I closed the door and glanced round. There was a large dresser on one wall. Surely, all those drawers weren’t full of clothes. I had a three-drawer chest and those drawers weren’t full. I opened the top one to find an entire drawer full of silly socks, then another full of regular socks. The third one was full of neatly folded underwear, and I quickly closed that drawer. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen a pair of folded boxer briefs before, but the last thing I needed was to picture Frankie in his.
I should’ve stopped there. That would’ve been the wise thing to do, but I’d never been known for my smarts. I pulled open the next drawer, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. I reached in slowly and pulled out a small pair of lace panties. Were they called panties if they were for men? Because these were made for men. They were a pretty shade of pink with white lace, and they felt divine. I put them back down and pulled out a red pair that were made from really soft material. Those would be beautiful on him. I started to reach for a pretty light blue pair when it hit me that I was snooping in Frankie’s lingerie drawer like a perv. I closed it and went back to the kitchen.
“Hey, Frankie, I was going to work on your room, but your shoe collection intimidated me, so I gave up.”
“I know, right?” Ripley said. “And you should see all the ones he brought with him. Seriously, I think he has a problem. A footwear intervention may be necessary.”
Frankie shook his head and said, “When you stop buying nail polish, I’ll stop buying shoes.”
Once the furniture was marked and Frankie and Ripley got his room packed up, the only thing left to do was break down the bed he was taking, and we couldn’t do that until tomorrow. I’d held my breath while they did his room, waiting for him to come out and ask what I was doing in his lingerie drawer, but he didn’t say anything, so I was hoping he didn’t notice.
“See, look. We’re basically done,” I pointed out. “You guys can go have fun, and we’ll hang out here and eat and watch a movie. I think we got the better end of the deal, to be honest.”
“You two can stay here and be boring. We’ll be dancing and drinking and having a ball,” Ripley said.
“You be careful. Take a Lyft, no driving, make sure I know where you are, and if you need me, you call me. I’ll have my phone.”
“Don’t worry, Daddy. We’ll be careful,” Ripley said, giving Reed a quick kiss. “Come on, Frankie, let’s go get ready.”
They ran off like two teenagers giggling and laughing. I didn’t understand the Daddy thing, but it really seemed to work for the two of them. I thought I would get tired of being the responsible one, but Reed ate it up. I was a little envious of them, to be honest. It wasn’t easy to find someone who fit with you the way they had.
A few minutes later, the guys came out dressed to leave. Frankie was wearing black leather pants, a silky pink shirt, and boots with heels for fuck’s sake. “Damn, you guys look fucking amazing,” I said.
“Why thank you,” Ripley cooed, but to be honest, I hadn’t even noticed what he had on. I turned toward him and he looked good as well, but he smirked, letting me know he’d noticed I hadn’t even seen him.
“I won’t stay out too late because we both have to drive tomorrow,” Frankie said.
“I was thinking we would add a tow dolly and pull your car, then only one of us will have to drive. So you just enjoy yourself.”
“That’s a really good idea.”
They left, and we settled in to watch television and wait for the pizza.
At some point I dozed off, but the ping and vibration of a cell phone woke me. Reed grabbed the phone and looked at it. “They’re on their way back.”
Chapter 8
Frankie
Reed and Cap got up early the next morning to go and get the truck. I’d kept out the stuff I needed to make muffins for breakfast, and by the time they were back, I was taking them out of the oven.
“I swear it’s a good thing you’re moving to town. I’d end up weighing as much as one of our horses if I ate your muffins everyday,” Ripley said as he popped half a muffin in his mouth.
“Like you aren’t going to come to the shop and eat them everyday, anyway,” I teased back.
“True enough. I’m just so glad you’re staying in River Gorge. You have no idea how much I missed you.”
“I have some kind of idea, because it’s the same amount I missed you. And you were right, something about River Gorge does feel like home. I can’t wait to get settled in.”
“We’re certainly lucky you’re staying. Now let’s get this truck loaded up and on the road,” Cap said, grabbing a muffin.
Ripley shook his head and said, “You sit down and eat. I’ll even get you a cup of coffee for a change. The guys I hired will be here to load up the truck in”—he glanced at his phone—”thirty minutes.”
“You hired movers?” I asked.
“He did,” Reed answered. “I tried to tell him we could handle it, but he told me when we were on the ranch, we did things my way, but here in the city we were in his world.”
“And in my world, no one loads their own truck,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Besides, I got the best manicure I’ve had in months, and I wasn’t messing these up to save a little money.” He waved his nails in the air.
“Now do you see why I was so shocked when I got to the ranch and found him feeding goats and helping with the horses? This,” I said gesturing towards Ripley, “is the diva I know and love.”
We finished breakfast, and then the guys Ripley hired showed up. They loaded all the furniture that we'd put dots on the day before, and all of the boxes. We watched them work, and as they put the last box on the truck and pulled the door down, I laughed. “Okay, Ripley. You win, this was the way to move. Too bad we can’t take them with us back to River Gorge.”
“Sure beats trying to move a whole house in horse trailers, doesn’t it?” Reed said.
“That it does,” Cap agreed. “It went faster than expected which is good. We need to get on the road if we’re going to get ahead of the storm.”
They hooked up the car and we got on the road. Flurries had begun to fall by the time we left, and it took us close to an hour to get through Dallas. I was so glad Cap was driving. The traffic was a nightmare, as always, but with the weather it was even worse than normal. Just thinking about it was enough to make me anxious. I could only imagine what a wreck I would be if I were driving.
“This makes me appreciate River Gorge even more. First of all it doesn’t snow, but no matter what the weather, traffic is never like it is here,” he said.
“I’ve been to cake shows all over the country, and I’m telling you, traffic isn’t this bad anywhere else.”
“Do you plan to keep doing the cake shows?”
“I don’t know, I really haven’t been able to think that far ahead. The shows take almost a week, so I won’t be doing one until I get myself established.”
“Well, if you need to take time off to do that, we can manage. Obviously we can’t bake like you do, but River Gorge is a small town and people will be understanding if you’re off doing something like a cake show.”