“Blake, do you enjoy wasting expensive horse feed?” The top name on my shit list thundered at me, bringing on my millionth eyeroll for the day.
Dropping my head, I asked for divine intervention.
“Please God, just a lightning bolt, maybe the earth could open up and suck him down into the pits of hell,” I muttered, before turning around and facing the enemy.
“Ah Fenixx, or should I call you the annoying triplet I would love to peel the skin from his body and boil what’s left?” I drawled, in my best, don’t give a crap voice.
“Wh—what?” he stammered, looking at me with shock.
“You have been storming around here like a man with a baton and a taser, or have you not noticed that every employee of the Triple H is conspicuously absent every time you are around today?”
“You’re not,” he grumbled, having the decency to look contrite.
“That is because they know you aren’t allowed to yell at me, or you will get your arse beaten by your brother. You are, however, getting on my last nerve, so spit out whatever it is that is bothering you. Or I will tell Hendrixx you tripped me over and caused this—” leaning over, I pulled up my pant legs and revealed a bruised knee and a small laceration, caused by a bump into a fence and a nail head sticking out too far. Still, Hendrixx didn’t have to know that.
“You wouldn’t?” Fenixx exclaimed hotly, looking at with me disbelief and wariness.
“Yeah, you would,” he conceded, answering his own question.
“Yes, I would, now out with it, number 3. What has crawled up your arse and taken up residence?”
“You sound like Mallory,” he grumbled, kicking his feet along the gravel, his head down, so he missed the murderous look I shot his way.
“I will let that pass and put it down to you being temporarily insane, but from now on, if you mention her and me in the same sentence again, it will be weeks before you will have use of your block and tackle, get me?”
Fenixx covered his crotch with his hand, his face paling slightly. “Yep, I accept that,” he quickly agreed.
“Okay, what is wrong?” I asked again this time my voice softer.
Fenixx looked out over the green grass of the paddocks behind us, his eyes taking on a faraway sheen. It wasn’t often Fenixx had a problem and certainly not one that made him act out in anger. I got the feeling it had more to do with a female than it did with his dad’s treachery.
I stood there patiently and waited for him to gather in his head what he wanted to say, Fenixx was a sensitive soul, and it took a lot of trust in the other person for him to open up. We had that, when I was a kid, Fenixx was my teacher of all things fun like climbing trees, driving paddock cars, and general mischief. I missed getting into trouble with him now, at least then I could blame someone else rather than it all falling on my head.
“She is going out on a date with a bloke tonight,” he seethed—his out of the blue cryptic comment baffling me.
“Who is?” Obviously, Hottie 3 had a lady interest, which in itself was interesting. For as long as I knew him, Fenixx didn’t go out with girls, at least not since he finished high school.
“Farron,” he announced, and for just a minute, I was confused, then it dawned on me where I knew that name.
“Farron? As in the Farron from the pizza place in Cattle Ridge?”
“That would be the one,” he confirmed, nodding his head, a cute blush creeping over his cheeks, making his face all ruddy and adorable.
“Oooh, Fenixx and Farron sitting in a tree K. I. S. S. I. N. G,” I singsonged, ducking out of his reach when he lunged for me.
Holding up my hands in front of me, I suppressed my laugh to a giggle. “Okay, I am sorry, I couldn’t resist,” I apologised, sort of meaning it.
“Try, this is serious Blake, what am I going to do?”
“Have you asked her out?”
“No!”
“Okay, does she know that you are interested?” I tried again.
“Absolutely not, though me going there every night for pizza might be giving her a clue that I either like her, her pizza or am in line for stalker of the year,” he allowed grudgingly.
Pursing my lips, I wriggled my nose back and forth in serious thought, deciding mentally if I should sympathise with him or hit him with a plank of wood.
“Then, how pray tell Fenixx, does she know that you like her if you haven’t given her that impression, other than that you are indeed a stalker? Every night Fenixx? Seriously?” I swear the Hott men can be so dense. It takes a near-death experience or a four-year festering need for revenge before they grow a pair and admit their love.
“Good gravy Fenixx, just tell her. She seems like a nice lady, from what I see when I go in and pick up my order.” It was true I didn’t know Farron too personally, we have spoken, but our conversations are always about current events and the weather, a favourite topic for any rural person.
“She is great, really nice. She has this sweet laugh, and when she smiles, her whole face lights up, ya know like yours does when you look at Hendrixx.”
Smiling like a loon, I nodded my head in agreement. “Well, he does give me good reasons to smile,” I replied, winking at him, then laughing when he mimicked throwing up.
“Seriously, you haven’t had a conversation with her?”
“Other than ordering my pizza not really, although I do leave a hundred dollar tip in her tip jar she has on the counter,” Fenixx admitted, with a sheepish smile.
Tipping in Australia is a relatively new concept, the majority of businesses didn’t practice the widely American conception, but I had heard of it happening here occasionally.
“You put
