Free Taking The Reins (The Rosewoods Book 1) by Katrina Abbott

know?”
    I nodded, getting the feeling if I opened my mouth, she’d just talk over me anyway.
    “And the kissing,” she said, fluttering her lashes, her fingers rising to touch her lips. My face heated up as I guiltily remembered hearing them making out, but she didn’t seem to notice and went on. “He is such a good kisser. I think I may have missed that more than anything else. Although, the talking was nice. Not that we talked about much of anything.” She giggled sheepishly. “But hearing his voice first hand while he was touching me...” she trailed off, all swoony.
    “So, you’re breaking up then?” I asked, joking.
    She rolled her eyes. “Of course. I’m pretty much done with him; you can have him next.”
    I laughed, but didn’t say anything. I mean, Dave sounded perfect; nice and good-smelling and of course, the good kisser part, but secretly, I was still thinking about Will.
    “And, the best part? I’m going to get to work with him through my CSA—he’s doing school liaison, too. How lucky is that?”
    I wasn’t sure luck had much to do with it, but I was happy for her and hoped that if I ever got a boyfriend, that she’d be happy for me if we got extra opportunities to be together.
    “Oh no!” she said suddenly. “Wait! Your guy. I completely forgot to ask about him.” It was like she’d been reading my mind, or maybe I had a neon sign on my face or something.
    But compared to her real relationship, my little flirtation with Will seemed stupid and insignificant now, at least out loud. I waved her off. “It’s no big deal. He was just a cute guy who helped me with my luggage, that’s all. I’m sure it was nothing.” Because it was going to amount to nothing, if my past history with guys was any sort of indicator. But he had smelled good, and his hair looked soft and I would have loved to have found out if he was a good kisser, too.
    She gave me a look. “What? What’s going on with you?”
    I avoided her eyes, smoothing out my bedspread over my legs and picking at the corner of the textbook I’d put down when she’d burst into the room. “Nothing.”
    “What happened at the stables? You seem...I don’t know, different.”
    I told her about the equestrian team conflict, but when I was done, she frowned at me.
    “What?” I asked.
    “That’s not it,” she said. “Something...you’re unsettled or something.”
    Even though I’d been thinking about Will, Emmie made me think about Brady back at the stables and how he’d made me feel exactly that: unsettled. “It’s nothing.”
    Emmie got up off her bed and sat down on mine, digging her legs under the covers and poking me with her toes. “It’s not nothing. I’m very intuitive and I’m never wrong.” She studied my face, making me blush under her scrutiny.
    “Was there a boy there?”
    My face got even hotter.
    “Well that answers it,” she declared with a snort, nudging me with her foot again. Her eyes went suddenly wide. “Wait. It was him, wasn’t it? The trunk mover! What happened?”
    I knew I wasn’t getting away from the interrogation, so I figured best to just tell her and get it over with.
    “No. It wasn’t him.  It was the stable guy. Brady.” I shrugged. “We’re friends, I guess. We met last night when I went out to hang out with the horses. But it’s nothing.” I thought about him standing so close to me and how it had almost felt like he’d been about to kiss me. But it had to have been just my imagination, and I wasn’t about to make myself look like an idiot by saying something about it to Emmie.
    She stared at me and blinked three times. “Brady?”
    “Yes, Brady.” Dread washed over me at her expression. She must have thought I was into him or something. “But of course he’s staff and obviously older; it’s not like that . We’re just friends. He said he was going to talk to the coach about getting me on the team and getting my community service assignment changed. And I just met