Page 38 of Will to Run

I just shake my head. I don’t say that prospect has been dominating my thoughts.

“Do you want to?” she pushes.

“I plead the fifth,” I say, turning away.

The excitement rolls off them.

“I knew it,” Molly says, rubbing her hands together. I just smile because I don’t want to reveal too much.

“Who are your current love interests?” I ask, trying to get the pressure off of my nonsensical and irrational crush.

“I hook up with the lodge bartender enough for it to be considered an LTR,” Molly laughs. “Nothing serious or exclusive, but we have splendid summers.”

My mouth drops open.

“Like summers? As in plural?” I stress. “Are you not interested in dating him? Or anyone else?”

“This is his third summer here,” Hazel interjects. “He’s hot as hell.”

My eyes dart between the two of them.

“He retreats to Vail during our off-season, and I’m sure he’s banging someone, or many someones there,” Molly says. “We’re exclusive in-season and keep in loose touch during the year.”

I don’t even know what to do with that information.

“Doesn’t that bother you?” I ask. Because, well, we know what happened when I saw my fiancé sleeping with someone.

She just shrugs. “Eh, if something else came along, I’d entertain it, but this works for me for now.”

Something about the way she says it screams that there is much more to that, but I’m too new to ask those kinds of questions.

“Let’s turn the spotlight on Hazel,” Molly follows up with. “Hazie, who are you interested in getting to know?”

She laughs and rolls her eyes. “No one.”

“No? Not the male equivalent of you at River Ranch in Teton Ridge.” And before I have the chance to ask where that is, Molly fills me in. “It’s two towns over, about a forty-minute drive. You passed it getting here.”

“Shut up,” Hazel says to Molly and then looks at me. “That is top-secret information, and I am racking my brain to come up with an equivalent secret to tell you about Molly, but you already know she was banging Cowboy Cody. No one knows about Colter, okay? We’ve been on a few dates, but my brothers would freaking skewer me if they knew I was seeing someone from River Ranch.”

I zip my lips with my hand as I note that she said seeing someone and not just interested in getting to know.

“Well, at least we all may or may not have a secret then,” I say, leaning back in my chair.

“Oh, yours isn’t a secret, Del,” Molly laughs. “I know I said he’s eye-fucking you, but you’re also returning the fire.”

When spa day wraps up, I have eggplant purple gracing my toes, and though fingers weren’t on the docket, I had them remove the French manicure that I had been rocking. All three of us are being indecisive, so instead of heading our separate ways, we end up sitting in Hazel’s office. It’s the first time I’ve been in her office, and it’s so her. The neutral colors stand on their own, but the pop of dusty blue accents is the icing on top. There are a few tasteful horse tchotchkes, but other than that, it’s just… pretty.

With Hazel at the desk, Molly takes a chair, and I sit on the couch. We end up ordering food from the restaurant to continue our day.

After some time passes, Jaxon walks by with his head buried in his phone until Hazel shouts to him. He jumps, and his face morphs from shock to annoyance to a grin when his eyes land on me.

“What the hell?” he says, scanning the food containers. “Why are the three of you in the office on a Saturday evening?” He waltzes right in, sits next to me on the couch, throws his feet on the table, and laces his hands behind his head. “What’d I miss?”

“We had spa day,” Hazel reports before standing and twirling.

“Ah, yes, how could I have forgotten. What’d you all get done?”

We all go through our things, but he doesn’t seem particularly interested in what the other two are saying, and I’m eating up the attention.