Page 57 of The Love Losers

“Ah, Master Smith,” Jeeves says, hurrying out of the stable. He’s already holding the stool and hurries to line it up with Sweetcheeks as soon as Anthony gets her to slow down. She keeps moving, and Jeeves tracks her with the stool until she finally stops. “Master Smith, I thought I would save you the journey inside.”

“There was no need for that,” Anthony says, his voice conveying that this is not an everyday courtesy provided by the actor-slash-stable hand.

“Oh, no trouble at all, no trouble at all,” Jeeves says, hurrying to take my hand. He practically tugs me off of Sweetcheeks, which is a far cry from the princess treatment he was giving me at the outset of our ride.

“Jeeves?” Anthony asks, as he follows me down. “Is everything quite all right?”

Jeeves looks like he’s five seconds away from a panic attack, and from the barn, I hear a woman raise her voice.

The only word I can make out is “unacceptable.” Five seconds later, a pretty dark-haired woman with lemon-lips and a plaid riding uniform under her jacket comes stomping out of the barn, followed by a golden-haired man who’s laughing softly, like he finds adult temper tantrums amusing. His blue eyes look watery.

He’s familiar, but I can’t place him. Maybe he’s only familiar in a generic way, because he looks like he could have been made by a factory that churns out men with popped collars and slight sunburns.

The aghast look on Jeeves’s face confirms he’d very much hoped to keep us away from them. The way Anthony’s face has blanked out, back to the empty look of a couple of weeks ago, tells me that he knows these people and knows them well.

“Were they the ones who kept the horses out too long?” I guess.

Jeeves nods with thin lips, his chins quivering.

I’m guessing I’ve just met Nina, the woman who was supposed to marry Anthony before she decided she’d prefer to bang his friend. And the blond guy must be the friend, although the thought of anyone willingly giving up Anthony for this man is inconceivable.

I’m guessing the reason Jeeves knows Sweetcheeks can carry two riders is because it’s happened before, withher, a thought that makes me grit my teeth.

The dark-haired woman sees us and gasps theatrically, like she thinks someone might be waiting in the trees with a camera.

Actually, Anthony might have a stalker. For all I know, there could be someone in the trees with a camera.

Might as well give them something interesting to look at.

“Oh, hey, Anthony,” the blond guy says, waving a hand and giving us a dopey grin. “We just got your mother’s invitation from a courier.”

Anthony stiffens beside me. “Oh?”

But the blond dude’s distracted by the splendor of Sweetcheeks, who’s picked this moment to deposit some chunky manure on the path. “Whoa. Will you take a look at that, honey? You’ve gotunicornshere, Jeeves? I thought they were extinct.”

Is this guy for real?

“No, you idiot,” Nina says, hitting him with her purse. “It’s a horse wearing a costume. There’s no such thing as unicorns.”

“She goes by Sparklebutt now,” I say, standing up taller. “She just got an upgrade.”

So did Anthony.

Nina’s gaze finds me, her lemon-lips puckering tighter before her face smooths out in an expression that could be misconstrued as friendly by someone who’d never seen a friendly face before. Blond Guy glances at me too, his brow furrowed.

Nina’s gaze shifts to Anthony. “Aren’t you going to introduce us to your little friend?”

He’s stiff, statue-like, nothing like the man who spent the last forty-five minutes riding a “unicorn” behind me. Protectiveness pulses through me, and without thinking, I wrap my arm around his waist and pull him closer. I love the way he melts into me,like my touch made him alive again. Maybe that’s why I say what I say next: “Oh, there’s been a misunderstanding. I’m not his friend. I’m hislover.”

I smile up at him, expecting a conspiratorial grin, but his eyes are beating into me—blue and gray and intense—and he lowers his head and kisses me.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

ANTHONY

I didn’t mean to jump to the bottom of my bucket list.

But riding with Rosie was sweet torture. I have no idea what I even said on that horse, because putting together a sentence while her body was captured between my thighs, her silky hair tickling my face, was like trying to do advanced trigonometry while drunk. Every motion of her body, every little satisfied sigh she made as she pointed out a gnarled tree she liked, or a stream that hadn’t frozen over, made me harder.

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