, naked lunch breaks—when Jonah wasn’t around. And I really liked how Devlin stood a little taller these days, smiled a little more... and swatted my ass whenever I walked past him.

I skipped down the deck stairs and gathered up my supplies, stashing them in the back of my truck. Whistling, I ducked into the first level. Devlin had finally gotten over his ridiculous, urban-dweller notion of locking every door in the house. I jogged upstairs and into the kitchen.

He’d come here an anxiety-ridden shell of the man he used to be. And now? Now, I liked to think I was seeing the real Devlin McCallister. Not some buttoned-up, white-washed, politically correct version but the real man with his very real desires.

I found him in the living room scowling at his laptop with his feet on the coffee table. Stacks of mail and paperwork were strewn about the floor.

“What’s all this?” I asked.

“Playing a little catch up.” He pointed to a tall stack of papers by his right foot. “Bills introduced by the legislature this year that didn’t pass but that might be reintroduced next session. That stack is ribbon-cutting, fundraiser, and reception invitations. And these are some cases my law firm is working on. Thought I’d do a little digging into some precedents.”

“Do you want to be doing all this crap?” I asked, eyeing the stacks skeptically.

Devlin dumped his laptop on the couch next to him and pulled me down into his lap. “I’d much rather be distracted by you.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” I said, making myself comfortable in his lap. He was already hard. And I loved knowing that I had that effect on him. I threaded my fingers through his hair. It was getting long enough that it curled at the back of his neck. His beard was full but neatly trimmed. He’d kept up with his running and his workouts, and I could see the difference in his body. Lean muscle turned out to be quite the turn on for me.

“Is it weird that I think it’s sexy when you smell like polyurethane?” he asked, pressing his face to my throat and breathing me in.

“Yes,” I laughed. “So, listen.”

“Oh, god. What? Wait. Don’t tell me. You want to tear me away from work so we can go ‘wrastle’ pigs?”

“Judgey McJudgerson!” I hadn’t heard the end of it since I’d dragged him to Chicken Shit Bingo for the Bootleg Fire Company. Devlin had had the time of his life and even won the grand prize when the community chicken, Mona Lisa McNugget, took a respectable crap on his square of grass. Class act that he was, he’d donated the cash prize back to the fire company and bought everyone a round of beer. But since then, he’d assumed everything I wanted to do was some backwoods redneck form of entertainment.

In general, he wasn’t far off.

“Just for that attitude, I’m not going to tell you what we’re doin’,” I said haughtily.

He slipped his hand under my tank top and splayed it across my stomach. “Just tell me it involves me getting you naked.”

I tapped my finger to my chin. “Hmm. It does involve fewer clothes than what we’ve got on now.”

He leaned in and nibbled my ear lobe. “Then I’m in.”

I bounced in his lap. “Awesome! I’ll give y’all an hour to finish up here. I’m gonna run into town and get some supplies.”

I scooted out of his lap.

“What kind of supplies, Scarlett? Shit. What did I just agree to?”

“Hey, don’t go out on the deck. I just sealed it. See ya in an hour, Dev!”

“Scarlett!”

I laughed the whole way to my truck.

* * *

June was when tourist season really started to pick up. Families with kids burnt out from a school year of overscheduling descend on Bootleg as soon as the last day of school was over with. My rentals were booked solid for four and five weeks out, and I was a happy camper despite the extra service calls that came with occupied rentals.

Part of that could also be due to the regular sex I was now enjoying with my next-door neighbor. Regular only in the timing sense. I had great fears that Devlin McCallister was ruining me for other men. Now that I knew that multiple orgasms were possible, well, why in the hell would I settle for anything less?

I slipped into a parking space in front of Bootleg’s version of a mini mart. Sure, the Pop In was a gas station and lotto place, but patrons could also buy bait, hand-dipped ice cream, and most grocery necessities. I pushed through the glass door and waved a hello to Opal Bodine, softball all-star, behind the counter. The shop had been in Opal’s family for three generations. They used to sell bathtub gin in baby oil bottles right off the shelf.

Opal was dealing with a family picking up enough fishing supplies for a two-week Alaskan excursion, so I moved on to the deli cooler and grabbed two sandwiches, a couple bags of chips, and a pepperoni roll for later. Dev was addicted.

I juggled my load and headed up to the register.

“Y’all have a great day now,” Opal called after the family. “Well, someone sure missed lunch,” she said, eyeing my haul.

“It’s not all for me.”

“I’ve seen you eat after a game. This ain’t nothing but an appetizer when you’re hungry.”

“Har har. Playin’ the hilarious shopkeeper.”

“I don’t see any dessert there,” Opal said ringing me up.

“You got anything I’d be interested in?” I tried to play it cool. But Opal, like everyone else in town, knew I had a sweet tooth that was never sated.

“Oh, I just might have a few Triple Chocolate Death by More Chocolate Tortes fresh from the bakery that I haven’t had time to put out—”

“Gimmie!”

Five minutes and one of the three delectable chocolate tortes I bought later, I dumped my supplies in the truck and headed across the street to wash my chocolate and sugar buzz down with some caffeine.

“Well, if it isn’t Miss Scarlett Bodine,” Cassidy said, coming out of Yee Haw Yarn & Coffee with her shift-starting latte. She blocked the door, her hip cocked, and looked at me over her sunglasses. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

“I have not!” I resented the implication. “I’ve been busy.”

“Busy beddin’ down with that sexy next-door neighbor.”

“And other things.”

“Walk with me,” Cassidy said.

I hesitated for a moment.

She wiggled her coffee cup at me. “I’ll share my caffeine with you.”

“All right. But only for a couple of minutes. I’ve got some sandwiches in the truck that I don’t want to get mushy.”

“When are you gonna learn to cook?” Cassidy teased.

“Only when absolutely necessary.”

We wandered south on Lake Drive, Bootleg’s main street, past the Rusty Tool’s window display of deck umbrellas and a yard décor outhouse. I waved at Clarabell through the front window of Moonshine.

“So, what’s been goin’ on? We haven’t hung out. You haven’t sent me any blow-by-blows of your sex life—pun intended. You didn’t even complain to me when your brothers threw him in the lake.”

“Those idiots,” I shook my head. Devlin had returned to bed soaking wet from head to toe, and we’d started the fun all over again as kind of a ‘fuck you’ to my brothers. “Thankfully they seem to like Dev.”

“So do you,” she pointed out.

“What’s with the interrogation? Are you accusing me of something, Deputy Tucker?”

“I’m just trying to get to the bottom of why my friend suddenly drops off the face of the earth in a town as small as Bootleg. You’ve made yourself so scarce, I’m starting to think of you as Callie Kendall.”

“That’s not fair, Cass, and you know it.”

“Look, I’ve just never seen you so into a guy before. And you’re not showing him off or running around town with him. You’ve never done that.”

It was true. I’d been hoarding Devlin, keeping him all to myself. He made it easy with his natural reluctance to socialize. He was still feeling rough around the edges about his divorce and his violent, yet totally awesome, exit from the legislature. And he was just as eager as I was to get and stay naked. It wasn’t really a prime socializing situation.

“I took him to Chicken Shit Bingo,” I argued for the sake of arguing.

“Alls I’m sayin’ is I miss my friend,” Cassidy said, giving the eyeball to Rocky Tobias who had parked his shiny monster truck across two parking spaces in front of the bank.

Rocky gave a guilty wave and jogged to his precious hemi before the good deputy could cite him for assholery.

“Do you like him?” Cassidy asked.

“Who? Rocky? He’s a great dancer.”

“Devlin, you jackass. Do you like Devlin McCallister?”

“Of course, I do. I wouldn’t be sleeping with him otherwise!”

“Not true. Wade Zirkel.”

“That was different. I was... bored.”

Cassidy gave me the “I don’t believe you but keep talking so you get deeper in trouble” look that she’d gotten from her father.

“Ugh. Fine. I like him. Like a lot. And I know he’s only here for a few weeks, and I know it’s all temporary. But orgasms, Cassidy. Oh, the orgasms!”

People were looking at us. Downtown on a Wednesday during tourism season, Bootleg was packed.

“Tell me more about these orgasms,” she said, passing the coffee back to me.

“You know how we read that book where the girl had like thirty orgasms in the span of ten pages?”

Cassidy nodded, a faraway look in her eye. “Yeah, I seem to recall that fictional freak of nature.”

“Sex with Devlin is like that.”

“You had thirty orgasms?” Cassidy lost her deputy cool and screeched this to the entire block.

I clamped a hand over her mouth. “Will you shut your face? I don’t want the entire female population of Bootleg Springs to go knocking on Dev’s door asking for handouts!”

“Holy shit, Scar. No wonder I haven’t seen you and, when I do, you’re walkin’ funny.”

I dragged her down Bathtub Gin Alley past the natural soaps and lotions store and the Build a Shine—the Bootleg answer to Build-A-Bear for moonshine drinkers.

“Multiple orgasms are a thing, Cass. A beautiful, beautiful thing.” I felt exactly like I did the time I’d told my six-year-old best friend that Santa wasn’t real. I was unveiling a truth of the universe.

“I think I need to sit down,” Cassidy said, sinking onto the stoop in front of The Brunch Club, a popular hideaway for tourists who loved their brunch with strong cocktails. Patrons had to use a secret password to gain entrance.

“Cass, do you know what this means?” I asked, hunkering down next to her and patting her arm.

“That we’ve been having sex with the wrong men,” she moaned.

“Exactly.”

“Well, where do I find me a Devlin?”

I wanted to say it. I wanted to shove her into Bowie’s waiting arms, but family loyalty came first always and forever with the Bodines. Bowie had to be the one to make the move. And at the rate they were going, one of them would be dead before he did.

“We’ll find you one. Heck, I found mine next door.”