Page 28 of Something Spontaneous

There’s a look I can’t quite place. It’s no longer anger or hate, but it’s not indifference either. Instead of being a damn creeper and staring at her until I figure it out, I give her a small wave. “See you around.”

I walk out of the gate, but not before I hear her say, “Goodbye, Sly.”

CHAPTER 12

JOSIE

Ding. Ding. Ding.

“I don’t know how you can watch this.” I stuff another handful of candy into my mouth. “Like really… I don’t know if I can call you a friend if this is what you’re into.”

Sisi clutches her chest. “How dare you besmirch the ladies of Honeycomb Ranch?! HHR is must watch TV. There is so much drama in their crazy family. Feuding cowboys. Estranged children no one has seen in years. Scandalous divorces. A professional hockey player sibling. I’m going to have to catch you up on all of it.”

I arch a brow. “You’re serious? You actually love this? It’s as bad as the wrestling Sly used to make us watch. It’s completely scripted.”

She leans across her couch and clasps both of my hands. “Josie. I’m all for forgiving and forgetting and welcoming you back into my life. I’m even okay with some sort of three-way co-bestie custody agreement with Grace, but this is where I draw the line. Do not ruin this show for me.” She releases her grip on my hands and slumps back into her place on the vintage couch. “Even Sly likes HHR.”

A laugh bursts from me, and I wrap my arms around my stomach. I laugh so hard I’m almost afraid that I might lose control of my bodily functions.

“What?” she asks, like she didn’t just say one of the most absurd things I’ve heard in forever. “He’s obsessed with it. We even had to start a separate group chat because Sutton watches too, but Slade was ready to disown us if we kept bombarding the sibling chat with HHR updates.”

I try to control my laughter, but I can’t help the giggle that escapes me. “Okay, that part checks out because duh, it’s Slade, but no—there’s no way your brother watches this, much less actually likes it. I refuse to believe it.”

She takes a drink of her wine and smirks at me over the glass. “Don’t let that sweatpants-clad surly exterior fool you. There’s a lot about him that might surprise you.”

My eyes narrow on her. Tomorrow will mark two weeks that I’ve been back in Sterling Springs. While we may not have seen each other for ten years, it didn’t take long to pick up on Sisi’s old tells and some new ones, too. She’s less obvious about it than Eddie, but I know that she’s trying to bait me into talking about Sly. One thing I’ve gathered from both of them is that they don’t seem to know the details of what happened between us—for better or worse. Even then, I still take the bait because my wine-fueled curiosity is clearly getting the better of me.

“Is he still a raging asshole?” I grab the bottle of wine from her and top off my glass.

She tilts her head and hums in thought. “Generally speaking, yeah. Sly seemed to enjoy telling people their cars were screwed up. Dad basically had to stop letting him talk to customers. Clearly, Sutton and I were the ones who inherited the customer service skills in this family.”

I snort a laugh because I know exactly what she means. Sly always had a way of relishing being right. Not in a condescending or mean-spirited way, but in a ‘see, my hard work and preparation paid off’ sort of way. He was always obsessive about researching whatever he was interested in at the time.

I can practically picture the indignation oozing off him if a customer didn’t understand something that would be common sense to Sly. ‘What do you mean you don’t know the difference between a lug nut and a lug bolt?’ His brows would furrow, and his jaw would clench with annoyance. Then he’d rub his hand over his face and sigh before explaining it to them very slowly and carefully.

I was spared that lecture the other day when Sly finally got an update on my van. Thankfully, I know my way around a car, in large part to spending so much time with him and his dad growing up and then living in my van. Fortunately, I didn’t get the full grilling on why I didn’t know a particular detail about my vehicle and the state of its upkeep. It still sucked a bit because even though a transmission has been sourced, it won’t be here for days and will take longer to install. It’s not the end of the world, though, because if all goes to plan, the repair will be done just before I’m supposed to meet Grace and leave for the music festival in the Southern California desert.

Sisi sighs. “Yeah, he’s just been through a lot, especially the last few years.” She holds her glass and looks down at the red liquid, tapping her finger like she’s considering saying more.

The curious teenager inside me who loved him—or at least what’s left of her—is about to rear her horny head and ask Sisi to spill what she’s thinking. Instead, I bury that curious bitch away and change the subject. It’s not that I don’t want to know about Sly. It’s because I know if I open that door just a sliver, it’s liable to get flung completely open.

“So, this place…” I gesture around in an attempt to change the topic with the grace and tact of someone who’s been stranded on an uninhabited island and hasn’t spoken to another human in years. “Why’d you choose to live here instead of your grandparents’ house? I thought your parents planned on giving you that one day?”

She grabs a slice of pizza and takes a bite, mulling that over before dabbing her lips with a paper towel. I remember that at one point, Slade or Sutton were supposed to get the house. That was before they both left town, and it was fairly clear they were not planning to come back. “Yeah, that was the plan. Fixing up the motel took longer than anticipated. I know Sly likes to give me crap about having it easier than him, but I’ve been fixing this place up, room by room. I still have two that I need to finish remodeling, and it’s easier to manage that when I’m staying here. I can simply cross the parking lot and collapse into bed.” She shrugs. “And besides, this place has a pool. It’s pretty hard to beat.”

“You think you’ll move once you’re finished with the work here?”

Her face scrunches in a contemplative look. “Maybe? I love that house, but it’s going to be a big project to update some things. After the time I’ve put into this place, I need a break, and who knows when I’ll be ready for⁠—”

My phone buzzes on the coffee table next to the box of pizza. Both of our eyes look down to see Grace’s contact photo fill the screen.

The picture is decidedly not-safe-for-work, a perk of not working in an office. Sisi turns her head like an owl and studies the photo of Grace holding up the three-foot-long tentacle dildo. When we saw that literal monstrosity at a sex store we stopped into on one of our road trips, I insisted that she hold up the XXL-sized toy like a man holding a fish in a bad dating profile photo.

It is an amazing photo; the swirling colors of the silicone nearly perfectly matched the rainbow streaks dyed into Grace’s hair. That was the day I decided to custom-order Octavius, albeit in a much more manageable size because the thing in that photo was going nowhere near my vagina.

“What is that thing? A toy octopus?” she asks.

“Um. It’s a tentacle dildo. So yeah, I guess it’s sort of a toy octopus… or squid, or whatever cephalopod you feel like fucking yourself with.”