The One Who Loves You (Tickled Pink #1)(67)

Me?

I’m a one-woman cheering section in my head right now.

My sister has 100 percent of my support in whatever she needs to do to this man’s monkey wrench to get us into hot water.

Quite literally.

“He’s every bit what you see on TV,” Teague calls.

“Shut up, Miller,” Willie Wayne snaps.

“Ignore him,” Jane calls to Tavi and Dylan. “Carry on. We’re not listening in.”

“We are,” Teague replies. “Also, Tavi, you should know that Dylan is competent, full of corny jokes, and booked solid for the next six weeks.”

I whimper.

I do.

“Completely solid?” Tavi’s gaze flits between Dylan and Teague, her lashes and brows combining to make a face I’ve never seen on her before.

I think she’s trying for sexy, but she’s missing the mark, and it’s not hard to guess why.

Six more weeks of cold showers interspersed with the occasional bout of a fix when Gigi finds a good YouTube tutorial that we’re willing to tackle?

That’ll mess with anyone’s flirting game.

Enough of that bullshit. First thing in the morning, I’m heading to Deer Drop for school, but I’m stopping by a store for a stink bomb, a set of Bluetooth speakers for my own special kind of made-up haunting, slime, strobe lights, and fire extinguishers.

I don’t yet know what I’ll do with all of it, but I have every intention of chasing Gigi so far out of Tickled Pink to find help for performing an exorcism that we’ll have time to kidnap Dylan and pay him scads of cash in exchange for hot water.

“I keep pretty busy,” Dylan tells Tavi. “I can probably squeeze—”

“A lemon and make lemonade!” Jane interjects.

“—you in,” Dylan finishes.

“We are fixing the plumbing in the school ourselves,” Gigi declares.

I gasp.

Everything suddenly makes perfect sense.

Gigi’s controlling the hot water in the school.

Was there steam that time that that thing happened that I’ve blocked from my memory? Was she showering in hot water? Is she turning it off when the rest of us get in?

“Relax,” Teague murmurs to me. “You’re on his calendar next week. Saw it myself. Plus, took this long to get the parts in. But Jane threatened things I can’t repeat if he tells you that.”

That doesn’t mean my grandmother hasn’t been adding extra layers of torture.

The worst of it?

She doesn’t even realize just how much torture this is.

Not the living-in-Tickled-Pink part.

But the part where it’s so glaringly obvious that I don’t belong. And I’m starting to want to.

Here.

Not in New York.

Here. Where people ask how you are because they care and not because they’re hoping you’ll expose a chink in your armor. Where they’ll laugh if you fall in the lake but also hand you a towel when you get to shore and maybe even dive into the lake themselves to make you feel not so alone. Where they’ll let you play on their snowshoe baseball team, even if they know it means losing, just to humor an old lady who thinks it’s the path to heaven.

I know the locals are getting something out of us being here. I’ve heard whispers that tourism is up. My grandmother’s money doesn’t hurt. And we’re apparently the most entertainment they’ve had since “the boar incident,” whatever that is.

But even Mr. Grumpy Lumberjack smiles when he sees me. Anya keeps serving me better and better coffee. Jane dropped off a growler of beer with my name on it after my algebra pop quiz. And a woman named Patrice, who apparently used to run the spa, bought my lunch at the little sandwich shop yesterday because “I know you can afford it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not nice to let someone else show they care in the little ways every now and again.”

I don’t believe they’re working an angle.

I think they’re genuinely nice people who appreciate what they have and don’t have to pretend they’re anything they’re not for fear of someone else taking it from them.

Tickled Pink?

It’s eye opening.

And I like it.

I’m not saying I’d sign up to stay forever—who am I to think they’d want to tolerate me forever?—but I like it.

“Excuse me,” Bridget calls over the noise. She rings a cowbell, and everyone cringes and claps their hands over their ears.

Bridget grins. “I can’t say this was the best start our team’s ever had, but I can say we set records for how badly we sucked sawdust tonight.”

The locals mutter to themselves.

“If my children would’ve listened to me about how to hold a bat—”

“Margot, are you the coach here? No? Then sit down.” Bridget points to my mother as though Bridget’s the teacher and my mother is the kindergartner whining about someone else getting a turn with her favorite doll.

I should be horrified that a teenager is talking to my mother that way, but my mother’s incapable of saying anything nice about anyone these days, and it’s grating on my nerves.

Teague half rises. “Bridget.”

There go my nipples. Apparently his authoritative dad voice does it for me too.

Bridget huffs. “She’s not the coach.”