This time, Magnolia looks at me with questioning eyes.
“She’ll be there,” I tell him. “We have some business to take care of while we’re here, and I don’t have to be back until Monday.”
“Great. I love free labor.”
He stands and walks away, pausing to mess up Bliss’s hair as he walks by.
“Are he and Bliss together, or are they cousins?” she asks as she watches them poke at each other. Bliss delivers a quick elbow to Zane’s side.
I glance at the two, realizing they do look alike—dark hair, similar smiles.
“No. They’re not related, and, no, they’re not dating. I’m not quite sure what there is there. Friends-in-a-small-town kind of thing. I doubt anything is going on romantically.Bliss is probably too smart to get involved with him. Besides, I’m pretty sure Zane is about ten years older than her.”
Magnolia looks between Zane and Bliss with amusement. “That’s never stopped lots of people.”
I shrug. “Luckily, I don’t have to worry about it. Zane’s love life is none of my business.”
“Seems like you were happy to interfere with it when he was talking to me.”
“That was only because he was flirting with you.”
“So, what if he flirts with me? It’s not like we’re actually engaged,” she fires back.
“I don’t like it,” I say.
She looks at me in disbelief. “You don’t like it?”
That was a pretty weak reason, even to my own ears, but it’s the truth. I didn’t want to watch someone else flirt with Magnolia. I want to be the only one to do that.
“What is this, Nash? Do you want me to leave? You were upset when I stayed, but now you don’t want to see another man flirt with me. What even are we?” she presses.
And I don’t even have a good answer, because what I want us to be isn’t possible right now. My time is so consumed with managing things for Grandpa, and the whole family is trying their best to interrupt his recovering it seems like. How can I give Magnolia the time and attention that she deserves?
“I don’t know,” I reply honestly. “I don’t know.”
“Well, you’d better figure it out,” Magnolia whispers harshly, “because I’m getting tired of this back-and-forth.”
I didn’t even think she’d been aware of the back-and-forth. I thought it was all in my head, but if she’s feeling the tug and pull, then my feelings are obvious.
“What do you want me to say, Magnolia?” I ask quietly. “I asked a woman to marry me after three months of dating her, and when she believed that I wasn’t going to inherit anything from my grandfather, she left me. How am I supposed to trust my judgment again?”
The anger leaks from her face.
“I have nothing to offer you right now except family drama.”
“I’m not asking you to give me anything. I just want to know if I’m imagining this all myself,” she says, which is what I’ve been thinking.
Now is the time I should agree. That she’s imagined this attraction. That she’s imagined my jealousy. That she’s imagined my protectiveness.
But I can’t lie to her.
“I wish there could be something between us,” I say. “But life circumstances are in the way right now.”
“I don’t understand why.”
“Because I like you, Magnolia, and right now, I feel like I’d be second-guessing myself all the time, and you would bear the brunt of that distress. You would be the one to suffer for my mistakes in the past, and that’s not fair.”
“Do you want to know what I think?” she asks.
