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CHAPTER 9
Cheyenne
“Remind me again why we get up at the ass crack of dawn to do this,” Nadia asked the same rhetorical question she asked every morning as she bent down to pick the tire up so we could roll it to the other side of the barn.
I had to admit, it did suck getting up so early, but my jeans had never looked so good so I wasn’t complaining.
“I don’t know about you, but I like the view,” Ashley, the newest member of our Farm Strong group gazed out over the pasture as the sun was rising.
Harlan Mitchell who ran the morning boot-camp style fitness class we were at was standing by the fence line in a cut off shirt that showcased his impressive biceps.
“Are you talking about the sunrise or Harlan?” Nadia stood and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.
“Both.” Ashley grinned.
Nadia shook her head. “Been there done that. I need some fresh man meat in Firefly especially since all the eligible bachelors are getting swooped up.” She said pointedly to Skylar and Isabella.
Both women just smiled, clearly smitten with the Firefly men they’d “swooped up.” I was happy that my brothers had found such amazing women to spend the rest of their lives with and that they would both be my sisters-in-law.
So much had changed since my first early morning visit to Farm Strong. I looked around at our group that had doubled in size. When we started taking the class it had just been me, Reagan, and Nadia. We’d gone the very first week I was back in Firefly. The girls had joined me because I thought it sounded like fun and didn’t want to go by myself. I think that Reagan felt sorry for me since the only people I knew in town were my brothers—and I didn’t even know them that well at the time. Then Reagan, being awesome, dragged Nadia along as well.
Next to join our group was Isabella who I’d invited after running into her. And now we had two more recruits, my brother Hank’s fiancée Skylar and her sister Ashley were coming as well.
I should honestly get paid a commission for all the new members.
We were short one today because Reagan and Billy were still on their honeymoon.
“Speaking of eligible bachelors, any news on the Cash front?” Isabella wagged her brows.
“No.” Other than I missed him so bad it physically hurt. I’d realized over the past week that I didn’t just love him romantically, he’d also become my best friend, and not speaking to him was painful. There was an aching, empty feeling in my body that I couldn’t seem to shake.
“Have you talked to him since the wedding?”
“No. I saw him at the Boys and Girls Club a couple of times. He was coaching basketball, but we didn’t talk.”
He’d been there both Monday and Wednesday. I wondered if I’d see him again this afternoon because it was Friday and I knew that the boys had practice. A flutter filled my stomach at the thought that I would. I loved teaching my class but it was really hard for me to concentrate when I could see Cash holding court on the court.
It wasn’t just how ridiculously hot he was in his T-shirt that was taut in all the right places like across his shoulder blades and around his biceps. It was also the way he was with the kids. They idolized him. He somehow managed to treat the entire team the same while also making each player feel seen and individual. I’d never witnessed anything like it. He motivated them, inspired them, and related to them in a way that Coach Carlson didn’t, that was for sure.
Whenever Cash’s practices were over the kids would leave exhausted but with smiles on their faces. They’d be talking to each other, joking around, making plans to hang out later. Whenever Coach Carlson’s practices were over the kids were all grabbing their phones and not looking up from the devices as they exited the gym, not saying a word to one another.
Unfortunately, the camaraderie of the team wasn’t the only difference in things when Cash was coaching. I’d noticed a significant uptick in attendance from the moms on the team whenever Cash was filling in. Just this week there’d been two moms on Monday, Mallory and another woman. Wednesday that number had quadrupled. Today was Friday and I assumed they would be lining the walls.
Nadia, who taught middle school, smiled. “On Wednesday, I heard Mallory saying that she had to go home and change before she brought Tommy to practice and then Kendra, and Rochelle both said they had to do the same thing. It seems Cash’s milkshake brings all the moms to the yard,” she sang and twerked.
I chuckled despite the sinking feeling I had in my stomach. I got that feeling whenever I watched the way all the moms flirted with Cash.
“Okay, I have to ask, what’s going on between you two?” Skylar sat on a bale of hay and took a swig out of her water bottle. “I see you guys at the bar and it’s obvious that there is something there.”
Skylar worked part-time at Southern Comfort with Cash. I’d actually been a little worried when she first started that the two of them might hook up, but my concerns were quickly put to rest the first time I saw the way Skylar’s face lit up when Hank walked into a room.
And her feelings, unlike mine for Cash, were definitely requited. Since she moved to town, I’d seen a change in my silent, brooding oldest brother. He smiled more. Talked more. I still didn’t have a close relationship with him, but I hoped that maybe he’d be more open to it now that he didn’t seem so closed off.
“Thank you!” Ashley joined her sister on the hay. “Inquiring minds need to know.”
Skylar and Ashley had only recently moved to Firefly and were the only two that weren’t up to speed in the group, so I quickly and quietly filled them in on the saga that was Cash and I. I told them everything about how I felt, and that I was a virgin. Skylar was easy to talk to and going to be my sister-in-law soon which would make Ashly family by proxy. I also explained that I had no clue what happened when he took me home after Billy and Reagan’s wedding, what I’d said or what I’d done. And that I hadn’t spoken to him since.
“Is that why you haven’t been coming into the bar?” Skylar asked.
