Taking the Leap (River Rain 3)

Wednesday morning, I did not get a coffee text, which, stupid me, made me kick myself for telling Rix we were good, we were great, and he didn’t have to buy me coffee.

Until I was elbow deep in reviewing the applications for the joint assistant we were all going to share before it was decided who she or he would work for directly. But for the now, Judge didn’t need to be on the phone about logos, and Rix didn’t need to be testing Wi-Fi when we’d been tasked to present Hale with the menu of the first programs we were going to roll out under the new masthead.

And Hale was expecting that presentation in a week, and we were still all feeling we needed to carry on Kids and Trails as well as Hale’s Camp Trail Blazer (because Hale told us that was non-negotiable, CTB was there to stay) and add more to that (well, that’s what we’d all been discussing, I didn’t personally feel that way, and from the vibe I was sensing from everyone else, they were feeling the same way, but no one had pinpointed it).

So we needed someone to deal with furniture orders and buying letterhead and things like that so we could actually get down to the business of deciding what services we were going to provide.

I figured this person would eventually be Judge’s assistant, and even though I was never that, I’d worked side by side with him for a long time, so I suspected I knew maybe better than Judge what he’d need, therefore my concentration was deep on the applications.

Until, that was, a pink box thudded on my desk.

I looked from the box to Rix, who had wheeled into my office.

He’d been on his prosthetics yesterday, helping with the move, and I was kinda surprised (and definitely impressed), regardless of how active I knew he was, how much he’d contributed.

I also wondered what went into the decision-making every morning between chair and prosthetics.

My guess?

After yesterday’s activities, his legs needed a break.

“You get first pick before the boys land on those,” he stated.

I shifted my attention to the box, which, upon opening it, I found was unsurprisingly, since it was a bakery box, filled with donuts.

I turned my attention back to him. “Are you going to buy treats every day?”

A slash of a belly-flutter-inducing smile. “Maybe.”

I did not want to pick a donut in front of Rix. It was a thing. A stupid thing. A ludicrous thing. But I had an expensive bridesmaid gown that was size sixteen that mostly fit, and he had, as far as I could tell, not an ounce of fat on him, then there was the fact that he dated tall, slender blondes.

To delay, I asked, “Which one do you want?”

“I already had mine.”

Unhelpful.

I studied my choices.

There was no healthy donut.

There was also no dainty donut.

Though, there were some that were fat and calorie bombs, like the chocolate-covered, custard-filled one that I wanted.

I picked a glazed.

The second I did, he asked, “Seriously?”

“What?” I asked back.

“Glazed?” he returned, sounding disappointed.

“There’s nothing wrong with glazed.”

“I asked your favorite coffee, and you gave me three answers, none of which was, ‘black with a sugar.’ A glazed is the donut version of black with a sugar.”

“There are other donuts I like, I’m just feeling glazed right now,” I retorted.

He stared at me, then he shouted, “Men, donuts!”

And as he predicted, Judge and Kevin came in and landed on that box.

Kevin nabbed the chocolate-covered, custard-filled one, which was a bummer, since I was hoping I could go to the box later and devour it when Rix wasn’t around.

I barely had that thought before Rix’s rich, rough laughter exploded in the room.

Everyone looked at him.

But he was staring at me.

“Glazed, my ass,” he muttered, then he wheeled out.

He’d seen me staring longingly at Kevin biting into my preferred donut.

Fabulous.

Fortunately, the day was filled with interviews and frustrating meetings with the interior designer to select wall décor and brainstorm break areas and storage solutions and layout plans, now that we’d picked the furniture (and none of us were invested much in this, so I knew I wasn’t the only one who found this a sadly necessary evil).

I came home that day to another box.

This one contained a pair of ballet pink, patent leather, pointed toe, four-inch heeled Jimmy Choo slide style pumps with a rhinestone strap spanning the vamp.

They cost a thousand dollars, and it was unlikely I’d wear them twice, but it was highly likely my feet would be in agony before even the ceremony was over.

For reasons that were not a mystery—considering my mother as well as my father—my sister did and said hateful things, she’d done this all her life.

But I did not hate her.

She was my sister.

Though, I was going to hate her wedding day.