Yes, she is.
9
Sloane
The best-worst thingabout working in the local family practitioner’s office as his lead nurse is that my hours are consistent in the nine-to-five sense, but also sometimes topsy-turvy within the day itself.
Like today.
And unlike yesterday, today’s problem isn’t just that every patient I see wants to talk about my surprise secret boyfriend and our wedding. Today, I work through my lunch because of three last-minute appointments—strep throat, a stomach bug, and a late-season poison ivy rash—and only manage to get out for a bite to eat because Doc orders me to.
Not that I’m interested in eating.
Even if I do head straight to Crow’s Nest, Shipwreck’s bakery.
Grady, Tillie Jean and Cooper’s older brother, owns it. And I need to talk to his wife.
Again.
This time not about wedding plans.
I’ve already texted Annika, who’s six months pregnant with their second baby, and she’s promised to meet me here.
But the look I get from the dark-haired, green-eyed baker when I burst into the shop, making the door bells jingle wildly, tells me I’m not playing these new developments in my life as chill as I like to think I am.
The L-shaped bakery cases are nearly empty, with only a few pastries and muffins and cookies remaining. No one else is sitting in the booths lining one wall or the café tables scattered around the space either.
“How’s the bride of the week today?” he asks me.
I slow my pace and smile at him. “Hey, Grady. Any sandwiches left?”
“You’re carrying a lunch bag.”
Oh.
Right.
I amdefinitelynot as collected as I’d like to be. “I felt like a bear claw but didn’t want to admit it, so I had a brain fart and asked for a sandwich when I meant I want sugary goodness.”
“Sorry, Sloane. All sold out for today.”
I make an effort to pull a face. “The universe is saving me from myself.”
“Is this a fitting into a wedding dress thing?”
I grimace harder, then try to smile. All of the questions about my secret romance with Davis and our super-fast wedding ceremony are making my head hurt.
Does Grady know it’s fake? Tillie Jean knows it’s fake. Annika was in on the fake boyfriend part, so while she hasn’t said as much, I’m pretty sure she knows the wedding is fake too.
So Grady must know.
They don’t keep secrets.
Or would she tell him it’s real because both of them run their own businesses and they have a toddler of their own and baby brain is a thing?
But I haven’t expressly told Annika it’s fake.
Not that I won’t tell her eventually, but I haven’t yet since the fewer people who know it’s fake, the better.
