Since Meredith died.
Landon’s features softened. “You want to get the girl?”
“Yes.”
“We’ve got to accentuate the positives.” The former teen dream pursed his lips. “What does she like about you, specifically?”
Raz ran his hands through his hair, thinking. “She likes my cock, of course.”
Landon glared at him. “For Christ’s sake, Raz!”
“Sorry, I’m not thinking straight. I’m not myself. This town has a bloody vortex that scrambles people’s brains and makes wildlife extra wild. I saw a butterfly tornado on the trail.”
Landon looked at him like he was the sort of bloke who got lost crossing the street.
“Concentrate, Raz. What makes her heart sing? And do not say your cock.”
Raz paced along the side of the food tent. It was like he couldn’t put together one blooming cohesive thought. The image of Libby and Doug together made him want to lose his lunch.
Focus.
“She loves yoga and Sebastian, and then there’s this blue-violet color. It’s our thing.”
“A color is your thing?” Landon pressed.
“Yes, I know it sounds weird, but it is.”
“Get her something that color,” Landon offered.
Like a car? Dammit! Her Lamborghini is already that color.
“What about flowers?” Landon tossed out.
This teen dream was a bloody genius.
“We’ve got wildflowers that grow near the barn that match the shade exactly.”
“There you go. Pick the flowers, find the girl, ditch the benchmark dude, then sweep her off her feet. That’s how it works in songs. But nothing is guaranteed in real life,” the man said, glancing away.
Something was up with Landon. He’d gotten moody, or maybe that was the broody quality his fans adored. But he didn’t have time to dwell on the guy—not with precious minutes ticking away.
“It’s got to be more than flowers. I need to make a statement.”
He stopped pacing and spied Sebastian and his friends, pumping their legs as they swung back and forth on a row of swings the organizers had brought in for the kids’ activities. “That’s it,” he whispered.
“What’s it, Raz?” Landon asked, following his line of sight.
“It just came to me. I know what I need to do.” He glanced around the square and spotted Briggs about to enter the Rocky Mountain oyster tent. “Briggs, are you mad? Get away from those bull testicles! I need your help, mate.”
His agent startled and blushed like a schoolgirl. “I wasn’t going to get any of those bull testicles. But they smell amazing, and Mitch explained how they are a delicacy, and when in Rome, as the saying goes,” the man blathered, but Raz waved him off. He didn’t have time to talk testicles.
He slipped his phone from his pocket and hammered out a message. “Briggsy, I’m texting you exactly what I need you to do. It’ll seem a little insane, but you have to make it happen in the next twenty minutes.”
The agent’s mobile pinged. Briggs stared at the screen and gasped. “Now? You need me to arrange this in twenty minutes?”
“Yeah, fifteen would be better, but it can be done, right? You’re the best sports agent out there. You make things happen. And you’ve got your people here.”
At the compliment, Briggs puffed up, then deflated. “Is this a good idea so close to the fight, champ? Where are Libby and Aug? I can’t imagine they’d be on board with this.”
“I’m doing this for Libby. I care about her, Briggsy.”
“Do you?” Penny asked as she and their entire crew, along with Augie and Luanne, joined them.
He nodded to Penny, then surveyed the group. “I need to talk to all of you about Libby. Landon’s brought it to my attention that you’ll know what I mean when I say that she’s with the benchmark guy.”
“What?” Charlotte exclaimed, sharing a look with Mitch.
“You know about the whole chi and O debacle, right?”
Penny crossed her arms. “Yes, she’s our best friend.”
“There’s more. Something she might not have mentioned.” He took a breath. “I got a little full of myself and told her that if I won the race, it was the universe telling us that we were meant to be together.”
“You pulled the universe into this?” Penny chided, sharing a look of horror with Charlotte.
He flinched. “Yeah, I did.”
“And then you came in second place,” Rowen added, shaking his head.
“And that blond guy with the donkey moved in. He’s the benchmark, isn’t he? Libby didn’t tell us exactly who he was or if she’d picked him,” Penny mused.
“But he was giving her googly eyes when they lined up for the race,” Charlotte replied.
“Yeah, and now she’s with him. I messed up. I shouldn’t have let her go, but I know what I have to do.”
“What do you have to do?” Augie asked. “And what’s a benchmark guy?”
“It’s…” he trailed off, not sure how to break it to Augie. Besides Sebastian and his granny, Aug was the only person here who’d known Mere.
“Can I give him the rundown?” Penny asked.
Raz looked from Rowen to Mitch. “The ladies know everything about each other?”
“Yep, get used to it,” Mitch deadpanned.
“Okay, Penny, tell Augie because my brain feels like it’s gone to mush,” he said.
“Libby lost her ability to have an O, thanks to Raz,” the woman began.
“I was a wanker, and I messed up her energy,” he confessed.
“Yeah, all right,” Aug answered in a tone that was more like what the hell than an actual all right.
“Throughout their time together,” Penny continued, “Raz and Libby have been engaging in activities to find her O. The last step in the process was to make sure she could have an O with someone else. Raz and Libby decided there would be a final benchmark guy to see if she’d gotten her O back completely.”
“But I don’t want that—not anymore,” he added, trying to read his trainer.
“Blimey, Erasmus!” Augie answered, scratching his head.
Raz stared into the donkey pen and caught Plum and Beefcake standing side by side, nuzzling each other. “I have to be the donkey, Aug.”
“What?” the group questioned in unison.
“You feeling okay, Erasmus?” Augie asked.
Raz gestured to the animals. “The donkey knows.”
“What does the donkey know, Dad?” Sebastian asked, skipping over with his friends and Granny Fin in tow.
“The donkey knows what’s important,” he replied.
“Like Beefcake knowing he loves Plum?” Sebastian offered.
The kid had cut right to the heart of it.
“Yeah, just like that, son.”
Sebastian looked around. “Where’s Mibby?”
“I want to talk to you about Mibby,” he began, his stomach doing somersaults. “I’d like to do something for her, something big because I…because she…”
“Because she won the Ass-in-Nine?” the lad supplied.