Page 105 of Chaos

Yasmin looks away quickly, hiding whatever expression contorts her face.

Frosted grass crunching beneath our boots, she waits a few strides before hesitantly clearing her throat. “Did you want to? Are you… Are you interested in Finn? Like that?”

I scoff. I snort. I wave off the utterly ridiculous suggestion.

But, as Yasmin points out, I don’t say no.

My mouth opens, but still, the word doesn’t come out.

“It’s okay if you are.”

I’m not,I scream inside my head while staying completely fucking silent.

I’m not. Jesus, it’s so dramatic, but I can’t be. Finn is so fucking far from every guy I’ve ever been interested in. Like my sister-in-law once said—likeeveryoneprobably says, like Yasmin’s probably thinking right now—he’s too nice for me. He’s a good person. He doesn’t treat me like shit, and considering that’s the crux of every single one of my past relationships—situationships, I should say, because I’ve never actually been in a real relationship—I don’t see how he could ever appeal to me.

“Is that what this is about?” I press some more, the flustered pitch of my question making Bowie’s ears twitch. “He thinks I like him and it makes himthatuncomfortable?”

“No, Lottie.” Yasmin angles her head, chin dropping, gaze soft. “He doesn’t think that at all.”

“Well then what—”

Someone saves me from the infuriation of another unanswered question.

At least ten minutes early for our thrice-weekly training sessions, Carmen stands on the other side of the paddock fence, hollering my name and waving me over. Shooting Yasmin an entirely unsatisfied look, I hand over Bowie’s lead rope and jog towards the trainer.

“Before we start,” she calls out as I near. “Got a question for you.”

I yell back, “Shoot.”

“You have full permission to stab me with a pitchfork if I’m crossing a line.”

Laughing, I brace my palms on the top slat of the fence and haul myself up. “Color me intrigued.”

“It’s about Finn.”

One leg cocked like a fucking dog as I swing it over the fence, I freeze. Jesus. Of course it is. “Okay.”

“I was thinking I might ask him out.”

I straddle the fence for a second, careful with my response—with my reaction, with my face, with whatever might be on it. “And you’re telling me this why?”

Carmen just inclines her head. Looks at me the same way Yasmin was just looking at me, and my brain is one big question mark.

Hopping to the ground, I have to use more energy than I should to shrug. To calmly, nonchalantly, couldn’t-give-a-shit-ly say, “Go for it.”

Carmen squints at me for a long moment before she shrugs too. “Okay.”

And then she does it. She strides away, towards where the guys are transferring bags from the couple of Subaru Foresters that belong to the ranch’s last batch of guests before we shut for the big wedding and the holidays.

She pulls Finn aside, and my gut twists. She tugs him towards the barn, out of ear shot of everyone, and something thick and acrid rises in my throat. She says something that brings a bright, wide smile to his face. That makes him nod enthusiastically.

That’s all I can stomach before I have to look away.

A low whistle has my scowl shifting from the coarse hair between my fingers to the farrier slowly approaching. Whether his caution stems from me or my horse, I’m unsure.

Either way, the sight of him pisses me off. “What do you want?”

Finn doesn’t even blink at my less-than-friendly tone. In fact, he looks like he was expecting it—he came prepared with a mug in either hand, hot-chocolate-scented steam drifting through the chilly winter air towards me.

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