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I straightened up a little. “Ian and the boys are performing?”
“Yeah. They’ve been the performers for the past few years. It’s tradition.” She gave me a knowing grin. “Wouldn’t you like to see Ian perform in front of a crowd? I mean, I know he performed for you at your party, but seeing him in front of a bigger crowd just makes him larger than life.”
“You mean wouldn’t I like to see the whole band? Not just Ian.”
“Well, the way your cheeks turn bright red when I mention him gives me the feeling you care more about him than my brother and the other two.” She arched an eyebrow and leaned in toward me. “So is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“Do you have a crush on Ian?”
“What? What? No! No way! A crush on Ian? On Ian Parker? No way.” Oh my gosh, every inch of my body was on fire, as I sounded so far from convincing when it came to my feelings for Ian. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d caught myself daydreaming about his eyes, his lips, his smile, his dic—“We’re just roommates,” I pushed out, wanting to fan my face from embarrassment.
She wiggled her eyebrows. “A roommate with benefits is probably something you’re interested in, huh?”
“No, Leah, not at all,” I lied like the freaking liar I was in that moment. “Besides, even if I did have feelings for Ian—which I don’t—he’s so far out of my league I couldn’t even imagine him ever giving me a chance.”
“I’m sorry, but are you stuck on stupid?”
“What do you mean?”
“For a smart girl who knows thatbonfireisn’t two words, you sure are stupid, Hazel. Ian is crazy about you.”
“Come again?”
“I see him all the time checking you out around the ranch, and when you aren’t at their band rehearsals, he goes on and on about you as if you’re every star in the sky. He’s obsessed with you.”
I laughed. “He’s not. Trust me, if Ian was obsessed with me, I’d know.”
“Really? So you think a man who spoons you every single night and builds you a she-shed isn’t into you? I mean, I have a boyfriend and can hardly get a good-morning text, and you’re getting whole sheds built in your honor! He’s, like, in love with you!” she exclaimed.
“Shut it, Leah; he’s not.” But he had built me a she-shed. Did that mean something more than just a roommate being nice? Did Ian ...?
No.
No way did he like me. I wasn’t his type. I’d seen his type. The tall, curvy girls who always smelled like expensive perfume. I wasn’t the kind of girl who caught Ian’s attention. I was more the girl who hid in the shadows, not the limelight, and Ian dated limelight girls.
“Just come to the bonfire and see for yourself. Now that I’ve awakened you to the fact that Ian is crazy about you, you’ll notice it yourself. Trust me. A blind dog couldn’t miss the connection between the two of you.”
I hesitated before tossing my hands up in defeat. “Fine. I’ll go, but it’s only to prove to you how wrong you are about this Ian situation. He doesn’t see me that way.”
“Yeah, okay, wink-wink, nudge-nudge. You’ll see, Haze. But there’s one thing we need to do before the bonfire this weekend.”
“And what’s that?”
Leah’s giddiness intensified times a million as she tossed her arms into the air in celebration. “A makeover!”
The bonfire was still a few days away, but thanks to Leah, I found myself watching Ian’s every move around the ranch, and I’d come to one massive realization: Ian was hot. And sexy. And hotly sexy. I hadn’t a clue what had come over me over the past few days, but whenever I was around him, my lady boner went full force. My eyes danced across him as if he were the best cooked steak in the world and I wanted to devour every single inch of him.
It didn’t help that a few nights I’d wakened up from the dirtiest of dreams about him taking control of me. Every night when we’d sat down to work on lyrics, I’d had to force myself to not reach over and, oh, you know, accidentally swipe right on his penis.
If there was a dating app for Ian’s body parts, I’d swipe right until the cows came home.
Calm down, lady boner; he’s just your friend.
I kept telling myself those words, but it was growing more and more hard to believe them every night he crawled into bed with me and pressed his rock-hard abs against my body. Just watching him work around the ranch was making me hot. I wouldn’t have thought seeing a shirtless, sexy man brush a horse could be so exciting.
Sure, it didn’t sound as if it was an act of sex appeal, but my gosh, was it the sexiest thing I’d ever witnessed in my life.
