Page 54 of Ignite

“Exactly. Don’t talk to your coach about anything other than the current team and next season.”

“Show me my options.”

Ethan to Rylee:Horses can’t do the splits.

Ethan to Rylee:But they can scratch behind their ears with their feet.

Rylee to Ethan:Horses have hooves not feet.

Rylee to Ethan:Can you do the splits?

Ethan to Rylee:Does that mean you want another date?

Rylee to Ethan:Matcha tea has almost as much caffeine as an espresso.

I looked at Ethan’s messages, my thumbs over the keypad. I wanted to respond with something other than our safe topics of tea and horses. I wanted to give him another chance to make things right.

I wanted to find a way we could work through things. Perhaps his ute was a place to start?

Rylee to Ethan:Waiting on one last part for your ute. One week then another week for spray painting, weather permitting. I’ll get Reece to drop it off to you.

I breathed a sigh of relief once I pressedsend.

In the meantime, I had to keep an eye out for Zoe.

Rylee to Zoe:What’s the temperature like outside?

I would never ask her the real question, whether her asshole husband was in a good or bad mood and whether she needed someone to come over and play interference. Reece had offered to drop in and distract Glenn with talk about football. Eric could distract him with talk about Sydney, and Brody had offered to waste hours fighting demons on some sort of online game that he and Glenn loved.

Zoe:Do you know anyone who does minor home repairs?

Rylee:What do you need?

Zoe:Don’t worry about it. Glenn just said he’ll fix it. Have a good night.

Damn. I’d heard about Glenn’s temper and Reece told me he’d insisted on being paired up for any one-on-one gym work so Glenn kept his sparring in check.

Rylee:Flick said that Ethan is handy with tools. I could give him a call and see if he can drop by and have a look at it.

Zoe:Yes please.

My thumb hovered over the buttons. Should I call or text?

I wanted to hear Ethan’s voice, but would he even take my call?

Rylee to Ethan:There’s a hole in the wall over at Zoe and Glenn’s.

Rylee to Ethan:Do you think you can drop by and see if you can fix it?

Ethan:Sure xoxo.

Chapter 15

It’s About Ryan

“TheNorthernRiversRuralFire Service expressed their thanks to our local RFS for helping them with backburning. Creating fire breaks before there’s a fire is an important way of protecting our town, businesses and homes. If you need support, get in touch with Trey Greenstreet from the RFS. In other news …”

Rylee

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