“I call dibs,” Lucas announced from the tack room, where he’d just disappeared with Canyon’s saddle.
“You call dibs without knowing who it is?”
“Eh, better safe than sorry.” You could practically hear him shrug through the wall. “If I’ve already hooked up with her, the dibs lapses. If she’s from around here and I haven’t hooked up with her yet, she’s probably a drag anyway, but I got dibs just in case she isn’t. And if she’s new, she has to be hot to play Annie, so I got dibs.”
“That’s messed up.” I rolled my eyes and turned to Tornado, who huffed and shook his head. Clearly the horse agreed with me. “He’s messed up,” I repeated, voice lowered as I led him out of the stables.
“What’s messed up is that I gave you four years to pull Lindsey,” he called out. “I never invoked dibs. And now she’s off to sing on a cruise ship and neither of us got in her pants.”
“Lucas, Lindsey shot you down on your first day here.” I wasn’t going to point out that Lindsey was also on a cruise ship with her girlfriend who she’d been with since sophomore year in high school. He’d never had a chance.
“Send me a picture.”
“Not happening.”
Once outside, I mounted Tornado and directed him toward Bravetown’s Main Street. It had been a while since I’d taken him out this early in the day. He was the calmest horse I’d ever encountered but his ears still twitched with the break in routine.
Between all the useless yapping, Lucas had indirectly said something true though. I’d known Lindsey for years even before doing the show, this town was small, and there weren’t that many candidates to replace her. Certainly not with the short notice Lindsey had gotten to make her way down to Florida for her onboarding. Maybe Tornado had every right to be twitchy.
We turned the corner to the large town square at the end of Main Street, where the artificial mesa formation jutted high into the sky behind the bank and the town hall– and I feltit. The same way you feel a horse about to buck in the way its shoulders shift and its muscles tense. The way the birds go into a frenzy before a thunderstorm. The split second of thick air and anticipation before a catastrophe.
“… your picture on the website,” Renee was saying, fixing her red hair into her signature messy bun atop her head.
“Full costume, I’m assuming,” Esra replied. I’d half-expected her to have run off already. I hadn’t seen her at all since her on-stage introduction on Tuesday in a very inappropriate and very see-through shirt, and Sanny had texted me last night to ask if I’d heard from her. All I could tell him was that there was a carton of almond milk with her name on it in the fridge.
“Yep. Full makeup, costume, everything. We’ll take a few group shots too.”
“Like a whole photoshoot? That sounds so cool. You know, I’ve seen those over-the-top shoots onTop Modelwith the sets and the costumes, but I never really thought I’d be in one.” Esra grinned and clapped her hands together.
The staff pictures werenot Top Model. Probably no point in explaining that to a girl in skin-tight daisy-print leggings and a T-shirt that said “If you’re rich, I’m single”.The harness clipped around her thighs and waist didn’t make that outfit any less ridiculous. It just drove home the point that she had taken over from Lindsey.
“Shit,” I muttered. We were still two buildings away, but Tornado neighed his agreement loud enough to draw attention.
“Ah, here we go,” Renee said, turning to fully face me.
Esra’s gaze roamed over the horse, the corners of her mouth straightening out, posture clenching. Double shit. That wasn’t the look of the kind of rich girl who had gotten private horseback riding lessons all her life.
I dismounted a couple feet away from the two women. “Good morning, Renee. Esra.”
Esra’s chin jerked in my direction, eyes reluctantlytearing off Tornado and narrowing on me. “What areyoudoing here?”
“Oh good, you two already know each other.” Renee smiled. “Noah plays Ace Ryder. The bandit that kidnaps Annie. Noah, Esra will be our Annie this year.”
“So I have to share a horse withhim?”
“Yep.”
The chain of expletives running through my mind only remained unspoken because Renee started walking up the steps to the bank building. Meanwhile Esra was back to staring at Tornado like he might eat her. I wouldn’t even blame him.
Leaving Tornado tied to the hitching post by the building, I followed Renee to the bank.
“Noah, I’ve already talked Esra through the opening of the show on the way over. Ace and the bandits causing chaos on Main Street, some of the stunts, all the townspeople fleeing into the buildings. How Annie and her father run into the bank before you and the boys follow. Then you all run out with the money and Annie as a hostage. We’ll do some full runs with everyone next week. For now, I just need the two of you to get the kidnapping right. Esra is two inches shorter than Lindsey, so you’ll have to adjust, too.”
I nodded but turned to Esra. “Do you know how to ride a horse?”
“Nope.”
“Seriously, Renee?”
