McKenna cleared her throat. “Truth is I’m not sure what will happen between us, but I think it’d be nice if you got to meet him again. Preferably when people aren’t falling off bridges and screaming at each other.”
Okay, that was the truth, wasn’t it? Mostly? For now?
“He’s become really important to you, hasn’t he?” said Bobbi after a lengthy pause. “I can tell by your voice.”
McKenna didn’t even know what to say to that. Because somehow these past few weeks he had become really important to her. What she struggled to believe was that she’d somehow become really important to him. “So will you do it? Will you visit?”
Bobbi sighed. “Of course I will. If only so I can drag you onto a plane back to Nebraska. I don’t care how wonderful Nate is, I’m not letting you stay in Tennessee.”
Fair enough. Especially since McKenna didn’t want to stay in Tennessee either. But instead of dreaming about sunny LA, McKenna found herself thinking about the possibility of a different future. On the other side of the country. In a little place called Buffalo, New York.
So much for reining it all in.
Morning sunlight flooded Nate’s bedroom as he stared at the notebook lying next to him on the bed. The one he’d fallen asleep writing in last night. A notebook no longer empty and blank. A notebook now boasting lots of blue ink. Line after line, page after page. Everything everywhere humming the words to one single tune.
McKenna.
Free verse. Haiku. Sonnet. Right now he was in the middle of an acrostic poem using the first letter of each line to spell out her name, so lost in thought about how to start another line with the letternthat it took him a minute to realize someone was shouting. And getting closer. And growing very winded.
“Nate...Nate!”
Georgie? Nate hid the notebook beneath his pillow, then stepped over to the window. It was Georgie. But what on earth was she doing? Running? He’d never seen her run like that before. He’d never seen anyone run like that before except maybe Woody fromToy Story.
Georgie, wearing lime-colored pants and an even brighter top, continued flailing her arms and arching her spine in the type of running stride that contained all sorts of motion, very little progress. “Nate!”
He lifted the window. “I’m coming right down.”
Nate hustled down the stairs. If McKenna had been running and screaming, he’d just assume another fox got to the chickens. He couldn’t even begin to guess what had Georgie huffing and puffing like a neon-green locomotive.
“What happened?” Nate met her at the top of the driveway.
Georgie held up a finger, then propped both hands on her hips as she blew in and out with pursed lips. “Need a second.”
One second turned into a minute while she braced her hands on her knees, saying things like, “Oh my goodness, oh my goodness,” and “Never realized that driveway was so long.”
After another minute, once she’d caught a little bit of her breath, she straightened and waved an arm behind her. “Barb missed the turn for the driveway and there was a truck behind us... so when she stopped, so did he... then he was blocking your driveway... and instead of going around us like we were waving at him to do... he just sat there... so we just sat there... That’s when I climbed out and started running... because I couldn’t wait any longer to tell you the news. Oh my goodness.”
She dropped her hands back to her knees. “I haven’t run like that since the Black Friday I raced Geraldine to get the last Tickle Me Elmo in Walmart.”
“What news?” Nate had to wait another minute and a half before she had enough air to tell him.
“Harry’s coming on Thursday.”
“I thought the concert was on Saturday.”
“It is on Saturday. But apparently at some point I told him our town had so much charm that he’d need a day or two just to soak it all in.”
“So he’s coming two days early to soak in Bugle’s charm?”
“Well, his coming early might also have a little to do with the fact that I’ve never thrown out my calendars, so I originally gave him the date for two years ago which I thought was this year’s date because I thought I was looking at the calendar for this year, but turns out itwas the two years ago calendar, so now he’s coming on the date for that year this year and staying a few days for our charm even though this year isn’t that year.”
Nate liked it better when she was out of breath. “Are you sure you know when Harry is coming?”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m incompetent. Harry is coming on Saturday.”
“I thought you just said Thursday.”
She batted a hand. “That’s what I meant. Thursday.”
