“Yes, Callie. What’s your guess?” Olivia graciously nods in Callie’s direction, like a teacher calling on a student.
“I think she’s afraid to go all in because of what happened with Austin.”
“What a great guess. That’s my top one too.”
“Y’all are the worst. You know that?” I try to distract myself by taking the frosting Callie has mixed up and splitting it into bowls so we can add food coloring to them.
Unfortunately, the distraction doesn’t work well at all. Maybe they’re right, but I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t want to admit I have doubts about Jax. I mean, they’re not even doubts aboutJax. They’re just doubts about love and my ability to find it.
“If you want my advice, I say you need to go for it. Just rip the Band-Aid off. Hiding the relationship doesn’t exactly send the right message to Jax about what this is between you two, and it doesn’t protect you from getting hurt.”
“I second that,” Callie says as she plops a bit of cookie dough into her mouth. “The longer you hide it the more you’re telling him you want the option to run. That’s notfair to him. I know you like to be in control, but there’s no such thing when it comes to love.”
That’s not what I’m trying to do, at least not intentionally, but I have felt a little safer for it. It keeps people from seeing the shame if this goes down in flames. As great as things are going, there’s a part of me waiting for the other shoe to drop because, as history goes to show, relationships end.
I try so hard to control everything that happens in my life, whether it’s the approach we take with the ranch, swing dancing, or matters of the heart. I know I need to loosen my grip if Jax and I stand a chance of making it, but I don’t know how to do that.
I open my mouth to ask them, but Charlie approaches us. “Do y’all have an extra spatula over here?”
“I see what you’re doing. Get out of here, you menace.” I press my hand into his chest to push him away, while he blatantly takes in our setup.
“They’re not doing the animal rescue, boys!” he hollers as I keep pushing him away.
“Traitor!” Olivia calls to Rhett.
“Come on, Wildflower. It’s just business.” He shrugs.
It’s like the use of that nickname takes any anger out of her body because she melts into a puddle on the floor before my very eyes.
As I come back to the table, Callie mutters, “It looks like both of you are going to be useless to me.”
“Hey, we’re doing our best,” I say as I return to my frosting station. “What happened to all the food coloring?” I lift the bowl of frosting. “And I swear you made more frosting than this.”
“What are you talking about? It’s all right… there.” Callie drops her hand as she realizes I’m right. “Thieves!”
She stomps over to Charlie, throwing her finger into his chest. “You stole our frosting. Give it back. You’re not supposed to be sabotaging.”
“I’d talk to Lauren about that. She’s the one who made my teammate dump cookies onto the floor.”
“Jax is just clumsy. Give us our frosting back.”
Charlie arches a brow, a smile slipping onto his lips as he steps closer to her. “I didn’t take your frosting.”
She drops her hand, stepping back with a slack jaw like she’s just now realizing how close they’re standing. It takes a couple of seconds for the color to return to her cheeks before she swivels to Jax. “What’d you do with it?”
He holds his hands up to plead his innocence. “I didn’t do anything.”
She narrows her eyes at him, but when he doesn’t give in, she turns to Rhett, a scowl on her face.
Inserting myself between Callie and the boys with a raised hand, I say, “This is getting ridiculous. We’re supposed to be having fun. Just give us our frosting back, boys. If you don’t beat us fairly, we’ll never accept your victory.”
Everyone falls silent. Even Charlie looks swayed, which is no easy feat.
Callie meets my gaze, and when I slightly tilt my head in her direction, she takes that as her cue to steal their mixer from the counter.Okay. I guess we’re fully owning the sabotage attempts now.
Olivia and I fall into a fit of laughter as we block the boys from capturing Callie. Olivia pulls Rhett in for a kiss, which he willingly accepts, and I hop onto Jax’s back, which does nothing to stop the man.
“What are you doing, Freckles?” Jax glances over his shoulder.
