“That’s all I have to do?”
“Yes.” I flip a golden-brown pancake. “In case I didn’t make it clear last night, you don’t have to do all of this alone.”
“Okay, well maybe we can do it later?” She bites her lip as she pulls her phone from her pocket. “I have a couple things I need to do this morning, and I’m already getting a late start to the day.”
“Let’s eat some breakfast and then I can help you before we go to the bookstore.”
I add three blueberry pancakes to her plate.
“Thank you.”
Grabbing my own loaded plate, I join her at the kitchen island. I drizzle syrup across my pancakes, slice into one, and am half a second away from chomping down on my bite when she asks, “So is this the Jax Greer treatment?” When I furrow my brow at her, she cheerily adds, “You know, after you sleep with a woman? Is this what you do?”
I set my fork down, my stomach churning. “No, it’s not. When you’re trying to keep things casual, making a woman breakfast the next day doesn’t make any sense.”
My words have a bite to them, but Lauren doesn’t seem to notice. I hate that she sees me as someone who sleeps around. I guess I did it to myself: I’ve been too afraid of hurting anyone and too caught up in my feelings for the same, unavailable girl. But I want to be more.
“Too bad, because these pancakes are amazing!” She assesses the ingredients on the counter. “Is this store-bought mix? I didn’t think I had any in the pantry.”
“They’re homemade. Aunt Carol used to make them for me in high school.”
“Wow. Make sure to tell her thank-you for me.”
She shamelessly shovels pancakes into her mouth, doing a giddy little dance as she does so. Wisps of hair fall out of the braid she slept on last night, framing her freckled face. Her skin is still glowing, which makes me somewhat reconsider my judgments on her time-consuming regimen.
She glances up at me, her smile gone. “Why do you always keep things casual with women? Why not have a real girlfriend?”
“I don’t want one.”
“Why not?”
I kill some time and take her empty plate, unwilling to dive into the fact that I haven’t believed myself worthy of caring for someone like that after I failed to stand up for my mom every time my dad drank too much. And how would I even explain that I haven’t met anyone who’s held a candle to Lauren since we metnine yearsago. “Are you ready to go?”
“Sure, just let me change.” She pauses, eyeing me and pointing her finger from my head to my toes and back again. “I hope you have a shirt lying around somewhere because that outfit is very impractical for ranch work.”
She slips past me with a smirk.
“You were looking, huh?”
“You wish! Don’t flatter yourself.” Her bedroom door slams closed.
She’s right. I’ve been wishing Lauren Rhodes would notice me from the day I first laid eyes on her.
It took Lauren a while to get out of work-mode in the bookstore. She made a beeline for the Ranching and Agriculture section, and I had to peel her away, but once she started exploring other sections, her eyes filled with wonder.
When we walk out of Molly’s five minutes before closing, I’m still riding the high of seeing the smile on Lauren’s face when I bought her both the romance books she was torn between.
“Thank you again for these.” Lauren lifts the bag in her hand. “I’m excited to start. I’ll have to figure out how to work it into my routine a couple times a week.”
“That’s the whole point of this list, to bring some joy into your life.”
“I think it’ll help.” She scuffs her boot on the sidewalk. “Do you have some in your life?”
Her question catches me off guard, and I tense up. It’s not like she asked me to tell her about my past, which I’ve hid from most people in town, both out of shame and a desire not to revisit it. Yet it still feels like she’s asking me to give her a piece of my heart, something I don’t normally do with women, but especially not with Lauren. I’ll never get that piece back from her.
I lift my hat, raking my hands through my waves before putting it back on my head. “What do you mean?”
“I was just wondering. If you’re the one who’s supposed to be helping me check things off this list, I should probably vet you and make sure you have some in your own life.”
