Page 63 of Trick or Tease

I rolled away and quickly did my jeans up.

I got up, reached my hand down to help her to her feet.

“It’s for the best,” I said. “I’m leaving. I don’t want to make things messy. We’re friends, Sabrina. I want to keep it that way.”

She put her bra on and quickly pulled on her shirt. “Yeah. I know. Okay. You go out first. I’ll be out in a minute.”

I started down the ladder and paused to look up at her. She wasn’t looking at me.

I felt like such an asshole.

23

SABRINA

Icranked the wrench, tightening the bolt on the trebuchet’s arm until my knuckles were white. The physical exertion felt good, giving me something to focus on besides the memory of Garrett’s hands on my body and the way he’d looked at me afterward like I was some kind of mistake he needed to correct.

“Friends,” I muttered under my breath, giving the bolt another vicious turn. “We’re friends, Sabrina. I want to keep it that way.”

What a load of bullshit. Friends didn’t kiss each other like they were drowning and the other person was oxygen. Friends didn’t touch each other the way he’d touched me in that hayloft, like he couldn’t get enough. And friends definitely didn’t make the kinds of sounds Garrett had made when I’d wrapped my hand around him.

I sat back on my heels and wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. It wasn’t hot out, but I’d worked up a sweat wrestling with the chunker’s mechanics. Billy had built three of these contraptions over the years, each one more elaborate than the last, and this particular one had a tendency to jam if you didn’t keep all the moving parts properly lubricated.

“How’s it looking over there?” Billy called out from where he was adjusting the sights on another launcher about twenty feet away.

“Good,” I called back, not trusting my voice to say more. I could see Lucy working on the third trebuchet, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail as she tested the release mechanism over and over again.

Yesterday had been exhausting in the best way. We wanted to make sure we were ready for the next round of eager visitors. Yesterday there had been some hiccups, including two broken trebuchets.

“You okay?” Lucy asked.

“Yep.”

I wished I could tell them what had happened. Lucy especially. She’d been my best friend since we were kids, and I’d never kept anything this big from her before. But how could I even begin to explain it? Hey guys, so your brother/future brother-in-law had me half-naked in the barn loft yesterday and then told me we should just be friends. Pass the screwdriver?

The whole thing felt surreal in the morning light. Had it really happened? Had Garrett Hogan actually kissed me like his life depended on it, touched me like he’d been fantasizing about it for years? Or had I imagined the whole thing in some kind of hormone-induced hallucination?

But no, I could still feel the ghost of his hands on my skin. Could still taste him on my lips if I thought about it too hard. It had definitely happened.

The question was whether it had been the most incredible mistake of my life or just the most incredible thing, period.

I picked up my wrench again and moved to the next bolt, trying to lose myself in the repetitive motion. Thank God he wasn’t out here trying to help us. Billy said he was working on some paperwork or something.

Good. Because I didn’t want to see him.

I didn’t know what I would say and I didn’t want to blush. It was like the awkward morning after without the benefit of actually getting the good stuff. It was all the awkwardness with none of the reward.

“Sabrina, can you test this release for me?” Lucy’s voice broke through my brooding.

I walked over to where she was standing beside the smallest of our three trebuchets. It was designed for the younger kids, with a shorter throwing arm and less tension in the springs.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“It’s not releasing cleanly. The pumpkin sort of dribbles out instead of launching.” She demonstrated with a small gourd, and sure enough, it rolled pathetically off the end of the arm instead of flying through the air.

I examined the release mechanism, a simple hook-and-eye system that Billy had designed. “Looks like the timing is off. The hook isn’t letting go at the right point in the swing.”

We spent the next twenty minutes adjusting the mechanism, testing it with practice pumpkins until we got a satisfying arc. It was exactly the kind of problem-solving I usually loved, but I found my attention wandering.