Page 40

Pie

Holland

L eave it to Mallory to not let me get away with my smart mouth without throwing my words right back at me—and taking them up a notch.

I can’t help it. My gaze drops to her lips.

When I meet her eyes again, she’s smirking. “Don’t start a game you can’t finish, Bradley.”

I crack a grin. “Bring it on, Walsh.”

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen.” Inez steps to the center of the stage.

“Thank you for joining us for the first annual Celebrity Pie-Eating Contest. Let’s hear it for our contestants.

We’ve got several members of the Green Bay River Foxes here with us as well as Holland Bradley and his coach, Mallory Walsh. ”

The crowd that’s gathered to watch us stuff our faces cheers.

“Make sure every last crumb of your pie is eaten in order to win. Sheriff Rattler will be the official judge.” Inez steps off to the side. “On your marks, get set, go eat some pie!”

I plunge my face directly into my pie, watching out of the corner of my eye as Mallory attacks hers with gusto. The woman is a machine. She’s inhaling that pie like it’s her last meal on earth. As she eats through it, her pie tin scoots across the table toward mine.

I step to the side and knock my hip against hers.

“Hey!” She glances up at me, registering our proximity and widening her eyes before plunging her head back into her pie.

“Watch yourself,” I mumble around a mouthful before swallowing some more pie .

In response, she widens her stance, obviously trying to wedge me to the side. But thanks to our efforts to eat this pie as fast as possible, our tins are pressed up next to each other now, which means our faces are too.

I can hear cheering from the crowd and Inez giving a sort of play-by-play in the background as I’m attempting to gulp down giant bites of pie, but I am completely zoned in on Mallory.

Her teeth are scraping against the side of the pie tin as her tongue darts out to lick the filling along the edges, inches away from where my mouth is.

This is some sort of sweet torture. Death by pie-eating contest. Is that a thing?

Because I’m pretty sure I will never recover from watching Mallory like this.

I press my hip against hers, like I’m a basketball player who’s boxing out.

She presses back, using me as leverage to stick her nose farther into her pie tin.

When Mallory stands up straight, her mouth ringed with the red juice of the cherries, I swear I’ve never been more attracted to a person in my life. This full-of-life, bold woman has a vise grip on my mind, and my heart, and every one of my five senses.

“Done!” she cries, jumping up and down, trying to get Collin’s attention.

There’s a chunk of pie crust that’s stuck to the corner of her mouth. As Collin jogs from the far side of the table toward us, I bend down and capture the leftover chunk of pastry with my lips.

I don’t linger, but that doesn’t mean I don’t chronicle every millisecond of time that my skin connects with hers.

Mallory gasps, and I pull away, shrugging my shoulders and hoping to portray the picture of innocence.

“Didn’t want you to lose on a technicality. You had something right there.” I chew the morsel of pie I snatched off her face. Might be the best thing I’ve ever eaten. “Mmm. It’s good.”

I swallow and grin down at her. She snaps her jaw shut, even as her eyes dart to the side of my face.

The next thing I know, she stands up on her tiptoes, leaning her chest against mine for stability as she keeps her eyes locked on mine and drags her tongue across the side of my cheek and down to the corner of my mouth.

I think my heart stops.

When she leans away from me, she smacks her lips. “Didn’t want that whipped cream to go to waste.”

Collin clears his throat. He’s standing in front of us, grinning.

“Now that you two are done with that little human taste-testing display,” he says under his breath, “I’m happy to announce, we have a winner. Mallory Walsh!” Collin calls out.

The whole crowd cheers, and Mallory blinks and turns away from me, smiling a cherry-tooth smile.

Inez comes over with a certificate for 52 free slices of pie. “Looks like you’ll be making plenty of trips back to Cashmere Cove in the next year,” she says, eyeing the both of us before shooting me a wink.

I lean over and whisper in Mallory’s ear, “I’m claiming some of your pie. I helped you win.”

“You’ll have to prove yourself worthy of it,” she says, sticking up her nose.

I’d like to spend the rest of my life proving I’m worthy of her.