“Great,” Ty said, and then he took another bite of steak, and it suddenly didn’t matter that the homestead renovation was going to cost more than he’d anticipated, or that he didn’t know what his friends were really planning for tomorrow night. He had steak and the woman he loved, and life didn’t get much better than that.
41
Trap waited at the bakery, checking his messages to see where everyone else was. Colt had spearheaded this birthday celebration for Ty, and since he spent a lot of time with Trap and Tate, they’d eventually landed on the idea of hosting it at Wilde & Organic. Tate had volunteered the upstairs conference-room space, which had plenty of seating, tables, and a wall where they could hang a dartboard.
Trap loved the idea of being able to come downstairs and get anything he wanted from the grocery store, which was open until ten p.m. on weeknights. He’d ordered the cake, JJ was bringing a few board games, and Conrad was already upstairs, hanging the dartboard.
Colt had put together some decorations that had barely met Clara Jean’s requirements for a party. Her comments on what he’d brought for their friend had only served to remind Trap that men and women were not the same. It had also spurred Colt to order a bouquet of balloons to add to the banner he’d purchased online.
They’d invited everyone in their small ranch owners’meeting group, as well as a few of Ty’s friends fromSigns for Successand Lone Star—but men only, as it was guy’s night out, whether married or single.
Trap looked up and back into the bakery, but the girl he’d given his name to still had not appeared with the cake he’d ordered. He glanced at his phone again, not even sure if he wanted to check Two Cents or the Panhandle Singles app.
Colt had put it out to the group a few weeks ago that he was ready to start dating again, and he’d been on a few dates. As far as Trap knew, they hadn’t gone anywhere. Moving into the summer building season, Trap wasn’t sure he was ready to take on a girlfriend. It didn’t help that his last few attempts at dating had failed spectacularly.
“Here you go, Trap,” the girl said, and he shoved his phone away, his indecision saving him once more.
“Thanks, Miley.” He reached for the wide, two-foot-long cake, surprised at how heavy it landed in his hands. As he made his way toward the front of the store—all he had to do was walk through an employees-only door at the customer service desk and go up a flight of stairs—Trap wondered if anyone had thought about plates and utensils.
You probably should have,he thought.You’re in charge of the cake.
His boots made thunking noises on the gray-painted concrete steps as he went up, and he entered a hallway that only had doors leading off the right-hand side of it. A wide wall of windows expanded to his left, and a few desks sat out in the open space where the security team here at Wilde & Organic worked day and night.
He entered the last door on the right to the biggest conference room, where the long eight-foot tables had been pushed together to make one big rectangle with about twenty-five chairs around it and more pushed up against the wall.
Conrad fiddled with the dartboard near the back corner, and Colt looked his way as he entered. “Oh, you got the cake.” He indicated the corner of the table. “It goes right there on the end.”
“Do we need paper plates and forks?” Trap asked.
Colt had decided to order pizza, because what man in his right mind didn’t like pizza? It was one of Trap’s favorite foods, that was for sure. He found a stack of plates on the corner as he slid the cake onto the table, his question answered.
“I got plates,” Colt said. “But no forks.”
“We need forks?” Tate asked. He had just entered the room after Trap. “We’ve got some in the cupboards back here.”
He continued to where some tall cabinets stood against the back wall. He opened one of them and pulled out a box of plastic forks. “It’s just forks. No spoons.”
“I didn’t get ice cream,” Trap said. “I figure if anyone wants some, they can go down and get themselves a pint size, and then they can have the flavor they want.”
Besides that, Trap rarely wanted to eat dessert after dinner. He didn’t understand big meals like Thanksgiving, where so much energy was poured into the pies that couldn’t even be enjoyed because of how much food he’d stuffed himself with. Trap almost always would prefer real food over dessert anyway, and he hadn’t wanted to let the ice cream sit out and melt and have no one eat it. It would take all of five minutes for the cowboys to go downstairs, pick out their favorite flavor, buy it, and bring it back up.
JJ and Finn stood down at the end of the table, pulling out board games from a bin JJ had brought in.
“Hey-ho, hey!”
Trap turned toward the door at the sound of Henry’s voice.
“The party is here!”
He moved out of the way as his brother-in-law, Trevor, entered. They both wore big black cowboy hats and smiles as wide as the Texas sky, and Trap felt a sense of brotherhood with them that could not be explained.
“Howdy,” Trap said, and he moved to shake Henry’s hand and then Trevor’s. “Do you guys leave in the morning for that cutting competition?”
“It’s next weekend,” Trevor said. “And we’ll leave on Thursday.”
“It’s only a three-hour drive,” Henry said. “But Trev doesn’t like to have the horses in the trailer for that long.” He grinned at his brother-in-law and moved further into the room.
Trap sometimes felt on the outside of these men, because he didn’t technically own a farm or a ranch. He lived in a cowboy cabin at Seven Sons, and he helped JJ whenever he needed it. If Conrad needed help on his farm, he’d go there too.
