“They will be,” Lena said, nodding. “I moved their son’s sessions to next month. You would think that would cause a hole in the schedule, but as soon as I sent the email to the waitlist, I had three people respond before I could even blink.”
“Full again?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“Full again,” she said with a grin that reached her eyes. “That makes a full year-long waitlist now. People are fighting over cancellations like we are handing out VIP concert tickets.”
I lean back in my chair and look toward the whiteboard that covers nearly half the wall. It was filled with color-coded names and sticky notes layered in overlapping rows; it was organized chaos that looked like a cross between a therapy schedule and a battle plan. “Not bad for a little idea we stapled to the feed store bulletin board three years ago,” I said with a smile.
Lena smirked over the rim of her mug. “You want to hear the rest of your morning update?”
I groaned softly. “Do I?”
“Romeo is gone,” Lena said matter-of-factly.
I blinked. “Again! Don’t tell me she called him.”
“She did,” Paige replied, shaking her head slowly. “Apparently, her cousin’s gender reveal party is this weekend, and she told Romeo that if he loved her, he would be there. So he packed up in the middle of the night and left a note on the bunkhouse table that said, and I quote, ‘Sometimes, you have to choose love.’”
I stared at her for a moment, speechless. “Oh, for God’s sake! So we’re short a ranch hand because he chose love?”
Lena took another sip of coffee and said dryly, “He chose to get tazed… again.”
I covered my face with my hand, trying not to laugh. “Same girl who chased him through the Walmart parking lot with her Crocs in sport mode?”
“The one and only,” Paige said, already bracing for my reaction. “And since you clearly haven’t heard the full story, you might want to sit down.”
I raised an eyebrow, “Iamsitting. “Just say it.”
Paige leaned in. “Oh, right! They were in his car making out, and things got intense. She wanted to take it further, but hetold her no. Romeo never tells her no, so she got suspicious and started yanking on his clothes and that’s when she saw pink lace above the waistband of his jeans.”
I froze. “Wait! What?”
“Oh yes,” Paige continued. “She threatened to taze him if he didn’t take his pants off and show her. He panicked and did it because he knows that nut ball would in fact taze him, and that is how she found out he was not only wearing her panties but also her knee-high lace socks.”
I pressed a hand to my mouth, trying not to laugh. “You’re lying.”
“I wish I was,” Paige said. “She freaked out, hitting him, throwing punches, and accusing him of hiding who he really was. Romeo jumps out of the car half-naked, and she jumped out right behind him, and started throwing their groceries at him across the parking lot.”
Lena nodded. “That’s how he ended up covering himself with a bag of frozen peas while hiding behind a Walmart security guard as she kept trying to taze him.”
By then, I was laughing so hard my stomach hurt. “And that is the man who left us hanging because of a gender reveal?”
“That’s the man,” Paige confirmed.
“This makes thirteen times,” Lena said. “Cash told him the last time that if he left again, he was not welcomed back.”
“Well, we’ll see if he meant it,” I said.
“He did,” Paige replied. “We are down a man, and I had to move two of the kids’ trail sessions to the weekend rotation. I am not thrilled.”
I looked toward the whiteboard. “Of course you’re not. You’ll adjust, though. You always do.”
Paige let out a long sigh. “I already have, I just like to remind everyone that I don’t get paid enough for the drama that comes with grown men and their terrible choices.”
That earned a soft laugh from me. “Then I will make sure you get extra coffee and a bonus.”
Lena picks up the empty mugs. “Next crisis?”
I lifted an eyebrow. “You mean there’s more?”
