Chapter 2
Chapter Two
LANDEN
“Why’re you naked?” Tripp asks once I’m settled into the passenger’s seat of his truck.
“Yeah, it ain’t your birthday,” Wilder taunts from the back seat.
Of course he’d bring him to witness my humiliation. I sent my younger brother a 911 emergency text to come pick me up in town. Since the family ranch is a good fifteen minutes from Sugarland Creek, I hid in the stairwell of an apartment building and cupped my junk while I waited for him.
Once I’m buckled in, I throw my middle finger over my shoulder at my older brother.
Yep, I’m the middle child of five. Technically speaking, Wilder and Waylon are twins, so they’re both the oldest. Tripp’s two years younger than me and our sister, Noah, is two years younger than him.
At least she’s not here to bask in the glory of my embarrassment.
Tripp chuckles as he drives us onto the street.
“Did you bring me some clothes?” I ask.
“We grabbed basketball shorts and a T-shirt because I didn’t know what classified as spare clothes,” Tripp explains.
I shrug. Good enough for me.
Wilder tosses them to me and then leans over the back of the bench seat with his arms folded as if he doesn’t want to miss the show.
I slide the shorts on first, which are too tight and not concealing a damn thing, but since I have no room to complain, I keep my mouth shut.
Next, I grab the white shirt and bark out a laugh when I see the words Two-Seater with two black arrows.
One pointing up toward my face and the other pointing down toward my dick.
“Where the hell did ya find this?” I ask, putting it on.
“In your closet,” Wilder says.
Hmm. Don’t remember this shirt.
Not surprised, though, because my friends and I often borrow each other’s clothes when we need fresh ones after a night out. I probably crashed at a friend’s house and then stole it the next morning.
“So…are ya gonna tell us what happened to your clothes?” Tripp asks.
Glancing over at his shit-eating grin, I know he won’t drop it until I do.
“I met some chick last night at the Twisted Bull. She took me to her apartment, and when I woke up this mornin’, she was gone. Along with my clothes and boots.”
The Twisted Bull is the most popular bar in town. It has a full dance floor and features a mechanical bull where drunken idiots try to stay on it for eight seconds. My brothers and I have done it numerous times, all while mostly shitfaced.
“Guess she was hopin’ it’d force you to stay.” Wilder laughs.
“Yeah, maybe she was gettin’ y’all some coffee or something,” Tripp adds.
“I waited twenty minutes for y’all to get here and didn’t see her car pull in, so very doubtful. I think she just wanted to be a terror.”
“Maybe it’s payback for not satisfyin’ her.” Wilder smacks my shoulder. “Need your older brother to give ya some tips? I’ve got a wicked tongue trick.” He sticks his out, then flicks it up and down as he flashes his piercing. “Or did you get whiskey dick?”
Glaring back at Wilder, I’m tempted to yank his barbell right out.
“Absolutely the fuck not. We had a great time.”
“What’s her name?” Tripp asks.
“Um…Tessa.” I swallow hard. “Or maybe…Jessa?”
“I bet he called her by the wrong name and she got even by stealin’ his clothes,” Wilder muses.
“That’s why I don’t say their names. That’s an amateur move. You call ’em baby, sweetheart, darlin’. Anything but their names.”
Tripp snorts. “Classy.”
“What? It was consensual. She liked it—no, loved it. Pretty sure her neighbors were poundin’ on her walls because she was so loud.”
“Ah, see…when they’re that loud, they’re fakin’ it,” Wilder says.
“How would you know?” I ask.
“Because when a woman is in the middle of an intense orgasm, she’s too out of breath to scream.
If they’re screamin’ that much, they’re tryna get it over with so they can hide in the bathroom and get themselves off instead.
” He flashes his infamous know-it-all smile. “Or in your case, plottin’ revenge.”
“It was before that, thank you very much. When my head was between her thighs and she was shakin’ all around me. She was definitely not fakin’ it.”
Tripp chuckles. “According to a recent study, up to eighty percent of women admit to fakin’ it with their partner.”
“What the fuck?” I narrow my eyes. “You’re readin’ sex articles now?”
“Noah and Magnolia were talkin’ about it, and I overheard,” he admits.
I smile to myself because the poor bastard is obsessed with our sister’s best friend. He just won’t admit it.
“Whatever. Even if she faked it—which I’m not sayin’ she did—that’s no excuse to steal my goddamn clothes,” I say. “Oh, did you bring me some boots?”
“Yeah, your work ones,” Wilder says, pulling them up from the back seat floor.
“Thanks. Noah asked me to help her at the stables this mornin’ since you two jerk-offs ain’t workin’ today.” I slide on my boots and realize how ridiculous I look wearing them with basketball shorts.
“And I’m gonna enjoy every minute of it,” Wilder gloats. “Tripp and I are gonna fuck shit up at the festival tonight.”
Tripp furrows his brows, and I laugh to myself. I’ve never seen Tripp fuck anything up. He’s too careful and guarded to do that.
“I’ll be done by six, so don’t leave without me,” I tell them. “Is Waylon going?”
“I think he has a date tonight,” Wilder replies. “But who knows, he’ll probably chicken out like last time and cancel it last minute.”
Waylon tends to do that. He goes out of his way to ask out a girl and then gets too anxious to follow through with it. Not sure why. He’s good-looking and knows how to have fun.
He just gets too into his head.
“Well, either way, we’re gonna have a blast.” I smirk.
“Don’t you ever learn your lesson?” Tripp taunts, glancing at me with a frown. “Maybe don’t go home with a chick every weekend and you wouldn’t risk losin’ your clothes.”
“I don’t…” I argue. “Sometimes they come home with me.”
Tripp rolls his eyes and Wilder laughs.
I smack Tripp’s shoulder. “Oh c’mon. You can have fun and have a beer or two. Wilder said y’all are gonna fuck shit up.”
“Not if I gotta drive you drunken idiots home,” he counters.
Tripp’s our DD ninety-nine percent of the time, but he’s a good sport about it.
When we arrive at our family house on the ranch, the three of us jump out of Tripp’s truck and instead of getting in my own, I opt for my dirt bike.
It’s way more fun.
“See y’all later!” I shout over the engine before I slowly release the clutch and rev it into first.
By the time I get to the boarding stables, Noah’s outside with Trey and Ruby—two of our ranch hands who work with her.
“Landen! Turn that off!” Noah shouts as I approach.
“What? You wanted me here!” I park and turn off the bike.
“You know that spooks the horses.” She scowls, folding her arms, and then lowers her glare to my outfit. “What the hell are you wearin’?”
I glance down and laugh. “Don’t ask. What do you need me for anyhow? You got your two lackeys here.”
“Hey!” Trey and Ruby both scowl.
Noah stands in front of me. “Ellie’s a new barrel racing client of mine and Ranger is her quarter horse. I want your thoughts on how they do, so I figured you should meet ’em.”
Go figure she’d con me here so I can’t say no to her face.
“It’s prime breedin’ season,” I remind her. “I’m not gonna have a ton of extra time for that.”
After high school, I became the breeding operations manager and summer is my busiest time. Even if it were off-season, I stay busy taking care of the stallions and booking mares for the following year.
“She’ll be here when she’s not travelin’.
She wants to be good enough to qualify for finals and needs all the help we can give her.
C’mon, we made a good sister-brother team last year.
” She gives me her best puppy dog eyes, and dammit, she knows it works on me.
Especially when it comes to something I’m already passionate about.
I’m not as good of a trainer as Noah—hell, no one in the state is—but I have a good eye for recognizing issues and giving ideas on how to improve.
Horses respond well to her, which means she’s always booked solid.
I’m more of an observer who watches and makes suggestions so she doesn’t have to spend as much time researching and instead have more time working the horse.
“So you’re sayin’ you need me?” I taunt.
“Don’t be arrogant.” She gives me a little shove. “She’s really good, but the competition from the more experienced riders is gonna blow her away, so it’s all hands on deck to help her advance.”
I roll my eyes when she pierces me with a pleading gaze. Leave it to my little sister to add to my already full workload.
“Fine,” I grind out between my teeth. “But only when it works for my schedule.”
“Deal!” She smiles victoriously.
“And you owe me,” I add.
She frowns. “Like what?”
I shrug. “Whatever I want whenever I think of something.”
“Yeah, yeah. We’ll see.”
“You meet Ayden’s girlfriend when she was here?” Ruby asks while we wait.
“No.” Didn’t even know he had one. “Who is she?”
“Her name’s Laney. They were high school sweethearts ten years ago and she just randomly showed up and told him he had a nine-year-old daughter,” she informs me.
My jaw drops because that’s the last thing I expected.
Ayden’s the boarding stables manager and only three years older than me. I couldn’t imagine having a child right now or finding out I had one I didn’t even know existed.
Honestly, that’s probably my worst nightmare.
“That’s wild. How’s he handlin’ it?”
“As good as he can, I guess. He’s plannin’ to take a trip to Texas in a few weeks to meet the daughter.”
“So is the ex-girlfriend hot?” I waggle my brows and Trey snorts.
“I wasn’t here last weekend to meet her in person, but I saw photos, and yeah, she’s beautiful,” Ruby says. “Way out of your league, though.”