Andrew clearly didn’t have experience with the mechanics of chopping wood. My dad had made me try it and with his tutoring I’d actually gotten pretty good at it. Strength was important, of course, but there was also physics to consider, and ax handling.
Andrew glanced at Kenny as he picked up his next log and I could almost see the calculations going on in his head. I watched him adjust his grip on the handle and shift his stance so he could get more momentum in his swing andboom, he split the log in half the time.
And damn it, he looked sexy as hell doing it. Even though he was learning with each log, there was a confidence to the way he moved. He knew everyone was watching him and he leaned intoit, glancing up to smile at the crowd as he grabbed logs, like he was in on the joke.
“There you go!” Joe cheered as Andrew hot-knifed through another stump. “You got this!”
Andrew’s strength plus his cribbed understanding of how to chop proved to be a lethal combination. His stack caught up to Kenny’s as the clock ticked down and by the time the buzzer sounded there was no question who’d chopped the most.
“Looks like Andrew is the winner of our first round!” the emcee said, smacking him on the back, getting an embarrassed grin out of him. “Congrats, buddy, we’ll see you at the final round later tonight.”
Andrew scanned the crowd and when he spotted us gave us a nod of recognition, like a celebrity who was going to grace fans with an autograph.
“Told you he’d win,” Joe said to us. “That dude isstrong!”
“He’s something,” I muttered, staring at the spiked-apple-cider-tasting tent wistfully.
The crowd parted as Andrew walked over to us, sliding his jacket back on.
“Hey, guys, good to see you,” he said, shaking Joe’s hand and leaning into Carly for a side hug. I gave him a little wave from a safe distance away. “So that was different, huh? Some functional training that I wasn’t expecting tonight. Now I could use a drink.”
“Same,” I admitted.
“Let’s grab cider, then line up for the hayride,” Carly said. “I think the next one leaves in fifteen minutes.”
Joe started chattering about how his biceps were sore from their last workout as he and Andrew led the way to the tent, leaving me and Carly to bring up the rear.
“So youclearlydon’t like him,” she whispered to me. “But what I need to know is why. Because he seems like a good guy and then there’s”—she gestured up and down his body from behind—“all that.”
“Long story, and now isn’t the time.”
As if to prove it Andrew turned around quickly, catching us both off guard. “First round is on me. Four, then?”
“Oh, yes, please!” Carly grinned and came close to batting her lashes at him, and I knew then that she was yet another fallen soldier in my war with Andrew Gibson.
chapter nineteen
The spiked cider wasn’t nearly spiked enough for me to loosen up and enjoy the bumpy tractor amble through the forest.
The “fall hayride” was the middle place between Abbott’s haunted hayride in October and its Christmas lights tour starting the day after Thanksgiving, which meant there were no zombiesorLED reindeer to enjoy as we rolled through the property in the uncomfortable wood cart. Carly was on my right side and Andrew was giving me a wide berth on my left. I was a little surprised and disappointed that Joe had opted to cozy up under a blanket with his wife instead of his crush from Crush. It meant that Andrew and I were forced to acknowledge that we were side by side in the dark.
“You cold?” Andrew asked me, holding up the woven blanket that had been on his hay bale. “You can have this.”
I shook my head. “Nope, I’m fine. Toasty.” I lied.
We were coming to the end of the ride and passing under arches of white lights that stayed up no matter the season.
“Ooh, pretty lighting,” Carly said, pulling her phone from her pocket. “Selfie, get close!”
She held her phone up as she and Joe pressed their cheeks together. Andrew leaned a centimeter toward me and I managed an unconvincing grin.
The tractor finally lurched to a stop and we filed out behind teenagers holding hands and parents clutching sleepy toddlers.
“Well, that was fun,” I began in my let’s-wrap-this-up-and-say-goodbye voice.
“And now it’s time for the main event—the corn maze,” Carly said, pointing in the distance to where the entrance of the massive field was lit up by stadium lights.
“Right.” I sighed as I realized that I was stuck. “The corn maze.”
