“Oh shit.”
“Don’t,” I warned.
“No, we are absolutely talking about this. You called the man you swore you hated?”
“He was the closest person,” I snapped.
“That’s not an answer. Try again.”
“He knows horses better than I do. And I didn’t have time to be picky.”
Her expression softened in that maddening way only best friends manage. “Okay. Fair. But that still doesn’t explain why you look like you got hit by a freight train.”
I wrapped my arms around myself. “We worked well together.”
Dani froze. Her eyes widened. “Oh no.”
“Stop.”
“Oh no no no.”
“Dani,” I whined because she could read me like a book.
“You didn’t kiss him, did you?”
My face heated. “No. God no. Almost?”
She blinked slowly, knowingly, infuriatingly. “Oh my God. Did you want to kiss him?”
“No? No. No, I didn’t want to kiss him.” Even my own words sounded less than convincing. I groaned and paced the kitchen. “We were shoulder to shoulder, working together, and he looked at me like. I don’t know, like he wanted me.”
Dani’s whole body softened. “Oh, honey.”
“I don’t want him to look at me like that,” I said, my voicecracking. “I don’t want him to be steady or kind or useful or close. Or tell Colin I was his woman.” I knew I should have kept that to myself, but it just spilled out.
“Excuse me?” Dani’s eyebrows lifted so high I wondered if they were going to stop.
“I need a drink for this explanation,” I said as I walked over to the fridge and pulled out the alcohol I’d bought in town. “God, this is all a nightmare. The only good thing is I got a job, and you’re here. Wait, how long are you here?” I asked as I slid a drink across the table.
“As long as you need, I can work from anywhere.” She looked around the house. “As long as you’ve got wifi.”
“It’s probably the only bill that’s paid up,” I said with a laugh.
Then my phone buzzed on the counter, and both our heads snapped to it.
Colin.
The pit in my stomach dropped open. Dani grabbed the phone before I could.
“Absolutely not.”
“He’s probably livid, imagining me with Wyatt.”
“Let him be mad, he’s a fucking loser who fumbled everything about you.” Dani took a sip of her drink. She frowned slightly. “Hargrove Brewing?”
“He owns a brewery too, how annoying is that?” I rolled my eyes as Dani took another sip of the fancy ass beer that Wyatt makes.
“I was kind of hoping Wyatt’s talk with Colin would be the end of things, but I guess not,” I said as I picked up the phone and looked at the text that just came through.
