I darted a look over my shoulder to gauge Brewer’s reaction, but he just nodded, his arms folded over his chest and his too-handsome face wearing that tip-tilted smile that made my stomach whirl. So I took aim at the next cabinet, swinging harder as memories of Brewer’s beer-flavored kiss fueled my mini-demolition spree.
Smash. The cabinet door folded, its hinges surrendering with a satisfying shriek.Crack. Another swing, another section of red metal folding like tissue paper.
With each impact, I felt a rush of something wild and unfamiliar—a reckless kind of freedom I hardly ever allowed myself. Brewer’s presence behind me made it worse… or maybe better, depending on how you looked at it. I was still standing on a precipice, about to tip into the unknown, but knowing he was right there made the edge less terrifying.
I took another swing, and another, watching as metal bent and wood splintered. My arms burned with the effort, but I couldn’t stop myself. And with each impact, I mentally cataloged the mistakes the stupid, shiny cabinet represented.
The relationships where I’d been too much or too little. Every time I’d been too stubborn to admit I was wrong. The way I’d waltzed into Copper County, thinking I could just plant myself and grow. Even this new, annoying uncertainty that I didn’t know who I was or what the right next step was.
Every whack was liberating as fuck. Enough to make me wish I could deal with all my problems that way.
But with all that heady, happy freedom pulsing through me, I may have forgotten a few crucial things.
Like that my hands were sweaty from all the exertion and that a sledgehammer—no matter how light it might feel with adrenaline coursing through my system—was, by its very nature, really fucking heavy.
Like that Newton’s Law of Physics was alawfor a reason.
Like that the universe tended toward entropy and destruction.
Worst of all, I forgot that I could not, under any circumstances, be trusted around tools or even those who used them.
I swung once more, bracing myself from a distance since I knew the cabinet would fall… but this time, instead of connecting with the cabinet, the whole fucking sledgehammer flew out of my grasp. It sailed through the open air and hit the exact spot where the first cabinet had been with a sickening crunch. Then it just… lodged there.
“Oh,” I managed, blowing out a breath. “Shit. For a second there, I thought I?—”
The wall trembled—literally trembled, like an ancient god had awakened—and a rain of plaster dust crumbled to the floor, leaving behind an opening at least a foot tall and more than a foot wide. The sledgehammer tipped and fell to the ground somewhere inside the hole with a metallicclunk.
“—destroyed the wall,” I finished in a whisper. “Fuck.”
This pattern was becoming very familiar in recent months. I tried moving an outlet and flooded my living room. I started writing the story Marjorie said would be my best yet and sputtered out halfway through. I went to express my outrage to my contractor and burned his freaking camper down. I ordered a vanity I loved and somehow neglected to calculate the depth of the thing. I enjoyed a moment of freedom and…this.
How could one person be wrong so often?
Behind me, Brewer burst into laughter. He gripped my arms and shook me lightly. “Holy shit!Shit. I mean, I figured you were pretty strong, but that was… beyond.”
I ripped off my goggles and whirled to face him, dislodging his hands and nearly sliding on the plaster dust in my socks. “Brewer! Did you not see the part where Ibroke the wall?”
“Uh, yeah.” The work light and the wine made his blue eyes shine like summer lake water. “Kinda hard to miss. But we knew there’d be some damage. Sledgehammers, not known for their precision, right? So, tomorrow morning, I might grumble ’cause it’ll be a pain to repair the wall. But itcanbe repaired, like most things can.” Brewer’s eyes got those crinkles at the corners. “And fortonight… well. That was cathartic, right? And it was fucking hot.”
I stared at him. I was breathing hard, and not just from all the whacking.
I mean, I figured you were pretty strong…
That was… beyond…
And it was fucking hot…
“Brewer.” My voice cracked slightly, and Brewer’s smile slid into concern.
“Whoa. Are you okay?”
I looked at him, at the dust in his hair and the warmth in his eyes, and felt something inside me shift irrevocably.
“No,” I said, reaching for his shirt.
I pulled Brewer against me with the kind of desperate strength that lets mothers lift cars. He made a surprised sound that transformed into a groan as our mouths crashed together.
That first touch unleashed a torrent of heat that melted through me like wildfire, turning every one of my bones to liquid. His mouth opened against mine, hot and eager, and the taste of him was more intoxicating than anything I’d drunk all night. I sucked his bottom lip between my teeth and was rewarded with a shaky exhale that ghosted across my cheek.
