Chapter Thirty-Seven
I couldn’t believe it.
I was going to pass out.
I was in the middle of the crowd, unable to move, and my heart had completely stopped.
We had spent the day in the heart of Stephenville, enjoying their Heritage Week festivities.
The boys drove into town and dropped me off at the beginning of the parade. I needed to make sure everything was perfect with the Agri-Corp equipment that was going to be a part of it. Luckily, they looked perfect. They had done a perfect job of spit-shining the machines until they sparkled. They even had their candy ready to throw without me having to go buy more.
I caught up with the Nashesright before the parade started, and we watched the whole thing.
Dennis wrapped his arm around me when the Agri-Corp equipment drove by. The boys whooped, and Jo whistled. I’m sure they were just supporting their dad’s business, but it felt good that they were happy with how it turned out.
After the parade, we all got lunch. There was a parking lot full of food trucks, and the boys went crazy.
Seriously, I don’t know how Jo kept them all fed without breaking the bank when they all lived under her roof.
There was some live music on a little stage a few blocks down the road, so after lunch, we all walked toward it. We had twenty minutes or so before Colton had to get ready for the rodeo.
Alan, Dean, and Jimmy hadn’t qualified to make this rodeo. They had foundout late last night.
Of course, they hadn’t been competing to be a part of it, but I’m sure it was still hard on their spirits.
They were going to the show to support Colton, but after that, they were taking one of the trucks and trailers back home to their families.
Though it was devastating not to make it to the rodeo, I know Jimmy and Alan were so excited to go back to Oklahoma to see the kids. I could hear them most nights, FaceTimingfor so long they had to sit by an outlet when their phones started to die.
Colton kept his arm around me or held my hand almost all day.
Now that we had both declared our love, I think he felt a lot less nervous about showing his affection. He kissed me whenever he felt like it and didn’t want to be more than a few feet away.
I was not complaining. His presence was calming, and his excitement for Stephenville wasalmostcontagious.
The live band was actually pretty good. They had the whole shabangof instruments, including a fiddle and a steel guitar.
We were in Texas after all.
My watch buzzed, alerting me that I was getting a call. I pulled my phone out of my pocket to seeIntern Sarahcalling.
Oh crap. I looked up. “Um, I’ll be right back,” I yelled to Colton over the pumping music.
He looked down at my phone and backup to me. “Yeah, for sure!”
I wandered out of the crowd and down the street for a minute before I answered the call, wanting to be sure I would be able to hear. “Hi, Sarah!”
“Allegra! I just tried to open the file to put in the presentation, as you asked, and I don’t know what I did, but it’s glitching!” The young girl screamed. “It’s supposed to be submitted in an hour! What do I do?”
I had sent at least ten files to my team last night, wanting them to get working on putting them into the slideshow so I could be ready for the presentation.
She was right. Today was my deadline for my reports and all the pictures and videos Billy had put together over the past few weeks.
I had stayed up half the night on my laptop, staring at the words till I felt like I was going cross-eyed, but it had paid off. Everything was perfect. All that was left was for the team to put it together and submit it.
I wanted to panic, but this could be an easy fix. “Go to the cloud backup, check the raw metadata, and call Billy’s phone. Don’t tell Sterling we have a glitch. We can figure this out.” It was getting loud again as another band was setting up on the corner.
“Wait but-wh-a”
