Winter shrugged into the jacket before zipping it up and kissing his famous husband on the cheek. “I’d say I owed you one, but I had to help your uncle Doran do groin stretches last week. We’re still so far away from being even, it’s not even funny.”
Gent let out a deep belly laugh and wrapped his arm around Winter’s shoulders. “Point taken. Maybe I’ll cook you dinner tonight to help make up for it.”
Winter rubbed his stomach. “After all this fair food? No way. Besides, we’re headed up to the lodge tomorrow night for Mikey’s big cookbook party, remember? I’m fasting until then to make room for everything he’s making.”
Tiller botched his final bean bag before the two of them turned to join us. Barney shot me a look of stark disapproval. He didn’t like it when I “consorted with the town neophytes.” I didn’t much care what he thought. Which, of course, made me feel guilty.
Barney was good to me, mostly. He kept the Stanner brothers off my back as much as he could, and when I did have an unfortunate run-in with one of them, it was nice having someone’s shoulder to cry on.
Not that anyone knew what had happened back in December with the hit-and-run. No, that was a secret I’d carry to my grave. The last thing I wanted was to start something or bring undue attention to myself here in Aster Valley.
Mikey was obviously in a great mood. His cookbook had been finalized and was scheduled to launch at the beginning of football season. He’d received his first early copies in the mail, so we were all celebrating at the lodge so we could ooh and ahh over it. I couldn’t wait. My personal favorite recipe of his from the book was the Tom Billing Power-Up Muffins, not because they tasted great, which they did, but because the name of the recipe made Tiller adorably jealous for some reason.
I lifted the slushy to my mouth and took a sip of the sweet, cool drink.
Mikey said, “Sam’s plane lands tonight, so he’ll be at the party tomorrow.”
The blue drink went both down my throat and up my nose at the same time. I choked and sputtered and coughed. While everyone around me physically scrambled to help me not die, I mentally scrambled to come up with an excuse to bail on the party.
Sam Rigby was going to be there. The Sam whose dark stare penetrated my very soul. Or would have, if I’d ever actually made eye contact with him. The man scared the stuffing out of me.
He’d visited Tiller and Mikey once before. There’d been a snowstorm in early March, and I’d nearly buried myself in the drifts outside the shop when I’d finally finished work for the day. When I finally dug my Subaru out of the snow enough to attempt the drive home, I’d caught sight of a man on a ladder in front of the diner.
In a blizzard.
The stranger had worn well-worn jeans that hugged his… particular body parts, just so. And a beaten-up leather jacket that had seemed similarly molded to his form. A black watch cap, black gloves, and black leather boots had been the only other thing he wore in deference to the weather as he fixed the letters on the sign. Someone had swapped them with letters from Bearwood Realty next door until the diner’s sign had read Mucho Dinero instead of Mustache Diner.
I hadn’t known who he was at the time, but when I’d asked Bill about it the following day, he’d told me it was Sam Rigby, the contractor who’d come from Houston to help Mikey and Tiller with some repairs at their new place.
After that, my eyes were like little radar arrays, constantly pinging the area in search of the leather-clad stranger with the nice… body parts. When I’d seen him eating at the diner one morning with Mikey and Tiller, I’d darned near hyperventilated in my attempt to get out of there before being seen.
It hadn’t worked.
Mikey had tried to call me over to introduce me to their friend, but the scowly way the man had been peering at the diner menu had been enough to intimidate me right out the front door on fire-fueled feet.
No, thank you, sir. I’d had enough scary, biker-type guys around to last me a lifetime.
So there was no way in Hello Kitty I was going to a party where Sam Rigby was going to be.
“I have to wash my hair,” I explained.
Everyone around me stopped talking and craned their necks in an effort to look at me like I was an ancient alien.
“Um…” I panic-shopped my brain for a more reasonable excuse. “I have to also… watch paint dry. And after that… I’m…”
I spotted Barney giving a small child a long-suffering sigh at the bean bag booth.
“I’m planning on giving Mr. Balderson my virginity!”
Finally, a believable excuse. I beamed my success at all of my friends. Until I caught Barney’s oddly creepy wink from across the way and shuddered. Sometimes my mouth made promises my… particular body parts had no intention of keeping.
I sighed and turned back to Mikey. “Fine. I’ll be there. What can I bring?”
***
Read Truman’s story next. Sweet as Honey, the second book in the Aster Valley series, is available to order now.
Letter from Lucy
Dear Reader,
Thank you for reading Right as Raine.
In the next book, Truman can’t avoid the gruff and standoffish Sam Rigby for long. But maybe the muscled stranger isn’t as intimidating as Truman originally thought. Maybe he’s exactly the protector Truman has dreamed of all along. Sweet as Honey comes out April 6, 2021. All Lucy Lennox novels can be read on their own so find a story that appeals to you and dive right in!
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Lucy
About the Author
Lucy Lennox is a mother of three sarcastic kids. Born and raised in the southeast, she now resides outside of Atlanta finally putting good use to that English Lit degree.
Lucy enjoys naps, pizza, and procrastinating. She is married to someone who is better at math than romance but who makes her laugh every single day and is the best dancer in the history of ever.
She stays up way too late each night reading gay romance because it’s simply the best thing ever.
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