“Look at that!” Rob grinned. “Teamwork, am I right?” he laughed, holding up his hand for me to high-five.
Ignoring him, I got to my feet, wiggling out my legs to test how they felt. “Not too bad. I mean, I guess they’ll keep me warm.”
“Yeah, but there has to be a better way to do that,” Rob frowned. “I mean, what do guys do when they have to go out on their own? Is there some kind of contraption they use?”
“Actually,” Krista said, walking out of her room with her phone raised. “There’s a little thing called snaps on the sides of the chaps.” Lowering her phone, she smirked at me. “That was a great video. Thanks for that.”
“What?” Storming over to her, I snatched the phone out of her hands and replayed the video of me laying on the ground while Rob tugged on my pants. I immediately hit delete.
“Oh, I already sent it to all my brothers and your sister. And the sheriff. He really likes this sort of thing,” she chuckled.
“Why would you do that?”
“One, because it was hilarious. Two, because it’s blackmail. And three, because I could.”
“It’s not blackmail if you already sent it out,” I gritted my teeth.
“I think the other two reasons were really enough,” she chuckled.
My jaw clenched hard as I stared at the woman who had irritated me for months. “If you knew there was an easier way to get them on, why didn’t you just say that?”
“And ruin this amazing learning experience? I could never do something like that. No, my daddy always said that sometimes you have to learn things the hard way. Case in point.”
Growling, I took a step forward, but Rob intervened, blocking my path.
“You know, I really hate you sometimes.”
“Well, you could always find your own place to stay.”
“I’m not going back to that tiny house.”
“Hmm, well, I wish I had an answer for you. There are houses for sale, and from what I recall, you made a lot of money off your fights.”
I did, but since those fights had dried up, I couldn’t exactly afford to spend my savings on a house when I had no other source of income.
“I like it here.”
“Dude,” Rob chuckled. “It is a nice house, but this is notThree’s Company.” Wrapping his arm around my neck, he guided me away from his spitfire woman. “Look, I have no problem with you being here. It’s nice to catch the game with another dude and have a beer at the end of the night.”
He glanced over his shoulder, waving at Krista.
“But you’re cockblocking me. The other night, I had her bent over the kitchen table, and I was just sliding in when the door opened. Now, I didn’t want to be the one to tell you this, but I didn’t exactly have time to sanitize before you sat down to eat.”
I nearly vomited right then and there, and when his hand landed on my shoulder, giving me a firm squeeze, I squirmed under his touch.
“I’ll be out by the end of the week.”
“Hey, we should definitely catch a game before then!” he called out as I fled the house.
“Alright, this is Susie,”Michael said, guiding the horse over to me. “She’s very gentle, so you should have no problem riding her.”
I stared at the beige horse, trying to decide if a horse named Susie was really manly enough for a guy like me.
“She’s already tacked, so you can just climb up.”
Yeah, that was the problem. I didn’t want to climb up, so I deflected. “Tacked?”
“Yeah, she’s got the saddle, and she’s ready to ride.”
