Her Four Cowboys

“I’d make a sarcastic quip about being surprised to see you, but the truth is that I’m still not used to this,” he said, that familiar shyness that I knew from high school creeping across his face. “It’s honestly so good to have you back.”

I couldn’t help the faint heat that spread across my cheeks at the words. This was Adam, after all. One of my oldest friends in the world.

“You wouldn’t want some company, would you?” he asked as he gestured to my cart. “I don’t know how much more you have to do, but my mom asked me to get all of the stuff for Christmas Eve dinner.”

“My mom asked me to do all of the Christmas shopping too,” I said, sighing. “I’d love some company.”

He smiled again, pulling back on his shopping cart, and turning it around before pushing it forward toward the greens. “You doing brussels sprouts this year?”

I consulted my list. “Yep.”

The two of us examined the selection as we pulled out a decent number of sprouts for our mothers.

“Is your mom crazy high-maintenance about the groceries you bring back to her?” I asked.

“You have no idea,” he said, rolling his eyes. “One time, she sent me back to the market because one of the rib roasts I brought home had too much fat on it.”

I blinked at him before laughing at him. “Okay, that’s a little extra. I don’t think my mom’s ever done that.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, but to give her credit, she’s a pretty damn good cook, so I think I can give her a break.”

“Yeah, she is,” I said, remembering a few of the dinners that I’d eaten at the Kent house growing up. There had been a few occasions when, after being served more than three helpings of chicken and dumplings, I’d thought that Alice Kent was deliberately trying to make me gain weight. “I’m really excited for her Christmas Eve dinner.”

“Say what now?” Adam asked, popping an extra onion into his cart.

“Didn’t you know? Your mom invited my parents and me for dinner and drinks on Christmas Eve. My mom told me a couple of days ago.”

Adam shrugged one incredibly broad shoulder, and I had to take a second to marvel at the sheer size of him. “My mom doesn’t tell me very much, unfortunately. But still, this’ll be a great Christmas Eve now that I know you’re going to be there.”

I had to bite the inside of my cheek at that, and I looked back down at my cart quickly as I tried to sort through the jumble of emotions that his statement had caused in my belly.

“What’s next on your list?” he asked.

“Oat milk,” I said, looking down at it.

He blinked. “Okay. I’m not gonna judge, I promise. I’ll even come with you to grab your weird oat milk.”

“Oh, thanks so much,” I said sarcastically, and the two of us went toward the refrigerated dairy section. Surprisingly, I managed to find the exact brand of oat milk that I’d come to love while at college.

We continued making our way through the supermarket, chatting the way we used to, and I took every opportunity I could to surreptitiously examine him out of the corner of my eye here and there, so I could assess where my reaction to what he’d said had come from.

I’d never really thought about Adam in romantic terms. We’d been friends for so long that whenever I looked at him—I just hadn’t seen him in that way. It wasn’t to say that I’d ever thought of him as bad looking. He never had been, not by a long shot.

Though—now… now, he was a completely different story.

The espresso-colored hair—a brown so dark it was almost black—that had always seemed unruly before, now fell casually over his forehead, drawing attention to the deep blue eyes that all the brothers shared. As a teen, Adam had seemed gangly, having sprouted a foot almost overnight when he’d entered high-school, and he’d spent most of that time as a skinny bean pole.

Now, his shoulders had broadened—probably from the decade of ranch work—and he had a confident light in his eyes that had never been there before. He seemed to have grown into himself.

The way that those slow smiles crept across his face when he looked at me sent a feeling spreading through my lower stomach that I was eager to explore. I’d always loved spending time with him when we were younger, but now, the idea of seeing him again prompted a different degree of excitement in me.

He grabbed a loaf of bread from the bakery aisle and turned back to me with a smile. “Ready to check out?”

I didn’t miss the double entendre, and I could only hope that he did. “Yep.”

He entered the line for one register, and I entered the other, and soon enough we’d both paid for our groceries, getting through the lines quickly enough.