Did she want to?
No. But at some point, she would need to start wanting to, right?
In a lull in the meeting, before she gave in to all the hypotheticals riddling away in her brain, she rose from her chair. This event was a big deal and had been drilled into the students from the very beginning that it was something they all needed to participate in. But that didn’t mean she had to stick around for more curiosity about her and Dallin.
She and Dallin. Considered long enough, it might start to gel in her brain as something of a good thing. Logically speaking. Because she couldn’t pine after a man who didn’t love her for the rest of her life. That would just be…sad.
She left the room and headed down the hall, the memory of the look on Zane’s face haunting her. Zane had seemed really bothered when Dallin showed up.
Come on.She had already decided to move on from him. One little look of longing, and now she was ready to plan the wedding?
The fact that there were no less than three different iterations of all the details of a Mabel and Zane wedding in her mind and in possibly a few random notebooks from high school—okay one from college too—was neither here nor there.
Pulling her phone out of her bag, she looked for some relief from the doldrums about Zane. Her drug of choice at the moment? TikToks of product unboxings.
Before she could even get into the TikTok app, several group texts from the KNO women came up.
Hannah:Do you guys realize that I’m getting married in one week from today to the hottest man on the planet? Squee! Here’s to hoping Mabel and Zane get their act together and show up as a couple on my big day.
Anjali:Amen to all the above. Except the hottest-man part. You know I’ll fight to the death over Parker’s title on that.
Tory:I would insist that Liam’s the hottest one—and he is—but the man impregnated me and I have heartburn so bad I might puke. Again. So I’m not going to die on that sword right now.
Tory:However, I do agree with the Mabel-and-Zane thing. Stop fighting it and let it happen, kids!
Cady:Ooooh. Hannah, I think you should try to ensure Mabel catches the bouquet. That could get things going…
Ruby:Nope. She caught the bouquet at the first wedding of all of us, Tory and Liam’s. I’m thinking that pretty much jinxed her.
Mabel shook her head and responded to the insanity:You all sound like you’re twelve years old. Do you know that? Twelve. Maybe eveneleven.
Hannah:She speaks!And she’s not denying it. Which means she’s saying there’s a chance!
Mabel shoved her phone in her back pocket. It would do no good whatsoever to keep responding to this crap. It felt like more than just harmless teasing from her oldest and best friends. Because the fact that they all of a sudden were jumping on this bandwagon was unsettling. To Mabel, it screamed of a prickliness she didn’t want to have to face.
She loved her friends dearly, but all of this felt like they were trying to somehow ease their worries a little. That maybe if they “shipped” Mabel and Zane, they wouldn’t have to feel guilty about leaving the two of them behind as they started their new lives with their own significant others.
Just no.
This smelled terribly like a charity case, and that was so not okay to Mabel.
“Can I walk with you to your car?” Dallin’s gentle nudge with his shoulder woke her from her thoughts as he caught up with her at the school’s doors.
She twisted her mouth to one side, knowing it would make her dimple pop. “I’d love that.”
There was absolutely nothing wrong with letting her dimple pop for an attractive and successful doctor.
Nothing.
Chapter 7
The thing about small-town paramedic work was that more often than not, Zane knew the person he was working on. In paramedic school, they practiced impartiality, stressing the importance of treating the victim as a human, certainly, all the while trying to forget that the guy was your mom’s second cousin.
Sometimes the practicing helped.
But when it came to the real world, it wasn’t that straightforward. He had yet to arrive on the scene of some horrific accident with someone he knew well, thank the Lord, but it was bound to happen at some point. Which was one reason he found it hard to breathe every time a call for an ambulance came in.
This day was no different, even though the call came over from Bartlett. Less than a minute after receiving the call, Zane was in the passenger seat of the ambulance with Melissa, the other paramedic, while Whitey drove like mad down the street. Because the emergency was in Bartlett, it was less likely he’d know the person, but still.
