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The sound of birds chirping.

Tweeting cutely, like in a cartoon or some shit.

I open my eyes.

Where the fuck am I …?

I lift my head off the pillow, blinking, confused. The sun burns bright through the tall windows. I’m in the church. On a pew in the back of the chapel. And the pillow under my head isn’t a pillow at all, turns out.

It’s a folded-up denim jacket.

I take it into my hands, even further confused. For some weird reason, I bring it to my face and give it a sniff. Then I find myself recalling Bridger wearing a denim jacket at the restaurant. But is this the same one? Why would it be tucked under my head?

And why do I feel more rested this morning than I have in weeks?

I get up, leave the bright main chapel, cut through the lobby, and stand at the entrance to the annex. The ladder is gone. At the end of the closest table sits all of the tools and loose screws, neatly organized into a small box.

I don’t remember doing that last night.

Or did I?

I tuck the box under an arm, take it to the storage closet, and put it on a shelf—right next to the ladder, which I guess I must’ve put away, too. Did I do work in my sleep? How the hell can I not remember doing any of this? I stop at the church doors before I go and glance back one last time, thinking about Jeremiah and a chat I vaguely remember us having before he left. He stood behind me on the ladder to help keep balance. And then he …

Then he …

“Wait a damned second,” I catch myself blurting ten minutes later over my cup of coffee at the corner café. A flash of falling off the ladder. Bridger’s stunned face. His eyes burning with outrage like my ass meant to fall on him. “That wasn’t Jeremiah!”

“Who wasn’t Jeremiah?” asks the man seated next to me.

I flinch away from him. “None of your business.”

He frowns back. “Then don’t go makin’ it everyone’s business shoutin’ out whatever’s goin’ on in your weird head.”

I take my cup outside and go for a walk, my mind storming with thoughts. Last night feels like a dream, except the longer I’m awake, the more I remember it. That Bridger was somehow there at the church. That he was the one holding the ladder. That the two of us actually spoke civilly. Sorta. And that I fell on top of him.

But what came next?

And all of that still doesn’t explain why I’ve got his jacket.

I debate heading over to Juni’s and checking in with her, but something tells me she barely noticed my absence last night. She never seems worried about me. Or anything at all.

So I end up on my own street instead. My actual home, at the bone-dry, deadest-ass-corner of Spruce where the trees don’t even grow, only the weeds, especially through the cracks in the streets. I walk over the dead wasteland we call a front lawn and let myself in through the front door. Mom and Dad never bother to lock it.

She’s in her favorite chair by the TV, but ignoring whatever’s on, playing a game on her phone instead. Probably Scrabble. “Did he say yes?” she asks. When there’s no answer, she looks up. “Oh, Anthony, ooh … I … I didn’t …” She tries to get up, fails, tries again, fails again, then gives up and stays right where she is. “Oh, what’re you doing home?”

“Did who say yes?” I ask, coming in and stopping by the TV.

“I thought you were your father. He’s on some business thing right now, some meeting-business thing— never mind that , are you okay, sweetheart?”

“Are you ?” I cross my arms, inadvertently hugging the jacket to my chest. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a fall?”

“Oh, that? No, I wasn’t gonna …” She laughs and waves it off. “No, no, why would I bother you over that? It was nothing.”

“How’d you fall? What’d you land on? Somethin’ broken?”

“Does it look like something’s broken?” She laughs again. “I’m fine, thanks for worryin’, but no more worryin’ is needed. I’ve got a score of over 200 this game,” she tells me with a wiggle of her phone, “whoopin’ this guy’s butt, got all the good letters.”

I was right . Scrabble . “What’s this meeting thing Dad’s at?”

“Want some breakfast?” she asks instead. “Dad may be comin’ home with donuts, if he remembers what I told him before he left, donuts includin’ the holes, mmm, I could die for those holes.”

“Nah, I got a … I got this.” I lift my coffee, realize I drank it all, then go to the trashcan by the back door and toss it in. Then I let out a sigh. “Starting to feel like a ghost in my own house.”

“Jif totally is a word,” she huffs.

“You should’ve called me. I’m still your son, y’know. I’d like to know when things happen.”

“ Jif , I said!” she hollers at her phone, shaking it. “I’ll be back in a jif! J-I-F! How’s that not a word ?? Am I spellin’ it right? Is it two F’s?”

“Mom …”

“The J falls on a triple point square, too!” She twists around in her chair. “Are you sure you don’t wanna stay for donuts? Should be back any minute now. Or you got somewhere you need to be? Another side hustle of yours?”

She makes a fun, energetic gesture when she says “ side hustle ”. I don’t know why I’m always reminded of participation trophies I got as a kid and the sound of my mom’s overdramatic applause at every little thing I did. She had high hopes for me back then. But with every passing year, I can hear the disappointment pushing itself between all her words more and more, her growing deflation at how I’ve turned out, all her hopes for my future wasting away.

She’s all but given up completely on my sorry ass, no matter what she insists. She and dad let me do whatever. It’s no longer a priority, wish, or goal to see me succeed at anything.

My failures aren’t surprises anymore. They’re expected. Try better next time, sweetie —but she doesn’t hold her breath anymore.

She’ll never admit this out loud. She loves me too much.

“Yeah. Got a … a side hustle thing today.” I shrug. “A little job. In half an hour, actually, so … I can’t stay long.”

“Don’t forget you promised your father you’d go door-to-door tomorrow. He wants to see you more involved, so you can …” She peeks back down at her phone, distracted. “Always takes so dang long to make his moves, whoever this is. Probably an eleven-year-old overachievin’ spellin’ bee brat.”

I wonder if that eleven-year-old has parents who still believe in them and say they’ll grow up to do amazing things.

Like beat a forty-seven-year-old woman at online Scrabble.

Let’s see you put that on your college résumé, kid .

Just then, the front door swings open. Other than the pool of light that splashes over me from behind, the first thing I hear is his heavy breaths and the crinkling of a bag hanging in his hand. When I turn around and lock eyes with my dad, he stops in place, and whatever good mood he might’ve been in a second ago is gone the next instant.

Yeah, I’m used to it.

“Look who finally graced us with his presence,” he grunts at me as he shuts the front door, then makes his way to the kitchen. “Is he here to eat our donuts? Ask us for money?”

“Oh, he’s here to help me with my Scrabble,” says my mother, always keeping things a joke, light and easy, even shooting me a little wink like she’s on my team or something.

I’m not fooled. No one in this house is on my team. “Finished up some late work at the church last night,” I tell him. “Just came home to take a quick shower and get some things, won’t be long.”

“Late work at the church,” echoes my dad with a huff. “When are you going to get a real job? Bring in some actual money?”

“Honey, what can I make with a T, a J, three I’s, an F—”

“If you don’t want to be part of the family business,” my dad goes on, steamrolling over my mom’s second attempt to lighten things, “then you’ve gotta have a plan of your own.”

“ Jif with one F ain’t a word,” she explains.

“And comin’ and goin’ as you please, using our house like a free motel, that ain’t gonna work out for you much longer.”

“I could connect a T and an I to this L and make lit , but that’s just a sad amount of points, and I wanna use this triple space …”

I turn on my dad. “I said I would help tomorrow. I’ll pass out your flyers and get people to sign up, I already told you I’d help.”

“See? The pronoun you use? Your flyers, the way you said it. It is a family business. Those flyers are just as much ours as they are mine or yours .” He sighs as he faces me, a glazed donut pinched so hard between his fingers, it’s practically folded. “When’s my son gonna clean up his damned act? I’m not joking here, Anthony.”

“Rupert,” says my mom, sounding serious for the first time.

“We’re sick of watchin’ you piss your life down the drain,” he goes on, “stayin’ up all hours of the night … partying, drinking …”

“I’m not pissin’ anything down any drain,” I retort, starting to lose my temper. “Why don’t you cut me some damned slack, Dad? I work my ass off all week, looking for gigs.”

“Gigs?” He goes to take a bite of his donut, then stops. “Boy, I’ve shown you so much patience. Too much. I’m up to here with patience. I don’t see improving. Don’t see progress. I see you goin’ downhill, all the way down the hill, to the bottom. We’re still recouping our losses from your veterinarian dream. How am I—How are your mother or I supposed to—”

Then it snaps. “Why’s it that you and Mom get a do-over, after all the bad stuff you two did to each other my whole childhood, makin’ my home life hell, and now here I am, your messed-up son, and you get to, like, berate me every day of my life?”

“It’s called accountability, son.”

“I don’t want any of your stupid donuts,” I blurt out. My mom says something soft I don’t hear, likely to herself, sounding sad. “I just want to take a shower and … and get to my next job today.”

There is no job today.

But he doesn’t have to know that.

And I guess it doesn’t matter. “I don’t like bein’ hard on you,” he says, his whole tone changing. He does this, too—hot and cold, every time he decides to give a shit about me. “I want you to do better, Anthony. If I’d gaven up on you, I wouldn’t be pushin’ you to help out with the business.”

“ Given up.” When my dad looks at me funny, not following, I just sigh. “I’ll go over the selling points for tomorrow. All five.” He grumbles something at that, then finally digs in to the donuts.

“You alright?” asks my mom quietly.

I must be showing something on my face. “Congrats on your, uh … your word game, Mom. You could just as well be playin’ some Harvard grad, don’t go sellin’ yourself short.”

“Oh, Harvard grads don’t have time for silly games. They all have classes to attend and papers to write and … and jobs. I think.” She gives me one of her bubbly-eyed, hopeful smiles dripping with sympathy for me that always breaks my damned heart. “Is that a new jacket? It looks nice.”

I glance down at it, forgetting I’m holding it at all. “Nah, it’s … it’s not mine.”

“Whose is it, then?”

Bridger beneath me on the floor of the church, his face, heavy breaths, eyes burning and furious. Was he furious? Am I recalling that part wrong? Why the fuck do I have this jacket?

“Satan’s,” I answer before finally making it down the hall.

I don’t know why I bothered to shower at all. By the time it’s noon, I’m already sweating again, heading down Main Street with this jacket still folded over an arm like I’m a butler or some shit.

I don’t think a lick about all that stuff my dad said.

Refuse to let it get to me like it always does.

I focus on my only task today: getting this damned jacket back to its owner. Since Cody’s location is always a guess, I decide to go for Trey, passing Wicker street and strolling to the clinic. Inside, I find Carla working the front desk, who helpfully lets me know that Trey just stepped out for lunch. “Need me to look at something?” she asks in a funny voice. “Bored outta my damned mind . I mean, I won’t be able to tell you much ‘til Trey or Dr. Emory come back, but I’ll check out a weird mole on your back if you want me to.”

“I don’t have a weird—” I huff at her. “What good’s a clinic if neither of the doctors are even here?”

“Trey’s not a doctor,” she tells me sweetly.

I lean forward against the counter. “Carly. Ma’am. Miss.”

“It’s Carla, but you can call me Carly if you like, baby. I’m just a few years older than you. It isn’t weird.”

I ignore her flirting. I always do. “Can you tell me where Trey went for lunch?”

“You were awfully funny at the bachelor show thing.” She sits up and starts twirling a pen around her fingers. “It was staged, right? Your whole fumbling, clumsy, everything-going-wrong act? The girls and I totally thought it was staged.”

It wasn’t. The scar on my nose is proof. The whole thing went dangerously wrong. It’s now the biggest humiliation of my life. I’ve never been so humbled in the worst possible way.

“Yep,” I answer. “Rehearsed. Down to cuttin’ open my face.”

“What did y’all use for fake blood? And if it isn’t maraschino cherry juice, then I don’t wanna know. The girls and I have a bet going on. An unofficial bet. Sorta. Honestly, they probably forgot.”

My smile squeezes right up as I lean over the counter more. “Is it Biggie’s? Did Trey go to Biggie’s? Or Patsy’s? Or back home? Can you gimme a hint?”

“Did you know I used to be scared of his husband Cody?”

I’m really not in the mood for a chat. “No,” I answer anyway.

“Back when Trey and Cody were first dating—if dating’s what anyone with a proper mind would call it—I thought poor Trey was in danger . Marybeth and I both. Shoot, I remember hiding behind this desk when Cody showed up here unannounced once …”

“Well, I’m glad we’ve learned better.” I glance at the window, forming a laundry list of where I’ll go next to look for Trey.

“We also talked a lot about you back then.”

I turn back to her. “Say what?”

“Jimmy’s big stunt after you took his prom date from him. Oh, I remember I could’ve spit fire when anyone mentioned yours or Jazzy’s names.” She chuckles as she digs through her cup of pens, choosing a different one to twirl around. “I keep finding myself wondering why I’m so quick to judge people. Cody, just from what I heard. You, also from what I heard, how you did Jimmy wrong—”

“There’s a lot more to that story,” I cut her off, “and it was ages ago, besides. All of that’s in the past. Even Mrs. Strong loves me now. Why else would she invite me to make a fool of myself at that crazy bachelor circus?”

“No, no, that’s the point, that’s what I’m getting at.” She sets her pens aside. “How many more scandals is it gonna take before I realize all I got to do to see the truth is use my gullible ears a little less and my trusty eyes a little more? Cody isn’t bad. He’s a saint. And maybe you’re not so bad either, Mr. Myers.”

I huff. “Well, about time someone around here realizes that.”

She laughs, finding that funny, I guess. Then she stops. “You know what? I’ve got a friend who’s about your age, and she just finished up college last spring and may settle down here for a year or two. Oh, I think you both would be just perfect together! More I look at you, more I can see it. You two’d make the cutest babies.” Suddenly she’s on her feet. “This is just what my boring life needs. Please let me set you up! I wanna be a maid of honor someday!”

I laugh that off. “Carly, hey, hey, calm down—”

“Carla.”

“I’m not lookin’ for nothin’ with nobody, thanks. I just need to see Trey, and preferably before you start ringin’ my own wedding bells before I even picked out a tux.”

“Just one date, would you? One little date? I’ll pay for it. Even go to Nadine’s if you want, out in Fairview, fancy Nadine’s.”

The restaurant Juniper and I were sent to on an all-expenses-paid date after she won me at the auction, when we laughed too much, disturbed everyone, and couldn’t take anything seriously. I dropped my knife six times. She drove the waiter crazy asking for two whole bottles of wine that she nearly downed herself—it was damned impressive. We must’ve been there for two whole hours. Even the head chef Mario Tucci himself came out twice to ask—in a stuffy voice I think he was hoping came off polite—if we needed anything else before leaving. After that door hit our drunk asses on the way out, I’m sure we were placed on a secret blacklist.

“Unless it’s that you aren’t into women?”

I come out of it. “Huh?”

“Did I get you all wrong?” Carla lifts her eyebrows. “Oh, would you’ve been more excited if it’d been a guy friend of mine?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t. Some people don’t. They say it with their eyes .” She winks at me. “Is that what this is? Are you telling it to me with your eyes, Mr. Myers?”

I’m not sure why her question has my heart dancing around in a full panic. Nor why it made me suddenly hug the jacket to my chest even tighter.

Then I see Bridger in this jacket.

A flash of his face right in front of mine. On the church floor.

Kissing.

What the fuck?

“Anthony?” calls Trey’s voice from behind.

I turn my head so fast, it pops. He’s at the front door to the clinic. “Trey!” I leave the front desk—and Carla’s annoyingly giddy eyes like she just struck gossip gold—and that random-ass vision of Bridger I just had and won’t even attempt to explain—and come right up to him. “I thought you went out to lunch or something.”

“Forgot my wallet, of all things.” Trey chuckles and shakes his head, then smiles. “Thanks for fixing all the lights, by the way. The annex is nice n’ bright for Cody’s trauma group and my dad’s book club meetings. No weird, dark, buzzing spots.”

I stare at him, confused for a second. All the lights? I barely began fixing the first one before I fell off the ladder. There must’ve been six or seven problem lights on that cursed-ass ceiling.

“You’re … Y-You’re welcome,” I decide to say, still at a loss.

“May still go through with my plan to paint the annex green—I love green, got a thing for it. But even once you’ve picked a color, it’s all about tones . Never in my life did I realize there could be so many damned greens . But once I settle on one, would you be up for the job? Oh.” He lifts his eyebrows. “Sorry, I didn’t even ask what you came here for! Are you okay? I’m sorry about what happened at Gran’s. I hope you didn’t get in trouble for it or anything.”

I’m still trying to figure out the light thing. “Uh …”

“Shoot, it was bad, huh? Don’t worry,” he quickly tells me, “I’ll have a talk with Gran. Bridger’s totally fine. Even laughed it off.”

“He … laughed it off?”

“Yeah, said next time he won’t order a well-done anything. He didn’t even care about the A1/habanero mix-up, either. Said he likes spicy food and wished he could have enjoyed it more, had he not been so hasty and choked on that bite.”

If I couldn’t feel more like shit about that night, now Bridger has to go and prove himself a better person than me, brushing it off like no big deal, like he’s covering my ass.

“Is that his jacket?”

I glance down at the jacket hanging in my arms. “Uh, yeah,” I say, coming out of it. “He left it at the … the church. Somehow.”

“He visited you last night while you worked?”

I blink, still staring at the jacket.

My heart races again.

Uncontrollably.

Bridger’s face, once more, in front of mine. His eyes, confused, bright and blue.

The sound of his breath crashing in my ears.

The touch of his lips on mine.

“Anthony?”

I flinch out of my thoughts so violently, I drop the jacket. “Uh, y-yeah, apparently, maybe, I don’t know.” I pick up the jacket with a single hand and offer it to him, suddenly not wanting to look at it or think of its owner for another second. “Speakin’ of, can you give this back to him? Please? Please just take it and … a-and give it back to him?”

Trey, who barely notices my sudden unexplained skittishness, smiles warmly at me. “Why don’t you give it to him yourself?” he suggests. “Come over for dinner tonight.”

I about fall through the floor. “Do what now?”

“Italian night at our house. Do you like Italian? Who doesn’t? Shrimp scampi. Pasta. More pasta. Garlic bread.”

He pats me on the shoulder like it’s already a done deal before hopping on over to the desk to snatch up his wallet. I’m paralyzed. I keep seeing Bridger’s lips. I can feel them, too. I swear I can feel them on mine.

His bright blue eyes.

Our hips smashed together.

My throbbing cock between us.

Or his …?

“See you at seven!” Trey cheerily calls out.

Then he’s headed out the door, even as I sputter, “But … But I got a … I-I need to do … I-I’m not available for …” My fake excuse doesn’t come fast enough. He’s already long gone, the jacket still hanging off my arm.

He probably wouldn’t buy any of my excuses anyway.

My heart hasn’t stopped racing.

I think I’m losing my mind.

Carla sighs happily from the desk. “I guess it’s a definite no-go on the date with my gal.” With a sly smirk, she vanishes back into her work—in other words: twirling pens around fingers—while I stare out the window, feeling like I’m about to shit a brick.