Page 132 of Wild As Her
“Pay up, Dale!” Maggie calls from over by the bar. “I had ‘slow-burn chaos love confession’ on my bingo card.”
I blink. “There was abingo card?”
“There were alsobrackets,” Tucker yells from across the room, holding up a laminated sheet of paper. “Brackets, Cami! I was eliminated in week one when Jack kissed the dog before he kissed anyone on camera.”
Jack tips his hat to him. “Loveismy favorite dog.”
We weave our way through the crowd, people patting us on the back, handing us drinks, shouting congratulations, and thinly veiled gossip. My cheeks hurt from smiling, but for once, it didn’t feel like too much.
It feelsright.
We finally find a corner table near the back, tucked between the pool table and a decorative saddle mounted on the wall. Jack pulls me into the booth beside him, one arm draped behind my shoulders, his fingers lazily playing with the ends of my hair.
“Still feel like chaos?” he murmurs, lips brushing my ear.
“A little,” I admit.
“You okay?”
I glance at him. This man. My man. The same boy who used to sneak me licorice from the gas station. The one who broke my heart when he walked away after high school. And the one who put it back together one sunrise ride, one confession, one kiss at a time.
I nod. “I’m better than okay.”
A cheer goes up from the other side of the bar. Weston’s trying to teach someone how to two-step while Maggie claps and encourages this. Good, Weston can be her next matchmaking project. Poppy and Ollie are dancing like lunatics on purpose in front of the old jukebox, and people are laughing. I glance over, and Jenna’s sitting at the bar, drinking a martini and muttering to herself while Tucker tries to convince her this was actually good for her career.
Jack’s still watching me. I can feel it without even looking. “You sure you’re okay with all this attention?” he asks, voice low.
“Nope,” I say. “But I’m okay as long as you're by my side.”
He turns toward me slowly, that easy cowboy smile curling at the edges. “Say that again.”
“I’m okay with you,” I say softly. “And your stupid hat. And your early morning rides and the way you make everything feel bigger and steadier and, ugh. Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re in love with me, and it’s the best thing that ever happened to you.”
He grins. “That’s because I am and it is.”
I lean in, resting my head on his shoulder. “Then you better dance with me later.”
“I wasplanningon it,” he says with a smirk that tells me he isn’t talking about actual dancing.
I don’t know how long we sat like that. People come by.Talk. Laugh. Slide drinks down the table. Poppy shows up with a plate of nachos and no context. Someone gives Jack a baby goat sticker wearing a cowboy hat. He slaps it onto his phone case like it’s a badge of honor. Somehow Walker's goats have made it into merch, and everyone is obsessed with goats now ever since he thought he was buying two and somehow ended up with two dozen.
Later, when the lights dim a little more and the music slows down, Jack tugs me to my feet and pulls me into the open space in front of the bar.
He wraps his arms around me. I slide mine around his neck.
“Wilder,” he whispers, spinning us slowly. “You look like trouble in that dress. I can't wait to take it off of you later.”
“Good,” I whisper back. “You deserve some trouble.”
We dance. Not perfectly. Not gracefully. But I wrap my arms around him and hold him tight.
The song’s soft and slow, something about home and heartbeats, and Jack’s fingers curl around my waist like he’s memorizing the shape of forever.
“This is real, right?” I ask because sometimes it still feels like it could all slip away.
