Page 19 of Trick or Tease

SAbrINA

F ucker.

Absolute fucker.

He was enjoying fucking with me.

Asshole.

I stomped out of the maze and walked home to shower away the day.

When I got to my bedroom, I paused and looked at myself in the mirror. There was dirt on my cheek. Straw in my hair and pumpkin gut stains on my shirt and jeans.

No wonder he didn’t want to kiss me.

I had seen his world. The gorgeous women with their styled hair and fashionable clothing.

I was not them. I would never be them. He was all big and fancy and I would always be the farm girl.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like my life or was ashamed of it.

I loved my life. I didn’t want to live in the city and wear heels that cost thousands of dollars.

I didn’t want to spend an hour at the salon getting my hair done every week.

But that didn’t stop me from wanting the man that lived in that world.

I was about to get in the shower when I got a text from Lucy. She wanted me to come over and work on more of the decorations. The only reason I was considering the offer was because she promised beer and nachos.

Country girl wasn’t going to reject beer and nachos.

And I was definitely not ashamed of it.

I quickly replied I’d be over in an hour.

I dipped my brush in the white paint and added another layer to my ghost’s ridiculous grin. The thing looked more like a demented snowman than anything scary, but at least it would give people something to laugh at during the hayride.

“Lucy, I think we need more stuff along the dirt road,” I said, setting down my paintbrush and wiping my hands on an old towel. “People are going to be sitting on that hayride for what, ten minutes? Just staring at empty fields?”

Lucy looked up from where she was hot-gluing plastic bones to a wooden sign. “What do you mean?”

“I mean the whole stretch from the main road to the hill house. Right now it’s just nothing. Corn fields and pasture. If we’re charging people for this experience, we need to give them something to look at the whole time. Keep the kids entertained. Involved.”

“You’re right. Billy’s so focused on the house itself and that fake headless horseman idea, but the journey should be part of the show too.”

I grabbed another beer from the cooler and took a long sip, my mind already racing with possibilities. “We could set up scenes along the way. Like little vignettes. Maybe a graveyard scene in that clearing about halfway up? Some more scarecrows in different spots?”

“Ooh, what about those skeleton hands we bought? We could make it look like zombies are trying to claw their way out of the ground.”

“Yes! And remember those motion-activated sound effects Billy ordered? We could hide speakers in the trees.”

Lucy grinned. “This is why I love working with you. Billy gets so caught up in the big picture that he misses the details.”

We had a stack of foam headstones we were putting names on. Wooden cutout signs that needed painting. And so much more. It seemed like one idea led to another and another. The simple corn maze and pumpkin picking was turning into something much bigger. Like a snowball rolling downhill.

“You know that thing you told me not to do?” I blurted out after opening my second beer. “Well it happened.”

“I told you turkey bacon is gross.”

“No, not that. I spent the afternoon in the corn maze. With Garrett.”

I quickly gave her the recap of what didn’t happen.

“So let me get this straight,” Lucy said, not looking up from her werewolf. “He almost kissed you. Again. And then he just walked away. Again.”

“Yep.” I stabbed my brush into the paint with more force than necessary. “Said it wasn’t a good idea and practically ran.”

“What a dick.”

“Right?” I took a long pull from my beer bottle. “I mean, I get it. I’m not exactly his type. But don’t look at me like you want to devour me and then act like I’m radioactive.”

“Sabrina, you do realize the man spent an entire day building scarecrows with you, right? Getting dirty, ruining his fancy clothes, actually having fun for once in his uptight life? He made ghosts and hung spiders. He hates spiders.”

“So?”

“So that’s not exactly the behavior of someone who finds you repulsive.”

“Then why does he keep running away?”

“Maybe because he’s scared.”

“Of what? Me?” I snorted. “I’m about as threatening as a golden retriever.”

“Of this.” Lucy gestured vaguely with her paintbrush. “All of it. You, the farm, staying in one place, actually caring about something real instead of whatever shallow bullshit he’s got going on in the city.”

“When he’s actually working, not thinking about it, he’s…” I trailed off, not sure how to explain it.

“He’s what?”

“He’s the guy I had a crush on in high school. Before he got all corporate and cold. And I know that’s wrong. Bad. I’m falling for someone who’s planning to leave.”

“Look, you don’t have time to worry about this guy. We’re opening up the farm to the public in a few days. We need to get things ready. Worry about getting laid after we shut down in November.”

“You’re right,” I said finally. “I need to focus. But Lucy, I can’t stop thinking about him. And that’s the problem.”

“What do you mean?”

I set down my paintbrush and leaned back against the porch railing. “I mean, I’ve dated guys before. You know that. There was Jake from high school, and that guy from Saratoga Springs I met at the county fair last summer. Even that disaster with Mike from the feed store.”

“Oh God, Mike.” Lucy grimaced. “He had the personality of wet cardboard.”

“Exactly. But here’s the thing with all of them, it was just fine. Nice. Safe. I could take it or leave it when they kissed me. When they touched me. It was like, okay, this is pleasant enough, but I wouldn’t have been devastated if it ended.”

I grabbed my beer and took another sip, trying to organize my thoughts.

“But with Garrett, just standing next to him makes my heart race. When he looks at me, really looks at me, I feel like I might spontaneously combust. And when he almost kissed me on his balcony, and again today in the maze?” I shook my head. “I’ve never felt anything like that before. Ever.”

Lucy had stopped painting entirely and was watching me with a concerned expression. “That sounds like a good thing,” she said carefully.

“Does it? Because it feels terrifying. Like I’m setting myself up for the kind of heartbreak that ruins you for other people. The kind where you spend years comparing every guy to the one who got away. Like the very thing I’ve been doing for the last twelve years. He ruined me.”

Lucy laughed. “Those Hogan boys are hard to resist.”

“And you know what the worst part is? He feels it too. I can see it in his eyes, in the way his breathing changes when we’re close.

But he’s fighting it. He keeps pulling away because he knows exactly what I know—that this is temporary.

He’s going back to his real life, and I’m staying here with mine. ”

“Maybe he would stay,” Lucy offered, though she didn’t sound convinced.

“For what? To run a corn maze and live in a town where the biggest excitement is the annual tractor pull? Lucy, the man drives a car that costs more than most people’s houses. This isn’t his world anymore.”

She didn’t say anything, just kept working on her werewolf.

“And even if by some miracle he did stay, then what? Do I become the girl who gave up her independence for a guy? The one who sits around waiting for him to decide our relationship is worth a shot.”

I was rambling. “Stop it,” I muttered.

She looked up. “What?”

“Me. Done. I am not talking about him. I’m not thinking about him.”

“Okay.”

She was placating me because she knew damn well I wasn’t just going to stop thinking about the asshole. He was under my skin and I couldn’t stop it.

I decided to change the subject. Steer it far away from Garrett.

“Lucy, what do you think about incorporating the whole haunted house legend into the hayride? I mean, we’re already taking people up to see the old Hogan house. Why not play up the ghost story angle?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Well, everyone in town knows the stories about old Samuel Hogan haunting the place, right? What if we created some props around that? Maybe a figure in one of the upstairs windows, or some kind of ghostly apparition near the house?”

“That could be really fun and scary,” Lucy said slowly.

I was getting excited now, my mind racing with possibilities. “We could even do a whole backstory thing. You know, have the tractor driver tell the story on the way up. About how Samuel Hogan died in that house back in the 1800s, and how people still see lights in the windows sometimes.”

“The kids would eat that up,” Lucy agreed. “And it’s not like we’re making anything up. Those stories have been around forever. You just embellished them to scare your classmates.”

I hesitated, suddenly wondering if I was crossing a line. “Do you think it would be weird though? I mean, making fake ghost props of Billy and Garrett’s great-great-grandfather? Is that offensive somehow?”

She looked thoughtful. “You know what? You should probably ask Billy about that one. I mean, they never knew the guy personally, and Billy’s always been pretty casual about the ghost stories. But still, it’s their family.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I don’t want to do anything that makes them uncomfortable.

” I made a mental note to bring it up with Billy tomorrow.

“But if he’s cool with it, we could really make something special.

Maybe get one of those projection things to make it look like there’s movement in the windows? ”

“Now you’re thinking like Billy.” Lucy laughed. “Always going bigger and more elaborate.”

I grinned. “Hey, if we’re doing this, we might as well do it right. People are going to post about this on social media. We want them talking about how amazing it was, not how half-assed it looked.”

“Speaking of doing it right, have you figured out the tractor situation? Last I heard, Billy was still trying to round up enough flatbeds.”

“Actually, yeah. Mr. Peterson said we could borrow his big John Deere, and the Millers are letting us use their flatbed trailer. We’ve got hay bales to make seating, and I found some old quilts in my mom’s attic that we can use as blankets if it gets cold.”

“How many people can we fit per ride?”

“Maybe twenty? Twenty-five if we squeeze. Figure we can do runs every half hour once it gets dark.” I was already doing the math in my head. “If we charge five bucks a head, we’re going to make bank.”

She laughed. “You sound like the man we shall not name.”

“No,” I groaned. “Don’t say that.”

She grinned. “Okay. I won’t.”

“I hate you.”

“Finish that tombstone. We’re going to be working all day tomorrow. No time for mooning over unavailable men.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I sighed.

I was glad for the workload. Hopefully, it would keep me from losing my mind.