CHAPTER 11
Maxie
I stood at the kitchen sink, doing my best to disappear into the cabinets. Normally no one talked to me during mealtimes. They got their food, ate it, and left. I’d already been so tightly strung from whatever Shep had been doing just before everyone came in that when Tate had given his impromptu business lecture I’d been tempted to run away. Worse still was that my new bosses hadn’t left. They were staying for lunch and I could feel their eyes on me. They weren’t letting me disappear.
“Are you going to sit down and eat, Maxine?” Arlo’s voice called out over everyone else’s conversations, his tone hard.
My face was on fire when I glanced back at him and shook my head.
“I already ate.”
He stood up from the table and picked up an extra plate. Filling it, he didn’t seem to care that the table had gone silent. Walking over to me, he put the plate in my clammy hands and then grabbed my shoulders. Steering me over to the table, he pushed me down in a chair between Shep and Rhett. “
Liar.”
My palms burned as I dug my nails in deep. Mortification stained my entire body deep red and I couldn’t imagine taking a single bite of the food without choking on it. My mouth was a desert and my tongue was a lump of meat cooking in the sun.
West broke the silent spell that had fallen over the table.
“Well, shit, Maxie. What were you waiting on?”
I glanced up and saw that they were all staring at me. My stomach twisted and I thought I might throw up but Rhett put his hand over mine under the table and laughed easily.
“Having to watch a tableful of men scarf down their lunch isn’t exactly appetizing, huh? I get it. The first time I watched Tate eat I thought someone was pranking me.” Rhett shuddered. “It was like watching a giant squirrel with anxiety. The way he just kept shoving shit in his mouth… I still get nightmares about it.”
And that quickly, the conversation turned away from me and the awkwardness vanished for everyone else. Not for me, though. I was still crawling on the inside but at least no one was watching me.
Rhett leaned closer to me and spoke in a low voice that no one else heard.
“Trade you my roll for your chicken leg?”
I jerked my head in his direction, unsure if I’d heard him right. Was he asking me to trade food like we were sitting around a school lunchroom? Sure enough, he was holding out his roll under the table with a serious look on his face. Something about it broke through the tightness in my chest and I laughed. It was probably closer to a giggle but I wasn’t sure I was comfortable admitting he’d made me giggle.
His eyes lit up as he watched me.
“Come on, Maxine. I’ll give you my roll and take over a ranch chore you hate.”
I bit my lip and looked at the platter on the table still halfway full of chicken. I couldn’t help the smile that slid over my face. It felt like slipping on a new version of my favorite shirt, the size and material were the exact same but it didn’t sit with the same familiarity. How often had I genuinely smiled in the last few years? Not often if my smile felt foreign on my lips.
“Are you going to leave me hanging, sweetheart?”
I glanced around the table and saw that no one was paying any attention to us. Quietly slipping my chicken leg off the plate, I held it out to him under the table and gasped when he yanked both his roll and my chicken away.
“Sucker.” He took a big bite out of the chicken and grinned at me.
It was so stupid and silly but I was struggling so hard to not laugh that I snorted. My eyes went huge and I could feel a rare attack of laughter coming on but I choked it down when I felt everyone staring at me. I kept my face down and cleared my throat.
“Sorry. Allergies.”
“Bless you.” Shep sounded like he was going through his own struggle to not laugh and it made it even harder for me to keep myself together.
I didn’t let loose in front of my brothers. Or anyone. The idea of erupting into a fit of giggles in front of everyone at the table was so horrible that I decided I had to escape before I did. I pretended to see something out of the window behind Arlo and stood up.
“Jolene must need something. I’ll go see what it is and clean up when y’all are done.”
Tate looked out the same window I had and raised his eyebrows.
“Are you and Jolene sharing thoughts now?”
I nodded without paying any attention to what he said and got out of there as fast as possible. I barely made it out the front door before a strange sounding bubble of laughter erupted out of me. It had me doubled over, clutching my sides, with tears leaking down my cheeks. I didn’t even know what I was laughing at anymore but the sensation made my head buzz. I covered my mouth with my hand to try and stop it but it was like the dam had burst and I couldn’t stop.
I probably looked insane as I made my way to the barn because I was fighting the laughter but giggles kept breaking free. My face and abs hurt from all the usage.
“Holy shit.”
I jumped at the sound of Jolene’s voice. My laughter turned into hiccups and I couldn’t do anything more than stand in the entrance to the barn and wonder exactly when I’d lost my mind.
“Are you…giggling?” Jolene had been a friend of my mothers and was one of the best riders I’d ever known. She was a championship rider but she was even better at breaking wild horses so we could save them instead of allowing the government to kill them. She was intense, to say the least. She was also one of the only people I felt close to comfortable with because she’d been around until the end with my mom. She knew things that no one else alive did.
I tried to hold my breath to stop hiccupping but it was no use.
“I don’t giggle.”
She stared at me for a few more seconds and I felt like a frog on her exam table.
“Uh-huh.”
I looked over my shoulder at the house and blew out a short burst of air.
“I was just laughing. It was nothing. Do you need any help?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be at the new ranch? Why are you here, trying to help me?” She jerked her head towards Bob’s stall. “When are you taking that asshole to the new ranch and leaving him there?”
Bob responded like he knew she was talking about him, throwing his head back and chomping his teeth at her. I pressed my lips together, determined to stave off any more laughter. But then Bob lifted his tail and let out the loudest fart I’d ever heard.
Jolene stared at me with wide eyes as I erupted in laughter again. I couldn’t help it, though. It was like the rubber bands holding me together had finally snapped.
“It was only a matter of time before you snapped, kid. Just don’t murder anyone and we’ll be good.” Jolene shook her head at me but there was a smile playing at her lips. “I guess you could murder someone if you really wanted to. Who am I to tell you what to do?”