The One Who Loves You (Tickled Pink #1)(35)

“No,” Teague replies.

“Do you milk them?”

“Yes.”

She claps. “Oh, fun! For soap?”

“Sometimes.”

“Is your field organic?”

I grab Tavi’s arm before she can also ask if he asks permission from the goats before he milks them. Why am I picturing Teague murmuring, Okay if I grab you here, Fluffy? I promise it’ll make you feel better, and tugging at a goat tit, and why is that somehow both hot and adorable? And why am I also on the verge of asking if those were goat cheese curds and also if he could fry a few more for me? “We need to go.”

Oh no.

Oh no no no.

That’s not Tavi’s arm I’m grabbing.

This arm is thick and beefy and causing an irrational reaction in my body.

Hot flash? Check.

Tightening nipples? Check.

Suddenly achy clit? Double check.

It’s that achy.

Belatedly, I snatch my hand away. “Excuse me, Mr. Miller. My sister and I are lost, and—”

He grips me by the shoulders and applies pressure to my right side, and the next thing I know, I’m facing the opposite direction. “Three-quarters of a mile straight,” he says in my ear, his breath tickling my neck.

My skin erupts in shivers from my scalp to the soles of my feet and everywhere in between. “To the motel?” Uh-oh. I’ve become breathless, flirty Phoebe.

“To the school.”

“We don’t move in until tomorrow. I picked the principal’s office for my bedroom.”

Tavi stifles a titter of laughter. “She’s a naughty, naughty girl.”

Teague shoves.

My feet engage, and suddenly Tavi’s arm is looped through mine while Pebbles whines, like she, too, wants to stay and make a fool of herself in front of the fishing lumberjack.

“Thank you, Teague,” Tavi calls over her shoulder. “Who knew it was so easy to get lost in such a small town?”

“We’re not lost,” I hiss at her.

She laughs again. “I know. You totally wanted to see him on purpose.”

“I did not.”

“Your Natalia did.”

“My what?”

“Your Natalia. I just named your vagina. Mine’s Scarlett.”

“If yours is that red, you should probably see your gynecologist.”

She laughs again, and the big green jealousy monster—let’s call him Dick—rears his head.

I don’t laugh.

I don’t laugh.

I don’t laugh at work. When I laugh in social situations, it’s forced, because it’s what’s expected, but the jokes are never funny. I don’t laugh with my family, five minutes ago being the exception.

Tavi’s all superficial, getting paid ridiculous sums of money to take pictures and videos with products sent to her from around the world, with no clear purpose in her life, always bouncing place to place, relying on her trust fund instead of making something of herself, because this influencer thing will dry up when she gets a few wrinkles, but she laughs.

I want that. I want to laugh. I want to be happy. I want—

I just want.

All the money in the world, the perfect job, the enviable social life, and I still want.

That’s probably not the lesson Gigi wanted me to learn here, but it’s what I’ve got.





Chapter 11


Teague


There are very few days when I regret moving to a little town in the Northwoods of Wisconsin to live in a tree.

Today is one of them.

It’s been three days since I last saw Phoebe Lightly.

Three days since I heard Phoebe Lightly discussing an ex-boyfriend and his oral skills.

Snarling at her sister for asking me out.

Admitting to feeling lost in her life.

Being Phoebe Lightly.

Intruding on the peace and solitude of my fishing, my goat milking, my hiking, and my bingeing of Queer Eye with my kid by living rent-free in my head twenty-four seven. There’s literally nothing that doesn’t make me think about Phoebe Lightly and the way she looked at me over cheese curds.

Jesus.

Do I even hear myself right now?

Cheese curds are good, but I’m fantasizing about Phoebe Lightly and cheese curds.

And right now, that fantasy is front and center, in the flesh, in front of me.

Kind of.

All I had to do was walk past the black Honda Pilot sitting at the curb in front of the old high school on my way to drop off Bridget’s book that she left at my place last night, and my streak of thinking about her without having to see her would’ve continued.

But did I?

No.

And now I’m sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong, knocking at the back window of the SUV, because my name is Teague Miller, and I have a type.

Thought I got over this twenty damn years ago.

Phoebe jumps, reaches for the door, frowns at it, and finally, after an eternity in which I could’ve made it the three blocks to Shiloh’s house and back, pops the door open. “What?”

She’s in a dress today, but it’s not a power suit. It’s a striped blue sundress that she’s topped with a white cardigan, and it makes her look less like a bulldozing executive in training and more like the girl next door, especially with her hair in that simple low ponytail again.