My hands are on her hips, ready to lift her and carry her around the corner when a noise breaks through the haze.
Voices.
Fuck.
I’m in Shipwreck.
I’m in Cooper’s hometown.
I’m kissing his sister.
His very off-limits sister.
Reason number eight hundred ninety-nine…
Wrenching away is second nature. The wild look in Tillie Jean’s eyes—half what just happened and half yes, please—sets my teeth on edge and my pulse flying higher than it can handle.
“I said shut up,” I rasp out.
I swipe the back of my hand over my mouth, feel the jitters starting in my fingertips, and take off.
I need to be alone.
I need to be alone right now.
4
Tillie Jean
Max Cole is a terrible kisser.
Not the part where his lips were warm and delicious. Or the part where he took charge and laid it on me. Or the part where he was a solid wall of growly-bear muscle and touching him was like touching summer in the middle of winter.
But definitely the part where other than initiating the kiss, he didn’t work hard at continuing it.
And the part where he jerked back so hard and fast, it was clear he forgot who I was when he decided to kiss me, which I’m pretty sure he did only to make me stop talking.
And also the part where he ran away.
Ran.
I’m talking full-on sprint down Blackbeard Avenue to get away from me.
And now, twelve hours later, I’m exhausted from a restless night of reliving it, and trying to pretend everything’s fine. The only thing worse than having an off-day in Shipwreck is having an off-day in Shipwreck when you’re supposed to be leading morning boot camp aerobics at the senior center after spilling the coffee that you tell everyone is a protein drink because you were supposed to give up coffee—again—weeks ago.
But if I wasn’t supposed to have coffee, it wouldn’t be so readily available, now would it?
“Shake that booty, Nana,” I call.
Pant, really. Possibly I should do this more than once a week.
Or possibly I’m still reeling from that kiss with Max last night.
“That’s right, ladies and gents! Get those legs up and kick!” I stop demonstrating and walk around the class under the guise of making sure everyone else is kicking right.
It has nothing to do with needing a rest myself, or worrying that the kick in my pulse is a reaction to too much caffeine.
And no, I’m not telling the average age of the participants here this morning. Especially since I feel a little older than all of them after tossing and turning all night last night and telling myself lies.
Lie number one: I only liked kissing Max because there are so few other opportunities for kissing in a town this small.
Lie number two: I would totally not kiss him again.
Lie number three: He’s not that attractive.
Lie number four: I don’t like him like that.
Lie number five: I didn’t look out my window to see if he was up and moving around his house sixteen million times overnight and this morning, since my bedroom windows look directly into what I know are his bedroom windows, which have the shades completely drawn, but which aren’t so solid that I can’t tell when his lights are on.
You get the idea. And let’s not talk about why I signed up to lead senior aerobics when the vacancy came up a year ago.
It has nothing to do with that article I read about Max doing yoga with the senior residents of his building on his off-days at home during the season.
Nope. Nothing at all.
The timing was pure coincidence.
“Nice punch, Mom. Take out those pirates. Kick! Punch! One, two, three, and squat! How low can you go?
“Is she extra chipper today?” Aunt Bea gasps.
“She’s extra not doing it with us,” Mom replies.
“I already ran four miles today, ladies and gents.” More like my body ran four hundred mental laps around analyzing that kiss last night. Technicalities. Doc Adamson will bust my ass if he looks at my FitBit data from the past two days, and not just because I’ve been guzzling coffee like I have a leaking gas tank. “You’ve got this.”
“Maaaah!” Sue, my brother Grady’s goat, replies.
Yes, a goat.
My mother brought her grand-goat to aerobic boot camp while Grady and Annika are off on their honeymoon.
“You too, Sue.” I rub his head. “Kick and punch, little nephew. Kick and punch and squat.”
“We need to see you kicking and punching and squatting, Matilda Jean,” Nana says.
“Lower on that squat, Nana. You want Pops to think you’re going soft? He’ll let his parrot walk all over you if you don’t keep that booty in good shape.”
“Your booty’s never been in good shape, Tillie Jean,” Cooper calls from the doorway. He’s lounging against the frame in his Fireballs track suit, Hydro Flask in hand, his you love me grin out in full force.
“Cooper!”
It’s like a flash mob. All of my aerobics students abandon their mats and charge him.
I pop my fists to my hips and eyeball his water bottle. Yes, with jealousy. I forgot my own and I’m parched after not sleeping, not working out, and not doing senior aerobics. “Hello, workout people. Those glutes aren’t going to shape themselves. And you all saw him just last night.”
“But he was talking to the men last night,” Aunt Bea tells me.
“He spent two hours painting baby Ashes with you.”
“Painting. Not talking. It’s our turn to catch up.”
“You saw him at Grady’s wedding.”
“Psh. He was doing all of his best man duties.”
Go away, I mouth to him, remember Max Cole saying the same thing to me a dozen or so times before he finally kissed me and ran away himself, and feel my face heat like the ovens at Crusty Nut, which is where I’m headed for my day shift as soon as senior aerobics is over.
Cooper blows me a kiss.
That’s not good.
Does he still have a key to my house?
How long has he been up?
Did he prank me while I was here?
I start to smile. If he got me, I get to get him back.
God, I miss him when he’s gone.
Brothers are supposed to be annoying, and Cooper is—Grady too, sometimes—but I don’t mind. My brothers are also awesome.
I won the brother lottery, which has become clearer and clearer the further into adulthood we’ve all gotten.
“Are any of you coming back to work out?” I call to my class.
“Not while you’re not working out with us,” Mom calls back over the sea shanty music that Nana insists we use every week.
“Don’t you have to get to work?” Cooper asks me.
“Aren’t you supposed to be running sprints up and down your mountain?”
Yeah, his mountain.
Shipwreck isn’t hurting economically between the tourism and the side hustles so many of our residents have picked up in the internet age, plus we have a growing segment of people who move here to work from home since we have solid internet and we’re basically the best small town to ever exist—and I’m not just biased. We get written up in articles about The Best Small Towns To Live In Across America all the time.