Four sets of eyes stared back at her without blinking.
“Because that’s why my sister thinks she’s coming.” McKenna swallowed. “To see me and spend time getting to know Nate. You know, since he’s my quote, unquote, boyfriend.” She lifted her fingers in quotations in case they were visual learners.
They all stared back, unblinking.
“Obviously he’snotmy quote, unquote, boyfriend.” Or was he? Now McKenna was confusing herself. If Nate wasn’t her quote, unquote, boyfriend, did that make Nate herrealboyfriend? Afterthis weekend, especially all the kissing they did next to the waterfall, it felt like Nate should be her real boyfriend.
But until they heard Bobbi say yes to the proposal, wouldn’t it be wiser to keep things at the quote, unquote level?
Hmm... She’d have to hash this out later with the goats.
For now, McKenna straightened in her chair. “So anyway, Bobbi’s arriving on Friday. You probably won’t meet her because you’ll be busy showing Harry around the area. Then Saturday we’ll all be busy making sure everything’s ready for the concert. I still need to figure out the logistics for Oliver, but I’ll worry about that later. For now just remember to pretend that Nate is my quote, unquote, boyfriend once my sister gets here later this week.”
McKenna took a breath, then said, “Is anybody going to blink?”
She shouldn’t have said anything. They all started blinking and talking at once. “I knew you two were in love,” said Georgie.
“Oh, I’m so happy,” said Barb.
“Does Nate’s mom know? I feel like she should know,” said Evie.
“Will there be lots of quote, unquote, kissing?” said Gus.
“Maybe we’ll see a double proposal at the concert,” said Georgie.
“Oh, now I’m even more happy,” said Barb.
“His mom definitely needs to know,” said Evie.
McKenna tipped her head back and closed her eyes. Yep. Definitely should’ve talked to Nate first.
“Why are you making me carry a folding table out to the lawn when you heard me swear less than ten minutes ago that I never wanted to carry another folding table anywhere for any reason, especially a reason that has direct ties to Georgie?”
For two days—two days—Nate had hunted down and hauled around folding tables. Not just any folding tables. Specific folding tables. The type of folding tables that would be worthy of Harry Connick Junior. The type of folding tables that would blow Lottie’s folding tables from the Dominoes Dance out of the water. The type of folding tables that looked like every other folding table Nate had ever come across but required spanning a two-hundred-mile radius to locate.
Didn’t Georgie understand a man had better things to do with his time—and his lips—than track down folding tables?
Now here it was Wednesday afternoon, and Nate was having to sit through some silly audition in ninety-plus-degree heat when he should be tucked away somewhere cool with McKenna sitting on his lap.
“Aw, c’mon. Don’t be grumpy. These auditions should be fun.” Every step McKenna took, another curl sprang out of her messy bun. He should be the one springing the curls out of her bun.
Okay, maybe the heat was getting to him. He didn’t even understand half his own thoughts anymore. All he knew was he needed more McKenna. And more sleep. But mostly more McKenna.
“Remember to lift with your legs, not with your back,” McKenna said, letting her end of the table drag across the grass as they made their way to the giant walnut tree in the center of the front yard.
“Maybe you should focus on lifting with anything at all.”
“Man, you really are in a bad mood today, aren’t you?”
“I am. Sorry.” Nate flipped the table onto its side once they made it into the shade of the tree. “Sorry,” he said again, kicking out the legs of the table and flipping it upright. “I just hate that I haven’t been able to spend any time with you this week. I mean, I knew things were going to get over the top, but—” He motioned to the line of vehicles starting to pull into the driveway—“I clearly underestimated the level ofGeorgie-nesshappening this week.”
“Once the auditions are over, we can hang out the rest of the day.”
He liked the sound of that. Except... Nate massaged the headache building between his eyebrows. “Hopefully this doesn’t turn into a migraine.”
“Go rest. I can handle the auditions.” McKenna’s hand rubbed his back. Hopefully she didn’t mind a little sweat. Or a lot of sweat. Because that was another thing. Georgie had been running him so ragged, he hadn’t even had time to clean up before she was barking the next set of orders at him.
If he weren’t doing this all for McKenna, he probably would’ve told Georgie where to stick her folding tables by now. But for McKenna...
