Page 33 of Untamed

She sits down and starts petting Betty, and I stand there for a second, feeling incredibly awkward before finally just leaving. I don’t say another word; I just leave her there, sitting on the barn floor, almost crying.

“Hey! That was fast!” Poppy is sitting on the front porch of the main house, sippin’ on some of Momma’s sweet tea. Her smile drops when she sees my face. “What happened?”

“Not right now. Please, Poppy.”

“Oh, okay,” she says softly.

And I just keep walking. Past the main house, out to the old dirt drive that leads to mine, and straight into my kitchen to pour myself the strongest drink I own.

A few days later, after no sign of Hayes at the rescue barn, I’m spilling my guts to Evie at work.

“So you tell him about your date, and he gets all weird.” Evie shrugs from where she’s sitting on the counter. It’s a slow day, so we’re both just hanging out in the back room until the next appointment. “Just sounds like he’s jealous.”

“He can’t be jealous,” I insist. “He’s never felt any type of way about me. We’re friends.”

“He kissed you.” She looks at me like I’m stupid.

“It was a heat-of-the-moment thing. We were just having fun, and he was probably just swept up in the excitement of it all.”

“But you said you stopped it. Not him.”

“Because I knew we should stop before it went any further.”

“Did he always act like this when you told him about your dates and stuff? Like when you guys were friends in high school?”

“Well…” I pick at my string cheese while I try to think of how to put this without sounding like I was the world’s biggest loser in high school. “I didn’t really date.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she says, a shocked look on her face. “You’re hot. There’s no way the boys weren’t fawning over you.”

“Thanks.” I smile over at her. “But I was an awkward teenager. I came from a home without a lot of money, and that meant never dressing with the trends or eating homemade lunches in the cafeteria. There wasn’t any room for extracurriculars because we couldn’t afford it, so making friends was tough.”

“But you had Hayes.”

“I had Hayes.”

“Since you never dated back then, is this the first time he’s been around you dating? Maybe he wants what he can’t have. He took you for granted, but now that you’re trying with someone else, he realizes what he was missing out on!” She wags her eyebrows playfully.

I don’t want to tell her about that one time… The time I told him I had gone on a date that ended with losing my virginity.

“But he told me about his escapades all the time.” I groan. “God, he fucked anything that moved. And I had to sit there and let him talk to me like I was one of his guy friends.”

“Hiding your true feelings the entire time. That had to suck.”

“But we’re friends again. And adults. Isn’t that what friends do? Share this kind of thing?”

“Look.” Evie hops off the counter and sits next to me at the table. “I cannot claim to be an expert in men, but I can tell you that there’s a lot of emotions there. I obviously don’t know everything that happened between you both, but I’ve got the gist from what you’ve told me.

“And if he kissed you,” she continues, “then there’s something there. It doesn’t matter if he got caught up in the moment or had it planned. Either way, he wanted to kiss you, River. That means something.”

“I don’t want to get tangled up in Hayes all over again.” I run my hands over my face and sigh. “I know what he’s like. I’ve never seen that boy settle down with one woman. What-if he just wants me like he wanted all the other women he’s been with? I wouldn’t be able to just have sex with him and then pretend like everything hasn’t changed.”

“I know you just moved back recently, but since you’ve been back, have you seen him with anyone?”

I don’t have to think about that because even though I’ve been avoiding him like the plague, I still watched him like the sad sack I am.

“No.”

“And I can tell you that in the last few years, I’ve not seen him with anyone either. Maybe he’s changed those fuckboy ways from his past.” She shrugs and leans back in the chair, looking pretty confident in her assessment. “Just sayin’.”

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