He takes my hand when I’m next to him and holds it up to the horse. I begin to resist, pulling my hand back, but he stops me. He keeps his voice low. “Do you trust me?”
I take a second to think about it. Do I? I guess I don’t imagine he would allow a horse to bite me. I nod, then relax my arm again. He guides it the rest of the way to the horse’s face until my palm is flat against the top of its muzzle. I smile and let out a shocked squeal, because I can’t believe I’m touching a horse.
The horse, startled by my squeal, raises his head up and snorts. I stumble backward and almost fall, but Oliver catches me.
“You’re fine,” he says, laughing. “You’re safe.”
With his arm still around my waist, he moves me back over to the safety of the far wall. The horse goes back to minding its own business, no longer interested in seeing what we’re doing. Oliver’s hand stays on my hip. I wonder if it’s because he’s forgotten that it’s there. Maybe he thinks I’m still scared.
Frank clears his throat. “Any questions for me?”
“How does this work?” I ask. “Do you need special permission to do carriage rides at the fair?”
He shakes his head. “I already have all of that taken care of. We do pony rides for the kids every year. I know the right people to talk to about doing a carriage ride. Shouldn’t be a problem. We’ve done it before.”
“Great,” I say. “What do you need from me, then? Other than a deposit.”
“Just the day and time you want these two guys there,” he says of the two white—or gray—stallions.
I give him the details, and then Oliver and I head back to his truck. Both of our phones buzz at the same time when we get inside, the sound amplified by the cupholders they’re in. I exchange a look with him, and then we pick up our phones to see who is texting us.
“Tina,” I say.
“Ryan,” he says.
They must be together. I read the text I got from Tina.
Tina
Ryan and I are going up to his mom’s cabin next weekend. Do you and Oliver want to come with us? It would be so much fun to spend the weekend, just the four of us!
I look up at Oliver. “Did you just get an invite to spend a weekend at a cabin with Tina and Ryan?”
He nods. He puts his phone back down in the cupholder. “What should we say?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. ‘Sorry, we’re busy’?”
“It might not be so bad to go,” he says. “It’s just for the weekend. Could be fun.”
I bite my lip, thinking about it. “That’s a whole weekend of having to pretend to be in a relationship. You don’t think that’s a bit much? That, and I don’t want you to feel like you have to spend the whole weekend with me. You can say no if you want to.”
He frowns. “Why wouldn’t I want to spend the weekend with you?”
“I just thought you might have better things to do than hold my hand all weekend.” I say this with a roll of my eyes and a half-hearted laugh.
He smirks. “I sure hope I’ll get to do more than just hold your hand.”
I almost choke. “Oliver. You can’t say things like that.”
He leans back in his seat and smiles. “Why not?”
There’s something about the way he looks at me that makes my body feel like it’s on fire. I’m sure my face is turning red. I hope that it’s dark enough in the truck that he can’t tell. “Because?—”
Before I can continue, Frank taps on the window. He appears just in time, saving me from having to answer. I roll down the window to see what he wants.
“I forgot to give you this contract to sign,” Frank says. He holds up a piece of paper, then passes it to me through the window. “Mostly liability stuff,” he explains. “But it also protects you in case there’s any issues on my end.”
I look over the contract, which seems pretty standard and straightforward, but my mind is on what Oliver just said. I can’t believe he would imply that we might take this fake relationship a step further. My mind flashes to us in a room together in a secluded cabin, him rolling on top of me and… my face flushes. Or maybe that’s not what he means at all. I know that he’s just messing with me, but that doesn’t matter. Now he expects me to tell him why he can’t say things like that, and if I tell him that it’s because I’m not going to have sex with someone I’m only fake-dating, I’ll never live to hear the end of it when he laughs at me and says he only meant a little kissing like we’ve already done a few times.
