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“Which I don’t,” I repeat. “And now he’s here with a date, and I’m not.”
Luke chewed through another large bite of food, then finally spoke. “Okay, I get it. You came here thinking you wouldn’t see him, but now that you are—and he’s with a date—you’re afraid of looking like a loser, and that would be the worst because if you look like a loser, you look desperate, and if you’re desperate, you probably still have a crush on him because you can’t get any other guy.”
“Ouch. But bang on.”
“Right. Say no more.” He leans back with a stretch, then drapes his right arm around the back of my chair.
“What are you doing?”
“Being your date for the night. And making you look like less of a loser.”
“Okay, we can drop that word now, I think.”
“Sorry. I’ll make you look less...despondent.”
“Look at you with the big words.”
He smirks. “Who needs college when you’ve barely scraped out a high school degree but have loads of farm smarts?” He scoots his chair a little closer to mine. “There. Now he can actually see me sitting next to you. Yup, there he goes. He’s watching you.”
I make to look at Archer again, but Luke stops me. “No, duh. You can’t look at him anymore. You have to look at me, and I’ll tell you if he’s looking at you.”
“Right. Got it.”
“Yup. He’s looking at us hard. Wanna kiss?”
“Luke.”
“I’m kidding! Only kidding. Your dad might like me but not if I use you in that way.”
He’s right about that.
Luke looks at me a little longer, and I shift on the seat awkwardly. “Okay, so what’s the purpose of this?”
“To make him jealous. And to let him know you’re not a lose—” He stops. “That you’re a catch.”
“But he has his own date.”
“Meh. He and Sadie have been working together at the stables for years. If something romantic was going to happen between them, it would have happened already.”
“You know what I’ve decided? We need to open up a detective agency. With your deduction skills and my interrogation skills, I think we could make a good go of it.”
“Deal. But first, you need to focus. Look like you’re having a good time with me.”
I glue on a smile. “You think this’ll work?”
“I know it will.”
Archer
I knew I shouldn’t have come tonight. I can’t keep my eyes off Juliet in that daring red gown and her hair pulled into a curly up-do. I’m fairly certain she knows it, too, because her eyes have stopped finding mine and now focus entirely on Luke Walker.
I like Luke—I like all the Walkers. But his proximity to Juliet is making me want to loosen my bolo tie and undue the top buttons of my shirt so I can breathe. I never liked dressing up to receive awards for riding broncs and bulls, but this is much worse—if only because it’s all for the mayor.
The maple bars Sadie promised me aren’t even worth being here for at this point. Especially not with how I feel watching Juliet and Luke—who I can’t help but connect was her date to Horseshoe Holler all those years ago.
He says something in her ear, and she blushes with another laugh, which drives me crazy—mostly because I want to know what it would feel like if she acted that way around me.
I really have lost all power.
