Page 64 of Trick or Tease

“You’re distracted today,” Lucy observed as we watched our latest test pumpkin sail across the field.

My heart jumped. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you’ve been muttering under your breath for the past hour.” She gave me a knowing look. “Want to talk about it?”

I opened my mouth to deny everything, then closed it again. Lucy knew me too well for lies.

“It’s complicated,” I said finally.

“Most things worth talking about are.”

“I’m good,” I said.

I already knew what Lucy would say. She had already said it. Don’t do it. Garrett was a walking, talking heartbreak. I did not need that drama in my life.

“Yesterday was wild, right?” Lucy said.

“It was good.”

Billy laughed. “We might just get rich if it keeps up like that. I was thinking we could also do something for Christmas. Like a big holiday themed thing.”

“Slow your roll,” Lucy teased.

“Hey, I’ve got dollar signs in my eyes now.”

“We need to add more stuff on the trail up to the house,” I said. “It was good, but it needs to be better.”

“I still have a few boxes of decorations we didn’t have time to put out,” Billy said.

“Cool. We need them. I’ll grab them.”

Garrett appeared out of nowhere. My stomach did an immediate flip.

“How can I help?” he asked, his voice carefully neutral as his eyes swept over our work area. He was wearing another perfectly pressed button-down, this one a light gray that made his blue eyes look even more intense.

I couldn’t look at him. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to kick his ass or kiss him. Both. I wanted to do both.

“Actually, yeah,” Billy said, straightening up from where he’d been crouched beside the largest launcher. “We need those boxes of decorations from the barn. The ones we didn’t get to yesterday.”

“I’ll grab them,” Garrett said.

“Sabrina can help you,” Lucy piped up with fake innocence. “There are a lot of boxes thanks to Billy’s trigger finger clicking on everything he thought was cool.”

I shot her a death glare that could have melted steel. Did she know? There was no way she could know what had happened in that barn yesterday, but the timing of her suggestion felt awfully suspicious. Lucy had always been too observant for her own good.

“I’m fine here,” I said quickly.

“Come on, Sabrina,” Lucy pressed, and I swear I could hear amusement in her voice. “You were just saying you wanted to dress up that trail.”

I wanted to strangle my best friend. Instead, I brushed the dirt off my jeans and mustered up my dignity. “Fine.”

Garrett said nothing as we walked toward the barn, maintaining a careful distance between us. The silence stretched uncomfortably, filled with everything we weren’t saying. I could smell his cologne, that expensive scent that had no business smelling so good mixed with hay and pumpkin.

Inside the barn, I made a beeline for the stack of boxes in the far corner, desperate to keep busy and avoid looking at the ladder that led to the loft. The ladder where everything had changed yesterday.

“These ones?” Garrett asked.

“Yeah, and those three over there.” I hefted a smaller box, very aware of how close he was standing. Close enough that I could see the way his sleeves strained slightly across his forearms as he lifted the heavier containers.