Chapter 15 #2
“Too late for explanations, Goodman,” Knox said sadly, but his eyes, which were almost as nice as Webb’s, danced. “I feel… rejected. And we Sundays are such delicate, sensitive creatures—”
Webb hooted in amusement, and I hid my grin in his biceps. Aiden was still perfecting the knot, and I had to admit to not minding being roped together for a minute.
“—that now I might just have to wait for you to ask me.” He pressed a smiling kiss to Gage’s lips, stole the remaining brownie from his hand, and sauntered off toward the house.
“Maybe I will!” Gage yelled after him. “Maybe I just will! And it’s going to be so epic, you won’t be able to say no! And then I’m gonna husband you so hard. And it’ll be all your fault.”
“Looking forward to it,” Knox called over his shoulder without turning.
Gage huffed out a breath but couldn’t stop the brilliant smile that spread over his face as he watched his man walk away. “See that, Aiden?” he demanded before walking off in the opposite direction. “That is ten out of ten boyfriending right there.”
I had to agree. And I barely stifled a longing sigh. What Webb and I had was so close to that. Except what they had was real, and I hadn’t gotten any signals from Webb so far that he was interested in anything more than temporary.
“Still no sign of your mom, huh, bud?” Webb asked when it was just the three of us.
I knew he was trying to say the words easily, like Amanda’s tardiness wasn’t ticking him off, but I could hear the annoyance simmering just below the surface.
Apparently, Aiden could, too, because he swallowed hard.
“No. Not yet. But she didn’t forget, Dad,” he said firmly.
“Tonight’s not just Scouts, it’s the campout.
I’m gonna get my rope-tying badge… I think.
” He made a frustrated noise as he untied the rope around our wrists and started over.
“And Mom was really excited. She said so. She said she never went tent camping before, and she was buying a new sleeping bag and everything. She’s coming. ”
I nodded firmly. “She probably just forgot to come early. No big.”
“No big,” Aiden agreed gratefully.
I felt Webb’s body tense against mine.
Over the past three weeks, Amanda had been late for spelling bee practice pickup once because she’d had to stay late at work, and she’d missed a hockey practice due to an issue with her car.
I knew this because Webb had made no secret of his unhappiness both times. He worried that she wasn’t taking the judge’s warnings seriously and that it was a precursor to more seriously flaky or endangering behavior down the line.
I wasn’t sure I agreed.
When Amanda had come to pick Aiden up after practice, her pretty face had been flushed and anxious. She’d gotten a job as an office manager for a Realtor in Keltyville, she’d said, and her boss had needed her to finish a project before she left. She’d apologized profusely.
If I had a nickel for every time a parent had told me a similar story over the years, I’d have been directing my home repairs from my private Caribbean island.
Heck, even Drew Sunday had been late for pickup once.
And it was a sad truth that sometimes bad luck hit just when you were trying to make a good impression.
When I’d tried to bring that up to Webb, though, he’d told me I didn’t know Amanda. I didn’t know their situation. And he was right.
I’d wanted to point out that I’d love for him to share that story… but I wasn’t sure how much to push. For all that he talked about letting Hollowans help you, he wasn’t too great at practicing what he preached. And we weren’t actually boyfriends, even if sometimes it felt like—
“Oh, yeah! Turn that speaker up, Murray!” Knox yelled out of a third-floor window.
I blinked… and then chuckled as I recognized the sound of “Sweet Caroline” filling the air.
“Webb, you just feel free to serenade your boyfriend, brother!” Knox continued challengingly. “Give him a twirl for us, too, why don’t you? Show Luke your dance moves. Give the people what they want.”
“Heck yeah! We came for the show!” Helena Fortnum said with a wink, looking up from a bite of pasta salad.
Even Katey Valcourt, the least likely Webb-and-Luke fan on the planet, cupped her hand around her mouth and yelled, “Sing it!”
Webb directed a narrow-eyed glare toward the attic, but when he looked back at me, his mouth twitched into a smile. “Shall we?”
“What?” I frowned. “Shall we what? N-no. You’re not gonna—”
Oh, God, but then he did.
And, holy mother of monkeys, there were many, many things Webb did well, but singing was not one.
“Stop,” I laughed, trying to cover his mouth with my free hand. “Oh God, hush. You’re scarring your son. Aiden, cover your ears. What are you doing with your hips. Oh my stars. Webb!”
Webb pulled my hand away from his face and sang even louder, until Aiden nearly collapsed with giggles.
“Pardon us for a second, bud. I feel like Luke is questioning my dance skills.” Webb tugged me away from Aiden, then pulled me into a kind of rhythmless shuffle right there on the gravel driveway, where the primary “moves” seemed to be shaking his shoulders up and down like he was getting ready for a boxing match and then spinning us in a circle.
I was dizzy and breathless with laughter while the whole town cheered.
Yeah, there were definitely moments when this relationship felt real.
In fact, I was having a hard time reminding myself that it wasn’t.
“You showed him, Webb!” Marco called.
Chrissy Duarte wolf whistled.
Sheriff Carver yelled, “That dance has got to be a safety violation of some kind, Sunday! Pretty sure you just struck me blind.”
“This is Genevieve York-Muller with Hand-Fast Watch, at the scene of a historic scroll-checking event!”
Webb and I rocked to a stop and stared at each other with wide eyes for a second. “Webb?”
“Yeah, babe.”
“Please tell me that Genevieve’s cameraman didn’t just take a video of us dancing.”
“Do you want me to lie?”
I whimpered.
“Just a little to the right, please, Mr. Williams!” Genevieve said crisply. “Oh, this is so perfect. And just lift the hands a little so we can see the rope.”
“The…” I straightened and stared down at my wrist, where Aiden’s loosely tied constrictor knots bound my hand to Webb’s.
Oh, mother trucker.
“Good Lord, people! Wait for me!” Ernie York slammed his car door and ran over, tightening his tie, with the Scroll of Doom tucked under his arm.
“We ready, Gen? Got the house in the background? My hair okay? Okay. Ahem. Whereas Thomas Webb Sunday and Luke Guilford Williams were reported to have been repairing this very domicile for future co-habitation, I, Ernest York, as the mayor of Little Pippin Hollow, hereby declare Part the Third—” He unrolled the scroll.
“Uncle Ernie,” Genevieve whisper-hissed. “Their hands. They’re bound by rope.”
The mayor gasped. “And Part the Eleventh!”
“That is not how it happened,” I argued. “It was a project for Nature Scouts. Aiden? Tell them.”
But when I turned to find Aiden, he’d scampered away.
“They drank sweet water, too!” Ralph announced excitedly.
All heads—which was to say literally every head on the property—swung in his direction.
“Right, Luke? You and Webb both drank Drew’s cider out of the same bottle. Cider brewed with water from the Pippin Well. Says so right on the label,” he said triumphantly. “We’ll count it, won’t we, Ernie?”
“But that’s—” I began, unsure how to finish.
It was sweet. That was what it was.
Ralph clearly thought he was helping us get our tasks completed. Every one of these meddlers—except maybe Genevieve—did. They were enthusiastic the way guests at a wedding were enthusiastic, trying to make the experience as wonderful as possible for the happy couple.
I couldn’t bring myself to disappoint them.
Webb squeezed my hand tightly, like maybe he was feeling some of the same things. “I would rather them show a shot of us smiling than a video of me singing.”
“True.”