I hadn’t known the word derisive by definition, but I learned it through Magnolia’s tone and the other kids’ reactions that day. I’d never worn my teddy bear shirt to school again, saving it for weekends so my mom wouldn’t catch on that I’d been made ashamed of it.

Standing there in Tripz as a thirty-four-year-old woman who’d made millions, staring back at an insecure bitch who’d probably earned exactly none of her own bajillions, it was as if we’d slipped back to grade school, and all my six-year-old self-doubt and embarrassment flooded me.

Magnolia’s over-made-up face looked less pretty in that instant. Like I’d been doing for so many years, I straightened my back, dug myself out of my go-to feelings of being less than, and replied to her external changes comment as nonchalantly as possible, with a glance at her chest, “And I did it without paying for surgery even.”

With the phoniest of phony smiles, I lifted my chin slightly and walked away. Heart racing, I snagged the twelve-pack I’d come in for from an end-cap display, strode to the checkout counter as if I didn’t have a care in the world, paid for my items with minimal small talk with the teenaged clerk, and walked out the door. It wasn’t until it closed behind me that I let out a shaky breath.

Holden was back in the driver’s seat, so I ambled to the passenger side, aiming for unbothered, and lowered myself to the seat.

There must’ve been something in my expression that said I was bothered, because he said, “Are you okay, darlin’?”

With a deep inhale and a brief bit of self-talk where I reminded myself Magnolia was a cockroach and it would suck to be her, I nodded and forced another smile. “Yeah. I’m good.”

As we drove out of the parking lot, I congratulated myself for zinging Magnolia back for once and for getting through that run-in with only a brief slide back into my former unsure self.

I really was okay.

Until we turned into Holden’s driveway and I remembered I’d be sleeping in his house tonight.

Chapter 8

Holden

It’d been about twenty-four hours since Chloe had offered up seed money for our brewery, and I was still fucking giddy about it. We had a boatload of details to iron out and get in writing, including settling on a company name, but that would come.

I couldn’t tell a soul yet, and that only added to the whole feeling of being about to explode with the news, like a lidded bottle of home brew that had been vigorously shaken up.