“I don’t know, Leah . . .”
She sighed and tossed her hands up in defeat. “Fine, fine. It’s just too bad. The Wreckage is performing, and I figured you’d like to see them.”
I straightened up a little. “Ian and the boys are performing?”
“Yeah. They’ve been the performers for the past few years. It’s tradition.” She gave me a knowing grin. “Wouldn’t you like to see Ian perform in front of a crowd? I mean, I know he performed for you at your party, but seeing him in front of a bigger crowd just makes him larger than life.”
“You mean wouldn’t I like to see the whole band? Not just Ian.”
“Well, the way your cheeks turn bright red when I mention him gives me the feeling you care more about him than my brother and the other two.” She arched an eyebrow and leaned in toward me. “So is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“Do you have a crush on Ian?”
“What? What? No! No way! A crush on Ian? On Ian Parker? No way.” Oh my gosh, every inch of my body was on fire, as I sounded so far from convincing when it came to my feelings for Ian. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d caught myself daydreaming about his eyes, his lips, his smile, his dic—“We’re just roommates,” I pushed out, wanting to fan my face from embarrassment.
She wiggled her eyebrows. “A roommate with benefits is probably something you’re interested in, huh?”
“No, Leah, not at all,” I lied like the freaking liar I was in that moment. “Besides, even if I did have feelings for Ian—which I don’t—he’s so far out of my league I couldn’t even imagine him ever giving me a chance.”
“I’m sorry, but are you stuck on stupid?”
“What do you mean?”
“For a smart girl who knows that bonfire isn’t two words, you sure are stupid, Hazel. Ian is crazy about you.”
“Come again?”
“I see him all the time checking you out around the ranch, and when you aren’t at their band rehearsals, he goes on and on about you as if you’re every star in the sky. He’s obsessed with you.”
I laughed. “He’s not. Trust me, if Ian was obsessed with me, I’d know.”
“Really? So you think a man who spoons you every single night and builds you a she-shed isn’t into you? I mean, I have a boyfriend and can hardly get a good-morning text, and you’re getting whole sheds built in your honor! He’s, like, in love with you!” she exclaimed.
“Shut it, Leah; he’s not.” But he had built me a she-shed. Did that mean something more than just a roommate being nice? Did Ian . . . ?
No.
No way did he like me. I wasn’t his type. I’d seen his type. The tall, curvy girls who always smelled like expensive perfume. I wasn’t the kind of girl who caught Ian’s attention. I was more the girl who hid in the shadows, not the limelight, and Ian dated limelight girls.
“Just come to the bonfire and see for yourself. Now that I’ve awakened you to the fact that Ian is crazy about you, you’ll notice it yourself. Trust me. A blind dog couldn’t miss the connection between the two of you.”
I hesitated before tossing my hands up in defeat. “Fine. I’ll go, but it’s only to prove to you how wrong you are about this Ian situation. He doesn’t see me that way.”
“Yeah, okay, wink-wink, nudge-nudge. You’ll see, Haze. But there’s one thing we need to do before the bonfire this weekend.”
“And what’s that?”
Leah’s giddiness intensified times a million as she tossed her arms into the air in celebration. “A makeover!”
The bonfire was still a few days away, but thanks to Leah, I found myself watching Ian’s every move around the ranch, and I’d come to one massive realization: Ian was hot. And sexy. And hotly sexy. I hadn’t a clue what had come over me over the past few days, but whenever I was around him, my lady boner went full force. My eyes danced across him as if he were the best cooked steak in the world and I wanted to devour every single inch of him.
It didn’t help that a few nights I’d wakened up from the dirtiest of dreams about him taking control of me. Every night when we’d sat down to work on lyrics, I’d had to force myself to not reach over and, oh, you know, accidentally swipe right on his penis.
If there was a dating app for Ian’s body parts, I’d swipe right until the cows came home.
Calm down, lady boner; he’s just your friend.
I kept telling myself those words, but it was growing more and more hard to believe them every night he crawled into bed with me and pressed his rock-hard abs against my body. Just watching him work around the ranch was making me hot. I wouldn’t have thought seeing a shirtless, sexy man brush a horse could be so exciting.
Sure, it didn’t sound as if it was an act of sex appeal, but my gosh, was it the sexiest thing I’d ever witnessed in my life.
“You want to ride?” Ian asked, glancing my way.
“Oh God, yes,” I muttered in a deep whisper as my eyes danced across his figure in a hypnotic way. I shook my head, shaking myself from the daze I was residing in, and tried to keep the heat of my skin at a tame level. “I mean, what?”
He smiled my way, seemingly unaware of my current state of desperate need to slide into his pants. “Do you want to ride the horse?” he asked, patting Dottie’s back. “I mean, it seems that the two of you are the best of friends, but I’ve never seen you out giving her a ride.”
Oh.
The horse.
He wanted me to ride the horse.
Of course that was what he meant.
“I, er, I’ve never ridden a horse, and if I’m honest, that sounds pretty terrifying.”
He laughed. “It’s not as bad as you’d think. Come on; I’ll help you out. We can ride together.”
“You want to ride me?” I blurted out, then mentally slapped my forehead. “I mean, with me. You want to ride with me?”
“I’ll ride beside you and make sure Dottie treats you well.” He walked past me, brushing his arm against mine, and needless to say, I almost melted into a pile of mush. Every time that man came near me, my body reacted intensely. All I could do was pray that he never noticed.
He grabbed a saddle for me and then led Dottie out to the open field for a ride. He came back to the stables and picked Big Red to be his riding partner for the afternoon. As we walked outside toward Dottie, Ian helped me learn how to mount the beauty.
“Okay, so we have our stepping block set up for you to use to help you get on Dottie. Place your left hand on her mane, and then place your right hand on the other side. Place your left foot in the stirrup, and then swing your right leg over the saddle.”
Yes, yes, Ian. Talk horsey to me.
As he said all of this, he helped me by placing his hand against my lower back. Once I was seated on top of Dottie, I felt as if I’d just achieved the ultimate life goal—I’d climbed onto a horse while Ian had assisted me, and I’d lived to tell the story.
“Well, this isn’t so bad,” I said, sitting on top of Dottie without a clue what to do next. Ian headed over to Big Red and saddled up like the hot rock star cowboy that he was. Rock star cowboy seemed like an extreme oxymoron, but I was wholeheartedly into it.