Romantic - Enemies to Lovers - Forbidden Love
•✦───✧✦✧───✦•
In the peacetime following World War II, Jean Ward loses everything and is sent to live with her best friend, Clyde Mayberry, and his brood of brothers on his family's cattle ranch.
For a...
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•✦─Early Winter, 1955─✦• Jean, age 17
For New Year's Eve, Jean, Clyde, and their friends crashed a party downtown at the Fitzgerald Hotel, gaining access to music, dancing, and—best of all—booze.
The fancy kind.
Jean was the first in their group to find the bar, settling onto one of the velvet spin stools and smiling broadly at the bartender. She kept her posture perfectly straight and willed herself to look older than she truly was to avoid suspicion.
"A martini, please," she asked, feeling like a proper adult. She spun around in her stool to view the crowd as she waited, already spotting a few eyes pinned on her, surveying her and her dress.
For the event, she'd chosen a fitted dress with thin straps, deep red and sparkly with small, glass beads she had painstakingly sewn on by hand. It was something she pictured Marilyn Monroe wearing, and it appeared to bring all the attention that came with the Hollywood bombshell as well.
"Your martini, miss," the bartender said behind her, pushing the dainty glass across the bar. She gratefully took the drink, bringing it to her lips and then struggling to swallow down a sip when she didn't like it.
It was dreadfully bitter, and the smell burnt her nose, but she kept on with it like it didn't phase her in the slightest, slipping from her stool to find her group of friends as she suppressed a grimace.
Clyde, Gloria, and Rodger sat at a table near the windows of the ballroom, watching Peggy and Kurt dance in the center of the room to the swanky jazz that played, a woman crooning at the silver microphone on stage.
They had drinks of their own, champagne glasses they had snagged from a server.
"Martinis are disguising," Jean said as she slid into the seat next to Clyde. "Does anyone want my olive?"
Gloria reached across the table and took the speared olive out of her glass, popping it into her mouth. She frowned at the taste. "Oh, that's awful."
Jean shrugged, pushing the martini off to the side.
"Say, who are y'all plannin' on kissin' tonight?" Rodger brought up. "I was thinkin', Peggy and Kurt'll probably kiss each other with how close them two have been. We oughta split off and do the same." He motioned between the four of them.
Clyde caught Jean's eyes, her heart dropping.
"Yeah," he agreed, turning back towards Rodger. "Uh, Rodger, who were you wantin' to kiss?"
Rodger smiled to himself, glancing in between Clyde and Jean before settling on Gloria. "Well, Gloria does have some pretty lips. Not that yours aren't pretty, too, Jean." Jean fought the urge to roll her eyes. She knew what they were doing, what trap they were trying to set.
