Page 62 of The Pieces We've Lost

“Okay, chef.” I looked at him with admiration.

“Better taste it before you start calling me that. You wouldn’t want my ego to get any bigger.” He grinned before he went to make his own plate.

I took a bite of the biscuits and gravy, the taste exploding across my tongue. “Mmm.” I closed my eyes and practically moaned. It was probably the best biscuits and gravy I’d ever had.

“Good?” Amusement flickered in his eyes.

“Keep cooking like this, and I may never go back to Texas.” I stuffed my mouth with bacon. It was cooked perfectly, not too crispy, but not limp either.

“Don’t tempt me, Blaze.” He sat down next to me.

After we’d finished eating, I helped him clean. I wasn’t going to let him do all of the work himself. We worked as a team, with Colter scrubbing dishes and me rinsing and drying them.

“We make a pretty good team there, Sparky,” I said as I dried off the last few utensils.

We might have wasted time teasing each other and splashing bubbles from the sink around, but we eventually got everything cleaned.

“That we do.” He checked his watch. “Oh, shit, we’ve got to get ready to go.”

With the time it took for both of us to shower and get ready, we pulled into town around three o’clock, and the streets were already bustling with people. The horse races and rodeo wouldn’t start until later in the afternoon, so we spent a good deal of our time walking around and looking at the vendors set up at the fairgrounds.

People were selling handcrafted jewelry, woodwork, clothing, and so much more.

We passed by a booth selling paintings, and I teased Colter, “Hey, maybe you should buy one of these. Give your house a little bit more character.”

“Only if you’re paying for it,” he teased back.

The paintings really were beautiful, though. There were landscape scenes, rodeo scenes, horses, bison, reallyanything that came to mind when you thought about Montana.

“Colter!” a lady at a booth called out to him as we walked by. When we went over, she stood up and gave him a hug.

“Hi, Susie.” He smiled after she stopped squeezing him.

“Is this your girlfriend?” She tilted her head, giving me a warm look.

“Oh—” I tried to correct her but Colter cut me off.

“This is Ellison.” He introduced us, and she pulled me in for a hug.

Did he not want me to say I wasn’t his girlfriend?I was confused because we’d never really defined what we were. I wasn’t in any rush, especially considering I was here for less than a week, but over the past month it had felt like we’d already moved past the point of being just friends.But what do you want it to be?My conscience was mocking me again.

“She’s very beautiful.” The woman took my hand, breaking me out of my thoughts.

“She is. I’m very lucky.” He beamed.

If Colter was this proud to be standing next to me and we weren’t even dating, I wondered what it would be like to actually behis.

“Why didn’t you tell her that we’re not actually together?” I asked him after we had moved far enough away from her table.

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Just didn’t seem important.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, confused.

He stopped, facing me so that I was looking up at his face. “I’m willing to be whateveryou want us to be. I’ve been yours for a while now, trust me. I’m leaving it up to you whether you want to be mine.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

colter

---