I had the flu. Or the plague. Or a case of food poisoning that had lasted six straight days. My body hurt like I’d decided to swim the length of the lake and then gotten run over by Jimmy Bob Prosser’s monster pick-up truck.

I heard my back door open and pulled the quilt over my head. The male Bodines had decided that we needed to host a bonfire and pretend that everything was peachy keen. I didn’t know if they were doing it to pull me out of my funk or test the waters to see who in Bootleg we could still call friends.

Whatever their motivation, I wasn’t moving from my bed cave. If the pile of maintenance calls coming in didn’t rouse me from my deathbed, then some dumb party wouldn’t either. I didn’t have the energy to fix a damn thing let alone make small talk and swill beer.

I wanted to lay here and think about Devlin. Wonder what he was doing. Was he missing me? Had he stepped right back into his old life? Why hadn’t he texted or called? Had he heard the news that Jonah Bodine Sr. was a person of interest in Callie Kendall’s disappearance?

I’d started to text him a thousand times and deleted every single one of them without hitting Send. Only once had I seen the dots in our last text conversation that meant he was typing. I’d clutched my phone so tight my fingers hurt. But the dots disappeared without a text.

“Scarlett Rose Bodine.” Cassidy’s voice snuck through the cotton of the quilt.

“Go away. I’m contagious.”

She unceremoniously ripped the quilt off of me. “Get your ass out of bed!”

“She looks terrible,” June announced from the doorway, pulling her tank top over her nose as if to ward off germs. “Maybe she is ill.”

“Oh, she’s ill all right,” Cassidy confirmed. “Ill in the head.”

“Just go away and leave me to die,” I moaned dramatically. “I think it’s the flu.” I coughed as if to prove my point.

“You don’t have the flu any more than I have a dick,” Cassidy announced.

“Oh, so you’re a doctor now?”

“Do you have fever, chills, and body aches?” June asked.

“Yes!” Well probably not the fever or the chills part. And the body aches were really more of a lethargy that hooked its talons into me… but it was clearly the flu.

“No, she doesn’t,” Cassidy said without pity. “She’s got a broken heart, and she did it to her own damn self.”

I sat straight up in bed indignantly. “What in the hell are you talking about, Cassidy Tucker?”

“You pushed Devlin away because you loved him, and we all know it was a huge mistake.”

I ignored the ridiculous part of her statement and zeroed in on the other. “We all?”

“The fifty people in your backyard. We voted. You need to get your ass up and go after Devlin.”

“We parted ways. It was very civilized,” I argued.

June snorted.

“Since when do you do anything civilized, Scarlett?” Cassidy demanded. “You love Devlin.”

“We had a fling—”

Cassidy shook her head. “You fell sloppy stupid head-over-boots for the man. Admit it.”

“I’d like to share my theory,” June interjected. “I believe Scarlett’s romantic feelings for Devlin scared her, and she rejected him to protect herself.”

“June, are y’all calling me a chicken shit?” I gasped.

“Essentially? Yes.”

“I am no such thing!” I put my feet on the floor and stood up.

“Good job, Juney. You got her out of bed, now insult her again so she gets in the shower. She smells like a junior high boys basketball team.”

“I don’t smell—” I gave my armpit a sniff and reconsidered my words.

“Call him,” Cassidy said, thrusting my phone at me. “Call him and tell him you’re a sorry idiot and you miss him and you want to make it work.” She had no idea how many times in the past week I’d wanted to do just that. I missed him. I physically ached for a man I’d chased away.

“Cass, I appreciate your concern. But I am not dragging Devlin into this Dumpster fire of a mess. He’s got a career to worry about.”

“Did you ever bother asking him what he wanted, or did you just make the decision for him?”

“God, you sound like Jonah.”

“Speaking of Jonah, how do you think your half-brother feels finding out about his father from Bootleg and not you.”

“Hell.”

“Let me guess. You didn’t want to burden him with it either?” Cassidy crossed her arms over her chest.

I could only face one mistake at a time.

“What if Devlin didn’t want to stick? What if I told him everything, and he still left?” I demanded. “Do you know what that would have done to me?”

“Newsflash, dumbass. He does know. He figured it out on his own. Who do you think told me so I could protect your ass? Who do you think called in Jayme the Terrifying? You think me or my dad have those kind of connections?”

I gaped at her. “That’s not true. Is it?”

“Damn straight it’s true. He was ready to stay, to help. And you sent him away. You didn’t trust him to love you back.”

“He loves me?” I whispered.

“Either that or perhaps he just has masochistic tendencies,” June piped up.

I shook my head. “It doesn’t even matter if he loves me or is a masochist. We’d just end up like my parents.”

Cassidy threw her hands up in the air and screeched. “Did someone drop you on your head recently? What makes you think you’re destined to repeat your parents’ mistakes? Did you get knocked up in high school? Uh. No! Did you marry your high school sweetheart and then proceed to never mature past the eleventh grade? Also no! You and Devlin had something special, and you got scared and shit all over it!”

“I didn’t shit all over anything!” I hollered.

“You know what?” Cassidy said, looking at me with disdain. “The longer I talk to you, the more I just wanna punch you right in the face.”

“Bring it on, Deputy Assface.”

Cassidy sucker punched me right in the dang face. I was so surprised I fell back on the bed. But the second my ass hit mattress I launched myself at her. The force of our bodies hitting the wall dented the drywall.

Growing up in Bootleg, Cassidy and I learned how to fight dirty. I grabbed a hold of her hair and gave her a shot to the gut with my knee.

She grunted and threw an elbow that connected with my right boob.

I got off a short shot to her jaw that snapped her head back. But Cassidy wasn’t weak from a week of moping. She gripped me by my t-shirt—Devlin’s Cock Spurs t-shirt that I hadn’t given back—and threw me on the mattress. She climbed on and we traded shots, shouting insults.

“You’re the thick-headedest mule in three counties!” Cassidy yelled.

“You’re a redneck douchecanoe!”

“I can’t believe we’re friends!”

I tasted blood and wasn’t sure if it was my own or if it was dripping from Cassidy’s nose.

“Okay. That’s enough of that.” Bowie’s voice was amused when he picked Cassidy up off me. That pissed us both off. Cassidy kicked him in the shin with her bare foot, and I grabbed his hair.

“Ow! Fuck! Jameson!” Bowie screeched. “Get in here!”

Jameson hauled me over his shoulder and carted me into the living room, which was filled with gawkers.

“What in the hell are you two doing?” Gibson demanded, hands on hips. “Y’all have been best friends since birth.”

“She started it,” I snapped.

“I did! Because she’s a dumbass,” Cassidy growled, still fighting Bowie’s hold on her. “Bootleg Justice!”

“Don’t make me call my lawyer,” I yelled.

There was dead silence for five whole seconds in my house, and then Cassidy and I started to laugh. And we couldn’t stop. Calling a lawyer over Bootleg Justice? It just wasn’t done. Everyone was howling now, and the human restraints were no longer necessary. I met Cassidy in the middle of the room.

“Friends again?” I offered.

“Yeah. Just maybe stop being such a dumbass.”

We hugged it out and the crowd applauded.

“Now, what are you going to do about Devlin?” Bowie asked me.

“Yeah,” the crowd demanded.

“Bring him back!” someone started chanting.

“Pepperoni roll!” someone else chanted.

I climbed up on my coffee table, surrounded by people I’d loved since kindergarten. Friends and neighbors who had been there through the deaths of my parents and were willing to stand with me now even in this mess.

“I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do! I’m gonna get a shower!”

The crowd cheered.

“And then I’m gonna drive to Annapolis!”

They cheered louder.

“And I’m gonna bring me back my man!”

They were rioting in my living room. I was picked up and carried to my bathroom on the shoulders of Freddy Sleeth and Corbin the keyboardist.

They dumped me inside and slammed the door behind me.

“Find me something conservative to wear,” I yelled to Cassidy. “I’ll show him what a politician’s girlfriend looks like!”

My reflection in the mirror over my tiny vanity caught my eye. “I can do this,” I told myself. “At least I think I can.”

I showered quickly and brushed my teeth. Cassidy shoved a dress and shoes into my hands. Once I was dressed, Opal Bodine squeezed into the bathroom and, standing on the lip of my tub, styled my hair into a chic twist. I slapped on some makeup over the fresh bruises going for a look that said boardroom, not brothel, and called it done.

I strolled out of the bathroom and struck a pose for the twenty-some people still crammed inside my house.

“What do y’all think?”

“Are your boobs tryin’ to escape?” Millie Waggle asked.

I looked down and grabbed my girls. The dress Cassidy had picked was a remnant from my short stint in 10^th grade band. It turned out that I hated the clarinet, and the trumpet player I was trying to impress was more interested in one of the trombonists, if you know what I mean. I lasted for one concert, in this high-necked dress, before quitting.

“I don’t think your breasts like their incarceration,” EmmaLeigh, a homemaker and mama of four wild boys, said eyeing the flesh spilling out the sides of the dress. EmmaLeigh was nice as pie and sweet as tea. “Maybe if you wore a little wrap?”

“Here!” Buck whipped the gauzy pink cloth off of the lamp shade closest to him, and Opal wrapped it around me like a little jacket.

Cassidy stepped forward with a to-go box in her hands. “Here’s a pepperoni roll in case he tries to say no. Clarabell says good luck and bring your boy home.”

My eyes stung as I accepted the box.

“He won’t say no,” Gibson said, stepping up to take his turn. He nudged my chin up. “But if he does. You call us. And we’ll kick his ass.”

I nodded, the little gold earrings danced in my earlobes. “Are we good, Gibs?” I asked.

“We’re good.” He lifted a hand to ruffle my hair, but Opal slapped his hand away.

“We gotta fix things with Jonah,” I told him.

He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Yeah, I know. You let us worry about that.”

I nodded, trusting him to do what needed to be done. Bowie held up my truck keys. “Gassed up and ready to go.”

“Thanks, Bow.”

“Go get your guy.”

I looked around at the people crowded in my kitchen and living room. “What if I can’t stay in Bootleg anymore? What if I have to move?”

“Then we’ll come visit you,” Bowie promised. “We’ll bring the moonshine and pepperoni rolls.”

“I’m scared about things changing,” I whispered.

“Sometimes change is better than keepin’ things the same,” he said sagely.

Jameson was next. He gave me a nod and patted me on the head. In Jameson’s world, that was the equivalent of a five-minute hug and a conversation. He handed me a brown paper bag. I peered in it and found a sandwich and a box of condoms.

“Just in case,” he said stoically.

I laughed and squared my shoulders. “See y’all. I’m gonna go get me a boyfriend!”