God bless Ruthie, covering my ass. I wipe at my face. “I—I’m feeling better.”

Phil stares at me for a long moment, clearly sussing out the fact that something is wonky. Eventually he just shrugs. “Whatever. You’re here. Might as well get to work.” He gives me my assignment, and I set out.

I work hard, and when the shift is over, I work an extra hour to cover my tardiness this morning. And then I head to the stables and find Mack, the stable master.

Mack is a short, heavy, late middle-aged guy with a thick beard and gentle brown eyes. He’s hard on stable hands and easy on the horses, but he loves me because I love the animals. “Hey there, Des,” he mumbles, and hands me a manure rake. “Glad you’re here. Far end could use some help.”

“Sounds good.” I exchange the combat boots I work in for a spare pair of muck boots Mack keeps around for me.

I muck out the empty stalls with a will, stopping by the stalls that have horses in them to pet their noses and murmur nonsense to them. I’m delaying. I don’t want to go back to the dorm. I don’t want to talk to Ruthie. I don’t want to have to think about things.

So I work. I scoop horseshit and toss it in the wheelbarrow until it’s full, and then dump it, and start over again. I muck until my hands are blistered and my muscles ache.

More than they already did, that is.

Mack shows up and stands by a stall a few feet away, watching me work. Muriel, a black and white seventeen-hand Clydesdale, sticks her head out into the hall and bumps Mack with her nose. When I finish the stall, Mack takes the wheelbarrow from me. “Get outta here, Des. Gotta leave something for the other hands to do, you know.” He’s gruff and taciturn, but he understands my need to stay busy, and he never questions me.

It’s past sunset when I leave the stable and head back to the dorm. My hands throb, my back aches, and everything else is on fire. Ruthie is on her bed, reading on her Kindle. She sets her Kindle down when I come in, and stares at me expectantly. I ignore her, changing out of my jumpsuit and into a pair of shorts.

Which, belatedly, I realize, are the pair Adam left me. I sniffle, and Ruthie continues to stare at me.

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“Des. Out with it already.”

I continue to ignore her as I make a mug of tea. Finally, I sit at the foot of her bed and lean back against the wall. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

She snorts. “No shit. You don’t ever want to talk about anything. But…you gotta give me something. I mean, Jesus. I turn around and Adam fucking Trenton is standing there, asking for you. Add that to how shell-shocked you looked the night before…something happened to you, and he has something to do with it, and then you don’t come home last night, and now you’re here at…nine o’clock the next night, and you look like hell. So I say again, out with it, bitch.”

I pluck at the soft, slinky fabric of Adam’s shorts and hate how much I love that they smell like him. The shirt even more so. “I met Dylan Vale last night.”

Her eyes narrow. “Do not try to distract me. You’ll tell me EVERYTHING about that once you’ve told me why Adam Trenton was here, and why you’re wearing his clothes, and where you were last night.”

The only person on earth who knows I am—or was—a virgin, is Ruthie, and not even she knows the full reason why, although I think she suspects the truth. I shrug. “I was with Adam last night.” I trace my finger up and down my thigh and refuse to look at Ruthie.

“With Adam.” I feel her processing all the possible meanings, and then she sits up, scoots toward me, and takes my face in her hands, forcing me to finally look at her. “And when you say ‘with Adam’ you don’t mean with Adam, do you?”

I just stare at her for a moment, and then pull my face out of her hands. “Maybe,” I mumble.

“You lost your virginity to Adam Trenton?” she all but shrieks, and then claps her hand over her mouth. “Des! What the fuck? Have you lost your mind? What were you thinking? Holy shit. Holy shit. What were you thinking?”

“Ruthie, Jesus Christ woman, calm down.”

She bounces on the bed. “Calm down? Calm down? How the hell do you expect me to calm down? How did this happen? Why did this happen? What was it like? Speak, woman, speak!”

I clear my throat. “If you’ll shut the fuck up for five seconds, I’ll tell you what I can.” I take a deep breath and let it out. “I met him the other day. Friday. He was on a carriage tour, and he saw me, and for reasons I can’t pretend to understand, decided to jump off and come talk to me…” I tell her about the fudge and the ensuing visit to the bar, and the storm, and the church, and making out with him, and the panic attack. When I get to him showing up and taking me to the gala, Ruth freaks out again.

“Wait. Waitwaitwait. He took you to THE PARTY? Like the huge Hollywood event everyone at the hotel has been talking about ALL FUCKING SUMMER? Adam Trenton. The Adam Trenton. Took YOU…to the gala?”

I shrug miserably. “Maybe? Yes. Okay? Yes, he did. I didn’t know it was going to be like that. Jesus, I thought it was going to be…I don’t even know. I don’t KNOW what I was thinking.” I thunk my head back against the wall hard enough that it hurts. “Ow.”

“Holy fucking shit, Des.”

“Yeah.”

“Did they take your picture?”

I laugh sarcastically. “Only about a million times.” I grin at her. “Now do you want to hear about Dylan Vale?”

“You really met Dylan Vale? Like in actual real life? You spoke to him?”

My grin turns evil. “Spoke to him? I slow danced with him.”

Ruth stops breathing and waves her hands at her face. Why, I’m not sure. Eventually she gasps out a question. “Slow…slow danced? With my Dylan?”

I shrug. “Well, from what I could see, he belongs more to Rose Garret. But yeah, that Dylan. It wasn’t a big deal. I mean, he was every bit as hot as you keep telling me, plus maybe even a little hotter. But he was total nerd. He spent the entire dance telling me about the show, how it was HIS idea and how the producers had to beg him to read for the lead role, blah, blah, blah. You would have loved it, but it bored me to tears. I couldn’t care less about that show. But he was pretty fucking cute.” I twist a lock of hair in my fingers and look away. “Nowhere near as hot as Adam, but…still.”

Ruthie can’t quite breathe yet. “Jesus, Des. I’m so jealous I don’t think I can be friends with you for a few minutes.”




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