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“No, we really don’t have to.”
“You’re such a pearl clutcher! Cole, how do you live with yourself?” She nudged him with her arm.
The words coming out of her mouth could just as easily have come from the twins when they were working every angle to get him to play along with their latest schemes, but her every move belonged entirely to her. She was far more convincing than Nash and Porter could ever be! Seeing the danger, he edged away, still never managing to get away.
“I was thinking more friendly wagers actually,” she said, “like betting cupcakes or something.”
“You realize six-year-olds cry when they lose a balloon, right? Think Pip.”
“Right… hmm.” Her hand tightened over his sleeve while she thought. “Well, how about we work it more like a contest then? We make them little go-carts shaped like pumpkins.”
“Or we don’t and we keep it simple.”
“And boring, I get it… let’s go back to this farmer slide.” She pushed her phone into Cole’s hands. “Light my way, will you?”
He turned uneasy. She was going to try to climb up the slide to get into the tube. “You’ll get stuck.”
“You calling me fat, Cole?” She was enjoying this far too much. “I’ve got your number now, Cole. Your problem is that you always say no.”
That wasn’t how he remembered it. “No… I always say ‘yes,’ and that’s why I’m in charge of the pumpkin festival.”
“But then you say ‘no,’ because you don’t put your heart into it.”
“Hey!” Irritation flooded his veins. “If you want to build these go-carts yourself, or get West to do it, then I’m all for it, sweetie.”
“Sweetie?” She laughed. “Oh, I got to you now, haven’t I? When is the last time that you really put your heart into something, Cole?”
“Wait.” How did she reach that conclusion?Anyof her conclusions? “Since when did the festival suddenly represent my life?”
“Since now!” Her hands landed on the sides of the hay chute, and she started climbing up the slide. As long as she didn’t reach the tube, she’d be fine, even if she slipped and got rug burn on her way down. And if she broke her arm, then, well… at least he could say that he was right.
But… he didn’t want her to get hurt. He stiffened, not sure how to catch this dancing cloud to pin it down. She wasn’t a cloud anyway, more a sprite.
“If you want to put the minimal amount of work into this, fine!” she called to him over her shoulder. “You can keep doing the same thing that you do every year, go to the same country dances, meet the same people, buy the same jeans.”
Wait. Now she was insulting his jeans? “What’s wrong with my jeans?”
“Nothing, you look hot in everything that you put on,” she said airily.
Eva gave compliments like they were free, and in a way, she was right, but some things people didn’t say. And still, he was beginning to understand that she meant nothing by her bluntness. She just called absolutely everything how she saw it. And though he didn’t approve of how she lived her every moment on social media, he guessed that her honesty was how she had such a huge following.
Cole was surprised that she wasn’t livestreaming this now.
He could only be grateful.
“All I’m saying,” she said, “is that it’s time to spice up your life a little and try something different.”
He prayed for patience. “It seems to me that you’re just trying to give me more work.”
“Fine,” she said. “I mean, I don’t know what you have against being a little fun, but… we don’t have to build anything, Eeyore.”
Eeyore? Insulting. If he was Eeyore, then she was Tigger!And she just gave me an out.“Good,” he said. “I’m glad we can agree on something.”
She brightened. “We could race turkeys, instead… and little piglets.”
What? Piglets? She wasn’t giving up, was she? “So we’re racing our Thanksgiving dinners before we eat them?”
Her laughter rang through the old goat cellar. “This is a fun game,” she said. “I suggest something and then you find a way to shoot it down.”
