Broken Trouble (Broken Storm Series Book 1)

Chapter 21

I stood at Starre's front door the next morning, holding two bags of clothing I would need for the rodeo and dance. I shifted one bag to my other hand and knocked on the door. I had no idea what to expect today. Starre had told me we would hang out for an hour or two before the rodeo, then afterwards, come back to her house to change clothes for the dance. According to Starre, we couldn't wear our dresses to the rodeo all day and expect to still look mind blowing for the guys this evening.

I knew that, with the exception of Gavin, they had all mentioned wanting to dance with me this evening, and I hoped it wouldn't cause any fights amongst them. I wasn't a very good dancer, so I hoped they wouldn't start off the dance with a lot of fancy maneuvers or line dancing. Dancing at parties in the city was a lot different than dancing with country people, it was a completely different style, dance, and rhythm. Dancing with Dylan had been easy and comfortable, probably because it had been a slow dance. Though if they started doing some kind of swing dancing or something, then I knew I was going to end up embarrassing myself.

Starre opened the door, still in her pajamas as she waved me inside with one hand while rubbing the sleep from her eyes with the other.

"Did I wake you up?" I asked, wishing I hadn't came so early, another hour or so and she might have actually been awake.

"No, I just didn't get much sleep last night. I stayed up until after one just thinking about Trevor. He's been acting even weirder the last few days." She dropped her hand from her eyes, looking slightly defeated. She obviously needed to be cheered up, though I wasn't sure how I could do that. I wasn't used to cheering people up, I hadn't been friends with many people and certainly hadn't been close enough to them to care about their problems. Caring always seemed to lead to more harm than good.

Regardless of my past experience, ever since I had moved to the ranch, caring had the opposite effect for me. It was like I had been sucked into an alternate reality on the ranch and no longer had the same bad luck I always had following me around like a dark cloud of doom.

"We can watch Tangled first, because we'll only have time to watch one movie before we have to start getting ready," Starre said, heading into the kitchen to pop some popcorn.

I followed her, getting two cups out of the cupboard and filled them with ice, then surveyed the kitchen for something to drink, finding a liter of root beer in the fridge.

"Won't that just remind you more of Trevor?" I asked. If her and Trevor were having problems, the last thing I wanted her to do was watch a movie that would remind her of how romantic he had been before. Maybe I should ask one of the guys later about him and see if they knew what was going on. They seemed to be close to one another, so if anyone would know, it would be them.

"It will, but Flynn is fictional, which makes him so much better than real guys. Flynn isn't going to ignore me and become all distant for no good reason. Plus, you're going to love Maximus!" Starre insisted, not acting worried at all.

I nodded, but didn't completely agree with her. Knowing Starre, she was going to watch the movie regardless of what I thought. If she started crying during the movie, then I would just turn it off and distract her somehow. Maybe I would play her some music, some of the songs I listen to, I put on repeat whenever I'm having a hard time controlling my emotions. I just listen to the song and let my inner anger rage on throughout the song. Surprisingly, I hadn't listened to those songs near as often as I normally did before coming to the ranch.

We sat down on the couch with the bowl of popcorn between us, sipping on Root Beer as we watched Tangled.

The second Maximus came onto the screen, I was in love with him. His protectiveness and playfulness reminded me a lot of Storm, who I had only gotten to see for just a few minutes this morning, before being leaving to come to Starre's house. Trevor had been there early to help the guys, and immediately after he showed up, it was like everyone couldn't wait for me to leave.