I was grateful when Sophie made her way back to me, wanting another s’more. By that point, Kelsey and Tessa backed off, and Briggs was once again attempting to flirt with Shelby.
“I can’t decide if I should let you beat me or not in our basketball game tomorrow,” Briggs said, nudging his leg against hers—her bare leg, because her shorts were mid-thigh these days. “What do you think will get me a fourth date?”
The flash of irritation across her face was brief, but I saw it. She laughed off his comment, inching her leg away from his.
“I’m just an old has-been,” she said.
The snort was out of my mouth before I could stop it.
She heard it. “But I can still take down Jake blindfolded.”
I refused to get involved, so I only smiled and took a bite of s’more from my protesting daughter and called it ‘dad tax.’
“So you still play, then?” Briggs asked her.
“A little.”
“Well, anybody can beat Evans. But I might stand a chance if you’re old news.”
“I’m ready anytime,” came her confident reply.
Soon enough, Briggs changed the subject, attempting to flirt with Shelby while she remained completely oblivious to his advances.
Before long, my attention was taken away by Sophie on the playground. I watched her rush to keep up with one of Cade and Kelsey’s twins. When she ripped the pint-sized cowboy hat right off of his head and took off, squealing and running toward the slides with him at her heels, I couldn’t help but smile. Maybe there would be another love story taking place on this ranch in about fifteen years or so.
“Hey, I’ve got a question for you.” Kelsey moved her chair closer to mine. She held a sleeping baby in her arms.
“How am I this handsome? It’s all natural.”
My jokes and teasing hadn’t felt up to par lately. Over the last couple of years, it was like I had lost my ability to quick-fire. And now, surrounded by people who knew me, it was like I was just going through the motions, trying to act as normally as possible to ward off any suspicion.
She bit her lip. “So…you can tell me no if you’re not ready, but Cade and I have this friend in Salmon who is super sweet, and really pretty, and she?—“
I zoned out. This was where I always zoned out. Miranda hadn’t even been gone for two months before some of her friends had started singling me out. I had some married friends at work always trying to set me up. In my rush to get back to Idaho, I hadn’t thought about it being worse here.
“So what do you think? Do you want her number?”
I didn’t want anybody’s number. I wasn’t going to call her. But I didn’t want Kelsey to feel sorry for me or have any reasonto think I wasn’t fine with it all. The old Jake would have been fine.
“Yeah, sure,” I lied. “I don’t know when… Soph and I are still getting settled, and I don’t want?—“
She beamed at me. “No, that’s totally fine. Whenever you’re ready, you’ll have her number.”
With great regret, I put her friend’s number in my phone before Kelsey bolted out of her seat to protect the other kids at the playground from her son’s wild swing with a long stick.
“Smile if you want me.”
Brigg’s flirtatious remark to Shelby made its way to my ears.
Shelby, who had been watching the kids at the playground, looked over at Briggs.
“Huh?”
“I said to smile if you want me, and look at you...smiling. I guess we’d better do something about that.”
I huffed out a soft laugh at Shelby’s deer-in-the-headlights look before I attempted to look somewhere else. But like a bad train wreck, it was hard to look away for too long.
Briggs was smiling at Shelby, obviously waiting for her to say something flirty.