Grump’s City Girl (Boots and Heels #2)

18. Cassie

Chapter 18

Cassie

I t was just my screwed luck that most of the mugs for morning drinks were on the highest shelf, and I was short. “Shit,” I groaned while stretching on tiptoes for one—and missed by a mile.

“Let me get that for you.” A hard chest pressed against my back, and the first thing I noticed was that it was not Beau. I would know his cologne anywhere. Rome grabbed the cup and handed it to me. “There you go.”

I took it and decided to start flirting. “Thanks. Be glad you never know what it is like to be short.”

“I agree,” he deadpanned. “It must suck.”

Smacking his arm, I said, “The polite thing to say would be something like, Nah, I’m sure it's not that bad, or maybe there are benefits to being short. ”

“There are no benefits to being short,” Rome said, nodding to the sidebars. “Are you getting coffee in that, or is drinking air a new fad I don’t know about?”

Laughing, I filled my cup while he made another tea. “Have you already had breakfast, or are you waiting for Amy?”

“Have you met Amy?” he cocked a brow. “She’s a serial procrastinator. I swear, she might be the last person at her funeral, God forbid.”

We took seats across from each other, and I did a discreet look around to see if Beau was there. He was there, in a corner, a telltale hat low on his face. Was he sleeping? Then I noticed the hand rubbing at his chest, and I wondered if that kick to his ribs had put him in worse shape than he had thought. Since Beau was sitting behind Rome, he didn’t see him.

“Never knew that,” I told him. “She always seems so chill. So tell me—” I leaned in, “—did you copy me and Beau on the last challenge? You practically lifted Amy from the tire jumps and ran with her.”

“I wouldn’t say I copied you,” Rome cocked an elbow on the table and leaned his head on it. “More like I took inspiration.”

“Is that what they’re calling it now?” I said, noticing the rest of the other contestants drifting in and the cameras already on. “Inspiration? So, if you were taking a test and I looked over your paper and took inspiration from your answers, I would totally get away with it, right?”

“Sure,” he smirked. “Just use synonyms. I’d totally cover for you.”

We were getting noticed. Ryker had just jerked his thumb over to us, mouthing “what the fuck” to Nelly, and even Quentin was giving us questioning looks. I sipped my coffee, and I nearly gagged when the liquid hit my taste buds. “Oh shit, I forgot to put cream and sugar in this. Jesus, black coffee is making my body angry with me.”

“I’ll get it,” he said. “I’ve got to make another cup myself.”

When he came back with a bowl of sugar and cream packets and a coffee himself, I asked, “Weren’t you just having tea?”

“My caffeine intake is a tedious process,” he explained. “Weak tea first, stronger tea next, and a cup of coffee to finally make the lightbulbs go on.”

“It takes more than that to get my bulbs on,” I muttered, “If you know what I mean.”

A cup shattered; the piercing sound had me jumping from my seat, and I saw Beau there, his face a fucking thunderstorm. “ Excuse me?” He growled, more to me than to Rome. “What the fuck was that?”

I faked innocence. “What are you talking about?”

“You just told him it takes more than coffee to get your gears going.” His brows lowered. “What the hell did you mean by that?”

The room was as silent as a graveyard at midnight, and every eye around was fixed on us. “Nothing like what you’re clearly thinking,” I said, matching his irritation. “He said he takes one after all that to wake, but I meant more than one for myself. Why were you eavesdropping on us at all? Our conversation is none of your business.”

“It is when you’re making innuendos with some other guy,” Beau snarled, and fuck me, I blanched. Was he acting, or… was he truly jealous? This felt real… too real.

My back got up like a wet cat. “You thought I was flirting with him?”

“You’re not ?” Beau’s heated gaze flung to Rome. “Seems like it.”

Two cameras were pointed my way, and one was fixed on him. I crossed my arms and glared back, chin notched up. “Even if I was, what is it to you, anyway? If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were jealous.” “

“That’s ridiculous.” He narrowed his eyes.

“You’re not my boyfriend. You were my boyfriend, past tense. I can damn well give innuendoes to anyone I like, and you’ve got no say in it.”

He raked his hand through his hair. “I thought… the last couple days I thought we were… fuck—” He spun around and headed to the door. “—forget it.”

“Beau!” I called out.

“Forget it.” He threw over his shoulder before disappearing around the corner.

The silence in the room pulsed like a living thing, and when I met Nelly’s eyes—her mouth hanging open—I sucked in a deep breath, rubbed my eyes, turned back to Rome, and plunked myself in the seat. “Do we have any goddamn whisky in this place? I’m going to need it.”

“Well, fuck me,” Ryker laughed, “I think you broke him, Cassie. Finally, a chink in the armor. Now, all we need to do is get you to flirt with Rome so we can kick him out.”

“Jesus, Ryker,” Nelly huffed. “You do realize that means she’s going, too, right?”

He shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind. Less competition for us all.”

I hunched over and slipped my hands into my hair while staring at the whorls of wood on the table. Rome was silent, barely sipping his coffee. “Why—why the hell did that feel…”

“Real?” Rome asked, and damn him, I heard amusement in his voice. “Because it kind of was. I think Beau is getting back those old feelings from when you two were in your relationship.”

Oh, if you only knew the truth .

“He shouldn’t,” I groaned. “He really shouldn’t.”

“Why?” Rome asked, leaning in. “Is there a new boyfriend out there, a husband perhaps with a secret family he doesn’t know about?”

“No,” I peered at him as if he’d grown two heads. “God, no. Nothing like that.”

“Then, what are you afraid of?” Rome’s brows furrowed.

Beau might not be the only one feeling these… inconvenient emotions. When exactly did I start to fall in love with him?

“Want to talk about it?” Nelly asked while setting a platter of chocolate chip cookies before me and taking another seat on the back porch.

Almost everyone was either inside or somewhere on the ranch, sucking up the last few hours of unmonitored freedom. I took a cookie. “Not really.”

“You sure about that?” Nelly asked. “Beau looked pissed earlier. Have you talked to him about it?”

“No,” I sighed. “When it's like this, it's best to let him blow off steam.”

“It’s been about—” she checked her watch “—seven hours. It's probably gone by now.”

“Hardly,” I trained my gaze toward the fields and then back to Nelly. “You don’t know him like I do.”

Do I, though? Do I know him?

“He did look pissed, though,” Nelly replied. “Like jealous pissed. Are you guys getting back together? Are you together? Is it complicated? Are you intimate?—”

“Like you and Quentin?” I cocked a brow, and she went red to her hairline.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Nelly whispered. “It was one night, and now we can barely look at each other.”

“We’re a lucky pair, aren’t we?” I said dryly. “You need to talk with Quentin, or you won’t survive here.”

“So do you and Beau,” she nodded. “I mean, as much as he is an arse, Ryker is right about that chink in the steel-plated armor. You'll be going if you guys can’t pull together in the next challenge.”

Which is what we want, but you don’t know it yet…

“We’ll figure it out, but you’re in more danger than Beau and me. We always managed to get around our fights,” I bluffed. “But if you and Quentin can’t look at each other…” I let the sentence trail off pointedly.

She dropped her eyes to the plate. “You’re right. Quentin and I don’t know each other as well as you and Beau do. I should go and talk with him. Promise me you’ll talk to Beau, too.”

“I promise,” I lied.

I didn’t sleep that night.

Instead, I tossed and turned, lingering in that hazy place between sleep and awake, alternating between dreaming about Beau and jerking awake. By the third time, I gave up on sleeping and sat up, resting my head in the corner and breathing deeply.

It was time to get this over and done with because I could not keep this up much longer. I was irritable, frustrated, confused, and horny—four things that would ultimately start impacting this game if I didn’t deal with them. And all four were because of Beau.

Even if I did give myself a chance to fall in love… it would not help. His life was here, and mine was a couple of states away, half a country away, hell, sometimes even a continent away.

I went through my morning ritual on autopilot, showered, dressed, and headed out to breakfast, unsure of what was going to happen that day. I was the last one in the breakfast room, and I pointedly ignored the stares. I had barely poured a cup of coffee before Liliana came in and called us to attention.

“The hosts will be back in five,” she said, tapping her earpiece. “Cassie, we’ll need you for a confession after they tell you what is going to happen. We should have called you in yesterday, but that was an off day.”

I sighed internally. Of course, they would want me to talk about yesterday.

Nelly came over and hugged me, then stealthily tipped whisky from a silver flask into my cup. “It’ll help.”

I laughed. I liked this girl, I really did, and promised myself to keep in contact with her after this shitshow was finished. “Thanks.”

Sutton came in first, a cell phone cocked between his ear and shoulder, talking quietly while fiddling with his onyx cufflink, looking dapper as always in shades of gray Armani. Ariana came in, clad in a pink denim dress and bumblebee clips in her hair.

“Cameras are rolling,” Liliana called out. “Three…two…— ” Sutton set his phone into his pocket. “—one!”

“Welcome, everyone,” Ariana called out. “I hope you had a good weekend. I know most of us were sad to see Sissy and Jonas go home, but the competition will go on.”

“This time, we’ve decided to borrow from a popular cooking competition show, and in the first part, you will have to choose a dish. In the second part, one of you will have to run through a mock supermarket we’ve made to grab all the ingredients, and in the third part, the person who did not pick the ingredients will have to cook that meal.”

“And no, you cannot go back and pick more ingredients,” Ariana added. “You have to work with what you get. Each pair must decide who is going to choose the meal and shop and who is going to cook.”

Beau was half across the room, leaning on the wall, legs crossed and head down, that damned Stetson hiding half his face. It felt strange when the very thing we wanted to happen was making me unhappy.

“Please,” Sutton nodded as someone wheeled in a board with five balloons pinned on it. “Those balloons have recipes under them, and your job is to take one of those darts and pop one of them. Whatever you pop is what you will have to cook.”

“Emory and Greer,” Ariana called. “You’re first.”

The two shared a look before Greer took the dart and let it fly. It hit the top right, and underneath it was an envelope with an Indian Flag sticker. She plucked it off the board and opened it. "Chicken Tikka Masala and Naan…” She flipped the card over. “And we’ve got the recipe.”

“Quentin and Nelly, you’re next.”

Quentin took the dart and popped an envelope with the Greek Flag, “Moussaka and Rizogalo.”

“Beau and Cassie,” Sutton called over, and I reluctantly went to the middle.

“Would you like to do the honors?” I asked.

He nodded and popped a balloon to the left. “Risotto Alla Milanese and Panna Cotta.”

“Which, if you cannot speak Italian like I can,” Sutton said, rocking on his heels. “It means risotto with saffron, and panna cotta means cooked cream. For the sake of the Italian gods and my tastebuds, do not screw it up. I will take offense. Rome and Alice?”

They got Mexican Caldo de Camarón and conchas, while Ryker and Danielle got Danish Millionb?f and Citronm?ne. From what I understood, the first was a meat dish, and the second was a dessert, a moon-shaped lemon pound cake.

“Whoever is doing the shopping, remember you’re either setting your partner up for success or epic failure. You’ll have five minutes in the shop and not a millisecond more, understood. Make sure you get it right; you won’t be able to return.”

“And… Cut!” Liliana called. “Cassie, please, follow me.”

I shot a look at Beau’s back before heading off and followed her to a room with a chair and a camera. After a quick change of clothes, I sat.

“In this room, you’re free to talk about your innermost thoughts, secrets, ideas, worries, whatever you feel free to share, but this time, we’re asking you about your thoughts on the blow-up between Beau and yourself and Rome got caught in the middle,” she said. “Focus on that, please.”

Taking a breath, I leaned forward. “Sometimes I don’t know where I stand with Beau. Most days, we’re fine, and we’re amicable, but on some days, like this one, I feel like he doesn’t understand what it means to be broken up. I would catch him staring at me or hear these Freudian slips from him when he calls me baby or sweetheart.

“He honestly went off the rails earlier, twisting a simple comment into something it truly wasn’t,” I added. “I mean, so what if I was harmlessly flirting with Rome? It was just that, harmless. Beau… I knew he had his jealous streaks, but this was out of the norm. I can—I guess he’s getting those old emotions back, and I-I don’t know what to do with them.”

Liliana looked to the cameraman, who nodded, and then she turned to me. “That should do it. Good luck with your next challenge.”

“Thanks.” I stood. “I think I’m going to need it.”