Waylon chuckles at Noah and Wilder’s antics as he walks away from them and comes to my other side. He clasps his hand around my upper thigh and squeezes. “Thanks for lettin’ us watch. We gotta get the horses ready for the next tour, but I’ll talk to you tonight?” He lowers his voice so only I can hear him, even though I’m confident Wilder is trying to eavesdrop.
“Yeah, sounds good.” I smile, overly aware of his fingers digging into my riding pants and how close they are to the inside of my leg.
He nods once then releases me but my heart continues to pound.
“Wilder, let’s go,” he hollers, walking toward the exit and then waits for his brother to catch up before they leave together.
“Well now that I know you can put on a show, let’s do some flatwork and get her prepared to go to the next level,” Noah says.
“Sounds good!”
Flatwork improves her responsiveness to various gait transitions and then we’ll work on patterns and side movement. Between that, jumping exercises, and conditioning, my lesson goes by quickly. When we’re closer to the season starting, I’ll have extra sessions so we can work on show prep and go through everything the judges look for in a performance.
I’m still thinking about how Waylon touched me hours later after practice and wondering if Marissa is right. Would he give me bad dating advice on purpose because he thinks of me as more than a friend?
There’s just no way.
Waylon’s a fantasy, like crushing on a celebrity, there’s no point in even considering it could happen or getting your hopes up because it’s so farfetched.
But the more I try talking to guys on the dating app, the less invested I get in wanting to date any of them. The only reason I agreed to one with Emery is because he didn’t say anything creepy, rude, or offensive.
God.
The bar is truly in hell if those are the only requirements.
Chapter Twenty
Waylon
“So you wanna tell me what’s goin’ on with you and Little Miss Heart Eyes?” Wilder taunts after we finish our afternoon tour.
“What’re you talkin’ about?” I scoop out a bucket of feed and then hear him follow as I walk down the barn aisle.
“I saw the way you and Harlow were lookin’ at each other.”
“Nothing’s going on. We’re friends,” I say, sprinkling the feed over hay in one of the stalls.
“Does Delilah know?”
“Know what? There’s nothin’ to tell her.”
“That you’refriendlywith her little sister…”
“I dunno what she knows or what you think you know, but you’re wrong.”
“So I could ask out Harlow, then?”
By the tone in his voice, he’s fucking with me and waiting to see how I’ll react.
“Sure, go ahead,” I deadpan, grabbing more feed.
“You like her…” He blocks my path. “Does she like you?”
“No andno.”
“Have you asked her?”
I blow out a frustrated breath. “No.”
